YP Letters: Role of the prison library in fight against crime

AS part of the Government’s reform proposals for the overhaul of Britain’s prisons, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron, comes the intention this month to hand over more control to six existing prison governors. Given the huge level of reoffending that clearly points to a failure of the current system, it is to be hoped that the policy of closing prison libraries and reading and writing rooms will now be reversed.

Educational programmes that include the opportunity for prisoners to read, learn and write will serve them well and should never have been curtailed if we are to keep first offenders from going back inside within a year or two of being released.

It was a former politician, the disgraced Jonathan Aitken, who led a campaign on his own release from jail to retain or reintroduce the prison library and the practice for prisoners to improve themselves through the benefits of a well-stocked literary facility. The former MP – known for his outburst concerning “the simple sword of truth” – has been vindicated for his stance that prisons ought to be places of learning if levels of reoffending are to be kept to a minimum and the current cost to the economy of £13bn a year drastically lowered.