Terry Waite on prison reform and rehabilitation - part 1

For many years I have been concerned with prisons and, in particular, with the rehabilitation of former prisoners.

I have experienced incarceration myself: for almost five years I was held in very strict solitary confinement as a hostage. During that time, I had no books or papers for over three years. I was kept in chains and slept on the floor. I had no conversation with anyone other than a cursory word with my guards.

This experience has given me a unique insight into what it is like to be a prisoner and, what it is like to be tortured and face a mock execution. Admittedly I experienced an extreme situation, but I have often said that it is from extreme situations that we may take understanding that is applicable to so called normal life.

Media reporting of crime has a marked influence on public attitudes towards criminal justice. Murder and other serious crimes feature almost daily and the reader can be forgiven for believing that a dark hearted villain lurks behind every street corner ready to pounce on the unwary. Understandably the public are fearful and angry when they become victims of crime.

The media, tends to give prominence to the most lurid crimes and it is little wonder that many people perceive all lawbreakers to be cast in the same mould and that the remedy ought to be ‘Lock ‘em up and throw away the key’.

Over the years the public had been persuaded by the more extreme elements of the popular press that prisons had become too soft. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ many people said, ‘that a prisoner can have a television set in their cell’.

Had those who voiced such opinions experienced a custodial sentence they would have realised that televisions have to be earned by good behaviour, which seems perfectly reasonable. But beyond that they have to be rented by the prisoner who, in most instances, will have to find the rental charge from the meagre allowance the prisoner receives each week in payment for work done in the workshops. Had they served time they would have further realised that to be ‘banged up’ for hour after hour, sometimes in the company of an incompatible companion, is mind destroying to say the least.

Prisons are meant to be places of punishment and rehabilitation and those who have experienced a custodial sentence will know that one of the greatest punishments is the loss of freedom. Always to be watched. Always to be escorted to classes, should they exist. Often being incapable of helping, should a family member be facing trouble on the outside. This loss of freedom is, in itself, a severe punishment and indeed it is tough. People are sent to prison as punishment not for punishment.

By saying what I have just said I do not wish to imply that there ought to be no punishment for wrongdoing. What I am saying is that a custodial sentence does punish and in many cases punishment now vastly outweighs the other side of imprisonment which is rehabilitation.

I first visited a British Prison over sixty years ago when I was a fairly young man. The London prisons that I visited then were built on the old Victorian model where the wings, containing the individual cells, extended like struts in a cartwheel from a central hub. Each wing was secured, and, within each wing, there were several landings housing a long line of individual cells. At different times of the day prisoners would be allowed to associate on the ground floor of the wing and if they needed to attend educational classes or workshops then they had to be escorted to another part of the building where such facilities were located.

The surroundings were somewhat drab as there was little natural light, and institutional brown paint added to the gloom. The cells did not contain toilet facilities and so the day began with what was known as ‘slopping out’. Today, although reasonable toilet facilities have been added to many cells, many of the old Victorian prisons are still in use. I remember thinking at the time that our whole understanding of the way in which offenders were dealt with needed a radical overhaul.

A glimmer of hope was raised when I visited the first ‘Psychiatric’ institution built at a place named Grendon Underwood. It was nearing completion when I visited and for the first time the authorities had chosen to use pastel colours on the walls rather that the customary dark brown!

Over the years Grendon has had a remarkable success in rehabilitating prisoners. This has been due not primarily to the paint but to the highly intensive way of working with prisoners by well trained staff who were not seen as simply ‘turnkeys’. The principles adopted were of therapeutic community work in which the community of peers and staff becomes the healer. Prisoners volunteered for the therapy and, if they did not complete the work, they would be returned to a ‘normal’ establishment.

It was costly to run in the short term but the number of prisoners who left Grendon and re-offended was considerably smaller than the number of re-offenders previously discharged from a ‘normal’ jail.

This could be seen as representing a saving in the long term, but then politicians do not normally think beyond the next election when they will have to face re-election: there are few votes in prisons. Politicians know full well that many of their constituents are understandably fed up with crime and believe that the way to deal with criminals is to bang them up for a good long time. It takes a brave politician to push for a total reform of the Criminal Justice System and there are few who are willing to take the risk.

End of part 1. Part 2 of Terry Waite's blog on prison reform and rehabilitation will be published on 26 March.

An Evening with Terry Waite at Southwark Cathedral takes place on 29 March. Tickets are available now.