The 23-hour lock-up

The 23-hour lock-up

Cuts forcing prisoners to stay in their cells all day will make it harder for them to rejoin society

Erwin James
Saturday December 15, 2007
The Guardian

"Bang up" - the time a prisoner spends in his or her cell "behind the door" - is the least productive time that anyone who ends up behind bars will experience. It's a time to wallow in a mire of meaninglessness; a total and utter waste of life. The nights are one thing, but being shut in during daylight hours is the most debilitating, dehumanising feeling, a state that breeds detachment from society and reinforces the criminal identity. In Wandsworth, where I was in solitary for the first year of my own sentence, I spent 23 hours in a cell with a table, a chair and a bucket, trying not to smell the dank air, and later, my cellmates. Maintaining any sense of prison being reformative is almost impossible.

The authorities recognise this - so much so that time spent out of cells has been one of the major key performance indicators of prisons for some years. Inspectors invariably note that the fewer hours prisoners spend locked up in their cells is a sign of a "healthy" prison. Conscientious prison governors pride themselves on maximising the number of hours prisoners spend out of their cells during a prison's "core day." The reason why this is so important is that the more time an inmate spends out of cell and engaged in "purposeful activity", the less likely he or she is to re-offend after release.

From next April, however, the government is to introduce a "standard core week" which, in order to save an estimated £60m, will entail an extra period of "bang up" on Friday afternoons. From April 2008, workshop and education class attendance will cease at lunchtime on Fridays. Apart from being opened up briefly for the evening meal, cells will be locked up until Saturday morning. "Bang up" is already at a maximum at weekends, with most prisons keeping inmates in their cells for about 17 hours every Saturday and Sunday.

Paul Tidball, president of the Prison Governors' Association, said the new proposal will reduce the average time spent out of cell each week by each prisoner to its lowest level for nearly 40 years. Tidball told MPs on Wednesday that he and his colleagues will be locking prisoners up "for more hours than they were in 1969".

This is perhaps the most cynical development of prison policy during the last 10 years. The primary purpose of prison is, of course, to keep some people separated from the rest of us. But equally important is that once released, prisoners should be less inclined to commit further offences. Prison time should be constructive: it can be an opportunity to address failings, learn skills and prepare to re-engage positively with society.

But in order for that to happen, it is essential that every moment of incarceration is used effectively. Prisoners lying on their beds dozing or watching daytime TV serves no useful purpose and amounts to a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money. If prison service budget cuts are truly necessary, the government would do better to look again at the proposed building of three so-called titan prisons, set to hold upwards of 2,500 prisoners each at a cost of £1.2bn.

Tidball described prison governors as being "underwhelmed" by the case made for the super-prisons, arguing that they would lead to an escalation in gang culture and be more susceptible to riots. If anyone knows about how best to run a prison it is the prison governors, and the government would do well to take note.

The simplest and most honest way to meet budget targets and reduce time spent on "bang-up" would be for a drive to reduce prison numbers. Everybody in the prisons business knows there are too many people locked up unnecessarily. It is a simple solution that would ultimately negate the need for the super-prisons - and their cost, too, of course.

erwin.james@guardian.co.uk