Ken Clarke's prison transformation will take hard graft

Ken Clarke's prison transformation will take hard graft

Getting prisoners working on a large scale is a huge task, but at least Clarke recognises prison must be used more productively

Ken Clarke wants to see prisoners working. The justice secretary has a dream of "hard work flourishing in every single jail in the United Kingdom". The 40-hour working prison week, he says, "will make us safer". Perhaps it will. His argument is that people in prison who are given the opportunity to learn skills and develop a disciplined work ethic while paying their debt to society will be less likely to reoffend after they have been released – and lower reoffending rates mean fewer victims. But it will take more than just talk of hard graft to turn Clarke's vision of a "rehabilitation revolution" into reality.

For a start, the practical challenges of gearing prisons up for large-scale industry are huge. He talks about cost-cutting and is adamant that "criminals" are not going to be "exempt from the cuts". Yet to change the fabric of the prison estate so it can accommodate working conditions that mirror those on the outside would cost an unquantifiable fortune. That's not to say it is not doable, in time.

Given that the prison system of England and Wales is under huge pressure from record numbers, currently 87,000 and rising, we are talking a long time, however.

But at least Clarke is trying. The most important thing he recognises, and what he wants his party and the country to accept, is that prison as we have known it for the past 20 years or so does not work.

Just locking people up for months or years with little constructive activity to keep them occupied serves little purpose beyond giving the outside community a measure of respite. And Clarke knows that unless prisons are used productively all they are doing is storing up trouble.

So I hope he manages to introduce his "dramatic" proposals to the culture of prison life. If he holds steady and can hang on to his job for long enough he might just start the sea change that is necessary to make prison an effective remedy for crime. Reducing reoffending should be the absolute priority of prison time. How much this is achieved should be the true measure of whether or not a prison works.

Good luck Mr Clarke, for all our sakes.