The prison population is falling but there is still more work to do

Prisons have been pretty grim places in the last couple of months. The young people who have managed to phone through to the Howard League legal advice line tell us they are locked up almost all day and we know that this is the same for adults. In order to prevent prisons from becoming petri dishes of contagion, men and women and children have been locked up for all but half an hour a day in most cases.

It is astonishing how compliant people in prison have been to this regime. It means that there are no visits, no work, no education and very little exercise. In the community we have found it hard – some harder than others – but imagine what it is like to be contained in a stone cell not much bigger than a lavatory cubicle with another man, a toilet and hardly any ventilation, for months on end.

We at the Howard League have done our best to monitor what is happening and I am pleased that the inspectorate has reinstated some sort of visits and that independent monitoring boards have put in place a dedicated phone line.

While things have been grim, what is interesting is that self-injury and suicides had appeared to go down for the first couple of months. My feeling is that this might turn out to be a temporary response to feeling safer than the violent chaos that had been the prison system for the past few years. It could be that the quieter time in prisons provided some respite for terrified men, women and children, from a prison system that was failing to provide anything like a safe environment. Imagine feeling that you are safer locked either alone in your cell, or with a cell mate, even if you are in the most appalling claustrophobic and indolent conditions, than in the normal maelstrom of prison. This is a damning indictment of the way prisons have been run.

It could not continue, of course. Last week five men took their own lives, one only 19 years old.

We are still calling for a planned early release programme to ease the pressure on overcrowding. Releasing several thousand people coming to the end of their sentences would mean that those left in the system could experience a more active regime. Less crowded jails could safely get people out of their cells to go to exercise, work and even have visits.

There is some small hope on the horizon. The prison population is falling, but this is not planned; it is because the magistrates courts are not sitting. The number of men in prison has dropped by four per cent, and the number of women by 11 per cent. This significant fall in the number of women shows how prison should, and could, be avoided and particularly so for women. There are still 2,000 more women in prison on any one day than when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, so there is more work to do to control the sentencers.

We will carry on pressing for fewer people to be sent to prison and for more to be released safely back into the community. Watch this space.

Comments

• Lisa Hemingway says:

  2 Jun 2020 at 6:45 am

  My partner is confined to a shared cell for 24 hrs some days.No phone calls no video links. If he can get out for 30 mins we get to chat for 10.My partner has never had mental health issues until now.Hes due for release this month but APs are not accepting IPPs. When can we have visits now that lockdown is easing? Do the government want a mental health crisis on their hands. This is inhumane.

  Reply
• Carly says:

  30 May 2020 at 8:47 pm

  Most other prisons have set up video visiting and seems that HMP Wakefield is behind on everything my other half should have had his re-cat in September 2019 he should be progressing to his eventual release he has served 20 years of a 24 year sentence he should have been moved to a local prison at the 18 year mark,but what a surprise nothing? He is 200 miles away from me and it so hard without the visits and 5 mins on a phone everyday! I like everyone else want to know when I will get to see my fella again?

  Reply
• Jane ODriscoll says:

  30 May 2020 at 10:06 am

  My 5 granchildren haven’t seen mum and dad for 3 n half mths. My daughter(Who shouldn’t have been sent to jail) was coming home every 2 wks for 5 days on rotls and working outside 2 days a week at saint gyles trust until lock down. I have now spoke to a human rights solicitor. My MP as wrote to Lucy Frazer and I eventually got a email back from her office last Wednesday. My granchildren lives have been turned upside again but at least when mum n dad first went away they could go visit them. They haven’t even seen their faces, no video calls. The youngest ages 6 us having nightmares that he will never see mum again and my 10 he old grandson as started high pitch squealing again(ASD). Thus can’t continue. My granchildrens human rights are being denied and so are my daughter’s and son in laws. When will this end.

  Reply
• Karen Simpson says:

  29 May 2020 at 5:07 pm

  Men are sharing cells sometimes up to 29 hours. Prison officers seen metres away doing pathetic dances. Use this tome to give them an extra 20/30 minutes extra association time out of their cells.
  Offenders/ service users should be allowed 2 months off of their sentences. £5 added onto their phone credit every week isn’t enough to keep family ties strong.

  Reply