Exclusive - Director General of Prison Service, Phil Wheatley's speech to the General Synod.

It gives me great honour to be able to publish, in full, to a wider audience, the following speech, given to a selective audience today.

ADDRESS TO THE GENERAL SYNOD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
1 MARCH 2007

I thought the most useful contribution I could make to your debate was to:

give you some information about the make-up of the prison population;

explain what levels of overcrowding we are experiencing as we run the Prison Service near to maximum capacity and to comment on the effects of overcrowding and population pressure;

give a prison manager's perspective on the balance between punishment and rehabilitation while maintaining order and security and ensuring prison is a survivable experience.

Prison Population

I should make absolutely clear that I am not an expert on sentencing. I avoid public comment on the sentencing debate. Nearly three-quarters of the total of 66,000 sentenced prisoners are sentenced for offences of burglary, robbery, violence, sexual crime and drug offences (drug dealing rather than simple possession). 11% (8,800) are serving indeterminate sentences; just over 33% (26,000) have got determinate sentences of 4 years or over; and about 28% (22,500) are serving between 12 months and less than 4 years. 10% (7,900) are serving less than 12 months.

The 10% who are who are serving less than a year break down into 4 large offence groups - theft and handling (most commonly for shoplifting), violence against the person (most commonly actual bodily harm), a group of offences, including breaches of ASBO, affray, absconding from bail, provocation of violence and criminal damage, and finally a slightly smaller group for motoring offences (most commonly for driving whilst disqualified). The majority in all these groups are heavily convicted with more than 10 previous convictions. Less than 10% have less than 3 pre‑convictions.

I should draw Synod's attention to the increase in the number of indeterminate sentenced prisoners which is already much higher than any other European jurisdiction, and increasing at over 1,500 per year.

The rest of the prison population is made up of about 10% (8,200) awaiting trial and 6% (4,600) who are convicted and unsentenced.

In short, therefore, in the prison population of just under 80,000 prisoners, the vast majority of offenders are convicted and sentenced, more likely to be serving long sentences for very serious offences with only a minority sentenced for what might, at first sight, appear to be less serious offences and, in those cases, courts are only likely to have used custody if the offences are persistent.

The rate of overcrowding is the number of prisoners who are being required to share cells which were designed to hold a smaller number of people. Currently, approximately 24% of the population are held in these conditions. The number who are sharing is much higher because larger cells are certified to hold more than one prisoner without being overcrowded. Overall, about 40% of the population can expect to share a cell with another prisoner. Overcrowded conditions which amount to 2 people sharing a toilet are far from ideal. Prisoners do not get to select their companions and being locked up for two-thirds of every 24 hours in such enforced closeness to someone else is, for many prisoners, disturbing. Some prisoners, however, facing long periods of lock up, would prefer to share. The vast majority of cells now have, not only integral sanitation and a wash basin, but also in‑cell electricity and, for prisoners who are conforming and choose to pay a £1 a week, access to in‑cell TV and often a small kettle. It is still far from the lap of luxury.

Each prison has been assessed to ensure that the level of overcrowding in that prison does not exceed the level at which we can hold prisoners in a decent and humane fashion. The levels set by my Area Managers are the maximum capacity and we are not prepared to breach that capacity. In this way, we ensure that we do not go beyond the bounds of what is decent and lawful.

The problem for prisoners is not simply overcrowding, which is uncomfortable, but is the resulting restriction on regime caused by the increasing pressure of numbers. For example, with a limited number of education places; if the prison is absolutely full for each prisoner there is less chance of being allocated to education.

In order to use all the accommodation available, we have to move prisoners long distances. The prison estate has not been developed over the last 100 years in a way which best matches the needs and locations from which the current population comes. Frankly there are very few prisoners received directly from the area around Dartmoor and a similarly small number from the Isle of Sheppey or from Cumbria around Haverigg. Although we try to ensure that moves are not unnecessarily disruptive, keeping everywhere full involves short notice moves which do not always take account of the needs of prisoners. Though we try to ensure that they do not disrupt training courses and offending behaviour work. Such moves are most likely to affect short sentenced prisoners who, because of the pressure on the system, have the least access to interventions designed to reduce re‑offending.

Purposes of Prison

Turning from overcrowding to the purposes of imprisonment.

Prisons have a number of different and sometimes conflicting functions.

Punishment

Sir Alexander Patterson, one of my predecessors, said that punishment was the deprivation of liberty and that the prisons purpose was not to punish further. I think that approach obscures the complexity. Reducing the argument to absurdity would suggest that putting fence around a 5 star hotel and confining people to its luxurious facilities for the period of their sentence would be acceptable as a punishment. I do not think it would be. It would excite public outrage and derision. There is no doubt that the deprivation of liberty inherent in being confined is a substantial punishment but prisons are expected to provide facilities which are less generous than most members of society enjoy. Michael Howard, when Home Secretary, used the word "austere" to describe the imprisonment that he wished to create. Actually, austere describes rather well the conditions of imprisonment because under-pinning many decisions on prison administration has been a political judgement that prisoners should be seen to be comparatively deprived when compared with the rest of the population.

Punishment is therefore a legitimate part of our work and prisoners are sent to prison as a punishment and their conditions have to be seen by society as amounting to a punishment. Confinement within a perimeter, restricted contact with loved ones, adherence to a regular, but spartan regime, with no opportunity to use personal economic wealth to mitigate those austerities amount to a punishment.

It is a question of getting the balance right. Too austere a regime with too much emphasis on deprivation and punishment carries risk. The first Victorian prison in the new style, the model prison of Pentonville, which had a regime based on separation and religious contemplation with very little freedom of movement or social contact for prisoners produced, even for the Victorians, an unacceptable rate of mental breakdown. A regime that concentrated solely on punishment would be regarded by many of us as morally unacceptable and, on a purely practical note, is likely to embitter those subject to it and increase the risk of return to crime.

Rehabilitation

From the late 18th Century onwards, when imprisonment began to be used as the primary punishment, there was a belief that prisoners could be reformed or rehabilitated. The methods that have been used have varied. Early reformers believed in the power of discipline, order and religion. The Victorians added a practical emphasis on education and learning a trade. In the last century the borstal system was based on the public school with a house system, hard work, outward bound activities, team games and religion. In the post-war period, we recreated Army discipline with the introduction of detention centres. In the 1960s we moved towards group work and therapy. In the late 1970s, as a result of the increasing volume of research indicating treatment was unsuccessful, the pendulum swung towards humane containment. Only in the late 1980s, when large studies enabled criminologists for the first time to measure the small but positive effects of some interventions, did a belief in rehabilitation return.

That people do change their behaviour after being in prison is obviously true. Of those who come to prison, 34% do not re‑offend within 2 years of their release. The question is whether we can increase the proportion of prisoners who do not re‑offend. Measuring the results of our efforts in prison is not easy and requires at least a 2 year follow-up to get a robust result. The latest information, which draws on data from all the offenders who are released in the first quarter of each calendar year from 2000 up to 2003 is now suggesting positive results. The research examines the rate at which offenders are predicted to re‑offend and then compares the difference between that and the actual re‑conviction rate. The results since 2000 indicate that, for short term imprisonment (less than 12 months) the results have been slightly worse than the prediction. Short term imprisonment appears to make prisoners just over 1% more likely to be reconvicted than might otherwise have been expected. This is not entirely surprising; short term imprisonment normally involves confinement for very short periods in our most overcrowded and deprived prisons with little by way of interventions other than limited detoxification of those who had been using hard drugs. For those serving over 12 months but less than 2 years, there is a small, but important, treatment gain of just over 4%. In the 2-4 year group, this rises to slightly over 8% and for the 4 year and over group it goes up to 9%. The trend over time with all these treatment gains is upwards. However, the data is not so clear and unambiguous that anyone should jump to the conclusion that longer custodial sentences are better.

This is good news, and comes at a time when we in the Prison Service have been adopting what we would describe as a multi-modal approach to trying to reduce re‑offending. In other words, we try and address a variety of different needs and not rely on any single intervention to produce results. This has been possible as a result of increased Government investment in reducing re‑offending which has allowed us to do much more education, particularly targeting basic skills, better detoxification of drug users (as many as 60% of receptions have got a hard drug problem), improved health intervention with the National Health Service through Primary Care Trusts now commissioning health in prison with new money which has allowed much better provision. In the mental health field, Community Psychiatric Nurses now work alongside prison staff to improve both the diagnosis and treatment of offenders with mental health problems. New money has also improved the supply of cognitive behavioural programmes designed to improve prisoners' thinking ability including improved drug treatment provision in prison. These improvements have been accompanied by better work to link the inside to the outside with much greater emphasis on the practical elements of resettlement, finding a job and having somewhere decent to live. Great efforts have also gone into making sure that specialist treatment can be followed through in the community, particularly for those returning drug addicts going back into the community. Prisoners serving over a year get the benefit of probation supervision on release.

All these treatment measures have been accompanied by a drive to improve the quality of relationships between prison staff and prisoners. We know from detailed research done into the risk of suicide that the quality of relationships is crucial to preventing suicide and it seems likely that the same good relationships improve rehabilitation prospects. The Prison Service's decency agenda which addresses the quality of these relationships and the provision of a proper caring approach to those in prison is vital to the success of our work. It might, perhaps, best be seen as ensuring the soil in which interventions can grow and flourish is properly prepared and fertile.

Doing Time - Surviving Prison

We need to remind ourselves that prison has to be survivable if it is to be morally defensible. This is a real issue, given the increase in the number of long sentenced prisoners. The number of suicides is still significant, although the numbers are reducing. The 67 suicides last year, indicate that surviving imprisonment is a real matter of life and death. Doing long sentences is very difficult. To make prison bearable, we must ensure that there is sufficient variety of activity and sufficient social contact to enable the process of imprisonment to seem endurable. Time is always more bearable if there is a feeling of progress - things to be achieved and improvements secured. Education, provision for spiritual needs, the Arts, sport, ordinary social interaction are all necessary to give this sense of progress and variety.

Maintaining Order and Security

Prisons can only function effectively if they are able to maintain order and security. A prison which is insecure is effectively not a prison. Security can be achieved by physical barriers and restrictions which prevent access to escape equipment. It can also be achieved by gaining prisoners' acceptance that what is happening to them is fair, inevitable and not to be resisted. In practice, a combination of the two is what works to maintain security. In open prisons where, contrary to recent publicity, there is a falling abscond rate, now at its lowest level for at least 10 years, prisoners' willingness to accept their imprisonment is the main means of security. Whereas in high security prisons, there is a heavy reliance on security barriers, intensive surveillance, backed up by security procedures to prevent escape. There are tensions generated by security. Security can be intrusive, intensive searching which involves stripping prisoners and closely examining their belongings and property can be demeaning, while surveillance can mean that there is no privacy. The constant need for prison staff to question and to be alert and never to completely trust anyone can undermine the sort of relationships that are therapeutic. A compromise has to be struck which enables security to be maintained at an acceptable level but without unacceptable risks. Primarily this relies on having carefully thought through security arrangements which are designed to realistically match the degree of risk. Prisoners are carefully classified so that unnecessary security is not applied. Achieving this compromise is one of the most difficult parts of prison management. Our success in preventing escapes with one only escape from within prison so far this financial year and with a reduced suicide rate, suggests we are making this compromise successfully.

Just a word or two on order which is not the same as maintaining security. Keeping prisoners safe from each other ensuring that they co‑operate to achieve the smooth running of what are complicated institutions is not done by force of staff numbers. Typically, two officers supervise up to 50 prisoners unlocked in a medium-security establishment. Order depends upon good relationships between staff and prisoners, fair decisions about prisoners, clear boundaries in behaviour, with rewards for those who conform and effective intervention for those who do not. This is a positive approach to ensuring order, not one of standing back and leaving prisoners to get on with each other. If we are to persuade prisoners to become ex‑offenders, it is important that we ensure that criminal behaviour in prison, particularly use of drugs, is firmly controlled. With a falling drug use rate, measured by mandatory drug testing, and so far this year with no major loss of control in any of our establishments, I think we are getting this balance right.

Summary

In summary, prisons are under pressure, dealing with an increasingly long sentenced population, the majority in prison for serious offences. We have found ways to work with offenders which are reducing the risk of re‑offending, although we have not found a cure for crime and many prisoners will re‑offend. This good work is continuing in spite of pressure of population, and I am determined not to allow overcrowding to become so great that it prevents us continuing to do positive work or stops us treating prisoners decently and humanely.