Prisons reflect society back to itself: they embody the ways we have failed, the people we have failed, and the policies that have failed, all at immense human – and economic – cost.
We haven't failed the people in prison; they've mostly failed themselves.
As chief executive of the prison reform charity the Howard League for the past 35 years, reforming prisons has become my life’s mission. In October, I will leave my work with one sad but inescapable conclusion: prisons are the last unreformed public service, stuck in the same cycle of misery and futility as when I arrived.
So you've wasted your life just as surely as those behind bars? How fitting, karma's working overtime here...
Minister after minister has done nothing to address the central question haunting our prison system: what is it all for?
It's to punish the guilty and keep the innocent safe from their depredations. What else could it be for?
At the heart of prisons is the fact that they are fundamentally unjust. They embed and compound social, economic and health inequalities.
Ah, yes. If someone commits crime, it's never because they are greedy or bad - it's because they were 'driven to it' by factors outside their control.
What would your solution be, then Frances, were someone ever stupid enough to grant you any real power?
The whole system needs radical overhaul, starting with a swingeing reduction in the number of people we imprison. Custody is the most drastic and severe response the state has at its disposal and should only be used in exceptional and rare instances – either for the most egregious crimes, or when someone poses a serious and continuing threat to public safety. Abiding by that principle would virtually empty our prisons of women and children, and drastically reduce the number of men behind bars.
And drastically increase the crime rate. Brilliant plan!
Over the past 35 years, I hope that I have contributed to making things just a bit better. I am most proud of the work we have done with police forces to reduce the arrests of young people, saving hundreds of thousands of children from experiencing the trauma and lifelong damage of being arrested.
Young people like these, you mean? You sicken me more than they do,
The leader of the Howard League. Crook by name crook fellator by nature.
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