He is particularly interested in prisoners working, spending their time usefully. This is a breath of fresh air, as while we are all concerned with using prison more sparingly and appropriately, there will always be people who are dangerous held in custody and whilst we are considering diversion we must also think what to do with the long termers.

Work for prisoners has been a theme of ours for fifteen years and sometimes it has felt like we were the only people talking about what people do all day in prison. Lots of our staff have contributed to the research, constructing a new vision and campaigning to get change. It is beginning to bear fruit as the idea of real work was adopted by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and included in the coalition government agreement. We are now talking about whether there needs to be legislative change or not – and we don’t think it is necessary. Only a change of attitude is required.

Be patient, I want to take you back a few years. Rehabilitation work: what are prison workshops for? was the first research on the issue and was published in 2000.

Over the next few years we raised capital to set up the most radical initative in a prison ever tried. Barbed, a graphic design business based on social enterprise principles, paying real wages with real employment for long term prisoners, was set up thanks to two intrepid and humane prison governors. Hundreds of people contributed to its inception, donating money, guidance, time and training for the raw recruits to the studio. Like any start up business it took time to gain customers but was starting to break even when the prison service effectively pulled the plug by refusing to recognise that our prisoners had employee rights. The inland revenue reimbursed tens of thousands of pounds of tax they had paid. We closed it down because without real employment it was not a business.

The evaluation Prison work and social enterprise: the story of Barbed is a damning indictment of prison service myopia and incompetence.

I am pleased now that ministers are looking again at the idea of real work. And I want to record my thanks to the many staff here who were persistent and professional in trying to get acceptance for an issue that for years no one else seemed to think was important. Persistence pays off. Prisoners currently spend decades shuffling about aimlessly and this needs to change. And it looks like it might.

Briefing on real work in prison

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Of course the second good thing that happened yesterday was the vote in Scotland to curtail the use of very short prison sentences and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12. This is going to add pressure to do the same here. 

The third interesting development was the vote in the French parliament to make psychological violence an offence as part of a broader range of measures aimed at improving the protection of victims of domestic violence. Whilst I am generally opposed to increasing the panoply of criminal offences, sometimes it can act as a symbol of our distaste and by that indicate to perpetrators that their behaviour is unacceptable. I will watch what happens with interest.

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We will introduce a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ that will pay independent providers to reduce reoffending, paid for by the savings this new approach will generate within the criminal justice system.

In other words, the rehabilitation revolution will be a form of payment by results.   It will see further market reform and mass privatisation.  The idea, in fact, comes from a previous Conservative Party policy document published in opposition, entitled Prisons with a Purpose.  This document was written under the direction of Nick Herbert, then shadow secretary of state for justice and now a minister of state who sits in both the ministry of justice and the home office.

Pushing through further market reform in criminal justice may seem strange at a time when failures in the market proper have helped bring our financial system to its knees.  Certainly the cost of reducing the deficit may mean that cuts pure and simple dominate the coalition’s programme for criminal justice, as it will dominate in so many other areas.

Talk of payment by results and of rehabilitation revolutions may fall by the wayside, as imposing markets where markets do not naturally exist actually costs a great deal of money.  A market requires regulation, which in turn requires some kind of regulatory body.  But aren’t we supposed to be seeing a bonfire of the quangoes, not more quangoes?  And if voluntary sector providers are to compete fairly alongside the private sector, then the vast majority of charities will require funding to build capacity.  Without spending quite a bit of money to ensure a ‘level playing field’ then true market competition will not be generated.

But it is also doubtful how such competition will drive up performance given that payment by results requires some way of tying specific interventions to specific success.  Prisons with a Purpose talked about making prison governors responsible for the reoffending rates of their prisoners but it is very difficult to see how any single governor could be held responsible given that most prisoners will drift through several jails during their sentence, while those in for short periods will be inside so briefly that a governor could blink and miss them.

Then again, perhaps payment by results could be implemented with a much broader canvas in mind.  After all, the principle contains a clear argument against the use of incarceration.  Reoffending rates in the community are considerably lower than reoffending rates in custody.  So an immediate result would be stop paying to put so many people in prison in the first place.

That really would be a rehabilitation revolution.

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It is true that some neighbourhoods are blighted by anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime is serious. But this has grown over the past two decades as social housing has created ghettos of people who cannot buy their way out. The right to buy policy sold off the best houses to the more affluent tenants who then often moved on, leaving behind people who were too poor ever to be able to afford a mortgage and those who were awarded the now rare tenancy because of their extreme vulnerability.

Otherwise, most people carry on their lives pretty much unaffected by crime unless prompted to be fearful by an hysterical tabloid or electioneering politician. Recorded crime has been in steady decline since the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, an incessant political rhetoric from government on crime and ‘respect’ campaigns on anti-social behaviour simply fed fears and perversely ensured that the public obsesses about law and order.

Mr Clarke is asking the sensible question: why is the prison population twice what it was when he was home secretary? At this time of fiscal austerity we all recognise that we need to cut the overblown prison budgets, but that has to come along with investment in managing people properly in the community so that there is public support and people feel safe. A return to the good old days beckons.

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Our president, Lord Carlile, has written to Kenneth Clarke to ask for a meeting to talk about exactly this sort of approach. If the government is to consider cuts in government spending, one department ripe for cutting back is justice. The huge prison estate is a terrible waste of public money, but cutting piecemeal from the daily costs of prisons will put staff at risk and create more crime. Only by closing institutions will real money be saved and the public not put at risk. Much of the money could be diverted to neighbourhoods and programmes that are effective at preventing crime and changing lives – dealing with problematic drug and alcohol use for example.

Slicing prison budgets will inevitably mean fewer staff, and curtailing activities inside prisons. Cooping up tens of thousands of young men as if they were battery chickens is a recipe for disaster. Indeed, it has resulted in disaster in the past and the lessons are very clear. We need only to recall the riots in Stangeways and twenty other prisons and the terrible suicide rates of recent times to know that the lack of activity and over-crowding are toxic and breed violence.

I am very pleased that the deputy prime minister says that the new government is considering radical new ways of dealing with the penal system and look forward to a constructive dialogue.

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Cutting prison budgets at a time of increasing numbers has already meant longer bang-up, cuts to activities and programmes, and will make prisons inherently unsafe for prisoners and for staff.  Prison budgets are already pared to the bone and the only way of squeezing more cuts must be to cut time out of cell and activities.  Prisoners already spend most of their time lying about idly on filthy bunks, and how this is meant to train them up for a crime free life and active citizenship is a mystery.  Things are going to get worse.

Of course there could be cuts to the budget, and they could be sizeable, but they would be less damaging if there was a programme of planned prison closures and money was reinvested in communities, along the lines recommended by the recent parliamentary justice select committee report.  Now that would save money, prevent crime and victims and get people who have committed crimes making restitution.

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I have many criticisms of the proposals. The rhetoric is damaging as it creates a false distinction between victims and offenders, whereas the reality is more complex. Of course there are completely innocent victims and people who commit horrendous crimes because they have made a rational choice. But very often the event is more complicated and people who commit crimes are badly damaged, mentally ill, addicted, drunk, or are part of the family. Ignoring this complexity and pretending that there are two completely distinct races, the good and the bad, results in irrelevant and inappropriate responses to offenders and also misleads victims.

The Howard League has been suggesting for years that the criminal justice system should be re-focussed as a victims justice system, based around a model that would uphold the rule of law but whose objective would be to solve the problem and heal the damage done by the crime. Rather than exploiting victims in the run up to elections by using them to increase punishments, victims’ needs should be central to the system. But this would also involve the not so innocent victims, as addressing their needs and seeking to heal them would help to prevent repetition.

We have also suggested a recasting of the probation service as a “resolution” service. This would provide a wide ranging service to the community to resolve disputes before they become anti-social behaviour or crime. This would work to prevent people becoming victims. It would provide a neighbourhood conflict resolution service from noise pollution to fly tipping, children misbehaving to parking problems. 

There have been far too many small changes to the system that often have the opposite effect to that intended. I was talking to a former high court judge when we both emerged from hearing Jack Straw’s lecture this morning. He told me that the victim surcharge of £15 imposed on fines had drastically reduced the use of fines in the crown court – how can a judge impose a £250,000 fine on a white collar criminal and then announce in open court that he had to impose a £15 victims’ surcharge, it looks like an insult. Also, the parole board is going to be asked to assess how remorseful a prisoner is before they can be released – that is a pretty tricky ask, particularly for example with domestic violence where the pattern is one of remorse and violence, remorse and violence.

Too many simplistic announcements with too little real thought makes for muddle and mistakes.

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This offers a tremendous opportunity for change in the criminal justice system.  A new person at the top could inject some energy into a programme of reform based on the ideas enshrined in last week’s justice select committee report on justice reinvestment and the Howard League’s own report drawn up by the Commission on English Prisons Today last year.   The overarching conclusion of these recent inquiries, and several others, is that the current trajectory of ever-increasing prison numbers is simply unsustainable.

Prison numbers have almost doubled since the mid-1990s.  The overall costs of the criminal justice system has risen from 2% of GDP to 2.5% over the last 10 years. That is a higher per capita level than the US or any EU country.  At the same time, the justice select committee has calculated that the probation budget has declined in real terms by 14.8% between 2002 and 2008.

Prison numbers are projected to continue rising, while at the same time the economic crisis means that the Ministry of Justice is expected to make £1.3 billion in savings by 2012.  New prisons are being built using the private finance initiative, which effectively racks up further public sector debt over the years to come – hardly prudent given the debt we have already amassed in bailing out the banks.  Whether it is in these fantasy figures or down on the ground, in tension-ridden and overcrowded prisons, something is surely going to give.

What do we require then from Phil Wheatley’s successor?  We have argued that the probation service needs a public champion.  Someone who will fight for the historic values of a service that has a track record of success at working with people with multiple challenges.

We also need someone who will take part in public debate about the role of the criminal justice and penal systems, a champion for reform, and someone who will stand up to ministers.  Obviously they have to be a competent manager, but the most important element of the job is the ability to guide a shared vision for the future – this is not just an operational post.  I hope the new director general of NOMS has a strong commitment to the contribution that community sentences can play and is someone keen to work with local government and the health sector.

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Dominic Grieve, the shadow secretary of state for justice, announced a Conservative government would not now build 5,000 new prison places if elected but would focus on regulating the prison population.

The government justice secretary, Jack Straw, announced on Thursday that women should be sentenced in the community and no longer sent to prison.

Both policy announcements are eminently sensible. Increases in the amount of prison places achieves nothing except an increase the amount of prisoners, it does not cut crime. Imprisoning women only isolates vulnerable and destitute women and breaks up families; again it does not cut crime. Neither announcement resulted in public outcry.

This was a week of reasoned debate and ideas.  Both parties talked about sensible retrenchment from the prison expansion treadmill and neither indulged in appropriate sniping.  The public is the winner when political leaders treat us and each other with respect.

It happened that at the same time I had been talking to youth justice professionals in Wessex about how the Howard League would like to see an end to the use of prison custody for children.

These are ideas that will form the centrepiece of our contribution to the public debate around the time of the general election.

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At the same time, government and charities alike bemoan the inappropriate use of prison for people with mental health problems. There are various estimates as to the prevalence of diagnosable mental illness in the prison population, but it is indisputable that it is a majority. Prison are being used as a dumping ground for people who commit offences related to their illness or disability and in place of treatment they are incarcerated in penal dustbins. The introduction of the NHS into prisons does not mitigate the poor quality of mental health provision and treatment in prisons as they cannot follow best practice guidelines issued by NICE – for example about fresh air and exercise and activity. So people are locked in their cells for hours and days, mouldering away, and then dumped back into the community, their mental health damaged further by their prison experience.

The MoJ consultation is disingenuous. It implies that the building of a new prison should be seen as an employment opportunity. There are plenty of more productive and constructive ways of using this land that would bring investment and employment to the area. Not a prison. I urge local people to attend the meetings and let their views be known.

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