Beyond Bars 2: Improving Rehabilitation In Prisons

Community Union has published its second Beyond Bars report, this time focusing on Britain’s failure to deliver consistent rehabilitation in UK prisons.

To understand the complexity of the issues facing our prisons, we conducted research alongside policy and research consultancy PF Global and public services company Serco, which runs several adult prisons in the UK.

The findings show that persistent overcrowding, reduced funding for education in prisons, and increased pressure on the workforce, all contribute to a weakened rehabilitation culture.

On top of this, interviewees  told us that short custodial sentences were a significant barrier to effective rehabilitation as they provide enormous disruption to a person’s life without enough time for prisons to deliver plans aimed at behaviour reform and societal reintegration.

Beyond Bars: Improving Rehabilitation In Prisons makes the case for long-term reforms and asks the Government to adopt the 10 recommendations we believe will make a difference to prison rehabilitation in the UK.

The recommendations are as follows:

1. Tackle overcrowding as an immediate priority, sustaining the presumption against short sentences and expanding community sentences and electronic tagging.
2. Publish standardised time out of cell data for every prison in England and Wales, so that compliance with the statutory minimum of two hours out of cell can be seen and addressed.
3. As the system stabilises, explore a statutory duty on minimum rehabilitative entitlements within individual sentence plans, giving those plans legal weight.
4. Give prison governors a level of autonomy and accountability over recruitment, commissioning, and regime design, comparable to that already afforded to directors of private prisons.
5. Deliver a national workforce strategy for the prison workforce, covering national minimum training standards, the reintroduction of the prison officer apprenticeship and clinical supervision for governors.
6. Reverse the cuts to prison education and restore teaching and learning hours.
7. Strengthen substance misuse provision in prison and in the community, including a new national standard framework for incentivised substance-free living wings in every prison.
8. Learn from what already works across the estate, from therapeutic communities and PIPE units to vocational training with external employers, with governors given an explicit mandate and budget to build local employer and community partnerships.
9. Improve end-to-end data collection and public reporting on rehabilitation outcomes.
10. Reinforce rehabilitation in the community, with prison-to-community pathways offering continuity of personnel and programmes, support into employment and with the basics of housing, welfare and healthcare.

Our research, which includes a mix of interviews and surveys, shows that 1 in 2 members of the public believe that existing approaches to rehabilitation are performing badly.

Investment in rehabilitation is often perceived to be a controversial way to spend public money as policymakers assume the public view it as a “soft” alternative to punishment.

Our research has found this is not the case and that the public is more supportive of rehabilitation than political debate might assume.

When rehabilitation is framed as prisoners taking responsibility for their actions, their is supports from all side of the political spectrum.

Across the electorate, 85% agree that a prison sentence should serve as both a punishment and a means of rehabilitation.

The public also agree that prison officers are some of the most undervalued workers in society, with 55% of the public believing prison officers are not sufficiently valued by society, a view shared by 56% of Reform UK voters and 62% of Green voters.

Prison staff are essential to effective rehabilitation but the current model relies on staff having time, confidence, skills and trust to co-ordinate rehabilitation plans. Recruitment and retention is a persistent problem, as is the overcrowding crisis and this reality means prison staff are often too underpaid, undertrained and overwhelmed with work to deliver on any plans.

An improved rehabilitation system will benefit both prisoners, prison staff and the public. Political leaders must find the political courage to talk about and make the big decisions required to reform our long-struggling prison system, break the cycle of crises and deliver a rehabilitation system that prisoners, prison staff and the wider public deserve and expect.

Community’s National Secretary for Justice & Custodial, Gavin Miller, said:

“It is an unfortunate reality that justice sector staff continue to work under unacceptable conditions that contribute to high levels of staff turnover.

“Staff shortages undermine the development of a rehabilitative culture, and this means if we are to strengthen rehabilitation, we must first solve issues of overcrowding, staff retention and rising violence.

“This can only be achieved through a root and stem overhaul of the system. Our research with Serco, and subsequent recommendations, set out a clear pathway to reform that prioritises tackling the overcrowding crisis, restoring autonomy to prison governors and reversing cuts to prison education.”