Building more prisons is the simple choice, ex-offender rehabilitation is the real solution - Ismail Mulla

The Government has set itself a target to build four new prisons within the next seven years. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is promising to find a total of 14,000 cell spaces in jails by 2031.

Some 6,400 of these will be at newly built prisons while the rest will be found through measures including building new wings at existing jails or refurbishing cells currently out of action.

When you look at voter sentiment around justice, the populist answer invariably is lock them up and throw away the key. And anyone who has been a victim of a crime will undoubtedly feel that justice should be done.

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But herein lies the issue for the Government. It cannot lock up every criminal and it certainly cannot afford to throw away the key. Creating more prison spaces will only go so far as well.

A general view of prison staff. PIC: Jacob King/PA WireA general view of prison staff. PIC: Jacob King/PA Wire
A general view of prison staff. PIC: Jacob King/PA Wire

As Pavan Dhaliwal, chief executive of charity Revolving Doors, says: “We cannot simply build our way out of this crisis, increasing prison capacity and improving the condition of the estate is necessary but must come hand in hand with the commitment to exploring alternatives to custody which the Government is examining via its sentencing review.”

That isn’t to say that the Government should go soft on crime. We have seen on our high streets how turning a blind eye to petty theft has led to an escalation in shoplifting incidents.

The key question is how do you avoid the embarrassing situation that has arisen this year with thousands of inmates being freed early due to overcrowding in prisons.

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Some ex-offenders were seen laughing in the public’s face, which will have rightly ticked off many law-abiding folk in this country.

Longer sentences without more prison places simply do not add up. So it will be interesting to see what course of action the Government will take following the sentencing review.

But where the real issue lies is what happens after an inmate has been released. It’s one thing ensuring they serve their time but too often ex-offenders come out with little support to get them to reintegrate into society,

This isn’t about mollycoddling them but actually putting them to work. As the old cliche goes, work sets you free. At the moment laying about in a cell before coming out with no direction is what’s setting prisoners free. Or even a lack of prison spaces.

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In my previous life as a business reporter, I was privileged enough to see the work that some brave businesses were doing on ex-offender rehabilitation.

It wasn’t just altruism in action but a business decision that in many cases paid off. They were able to plug gaps in their workforce with someone who genuinely was greatly for a second chance.

Instead of waltzing out of prison and back into their old ways, these ex-offenders were able to find purpose in their lives.

Rehabilitation is where the Government’s focus should be. Unfortunately, it won’t yield quick results and politics is a fast-paced, fickle game.

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I spent some time talking to ex-offenders who had turned their lives around and the one thing they all had in common was the realisation that there was something better out there for them. This then spurred them onto reintegrate into mainstream society.

Even the Law Society agrees with me on this point. It urged a focus on the “rehabilitation for prisoners to reduce reoffending rates and tackle the courts backlogs to help bring down the remand population”.

There are caveats obviously. It isn’t all milk and honey. In fact, the businesses that used to employ ex-offenders would talk about how there were occasions when it wouldn’t work out and they would carefully select the candidate that they were hiring based on a variety of factors.

If we want rehabilitation to work though, prisons need to do more than just throw criminals into a cell. Dedicated programmes that prepare them for the outside world are needed.

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Instead many prisoners are sat “frustrated and bored” according to chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor. This was leading to many using drugs in open jails. That’s no way to rehabilitate anyone.

Ultimately, it is the victims of crime that we need to consider. Releasing prisoners early, just because the justice system is broken, is rubbing salt into already gaping wounds.

As Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales and Tory peer Baroness Newlove says: “On hearing a sentence being delivered, the victims expect the sentence handed down to be served in full. This is not unreasonable – surely it is what we mean by justice.”

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