Our prison crisis demands action on poverty as well as sentencing

Deprivation is a fundamental factor in criminal behaviour that must be addressed but, KENNY MacASKILL argues, there needs to a major rethink in sentencing to tackle overcrowding

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OVER 20 years ago, Roger Houchin, a former governor of HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow, published a study of who Scotland’s prisoners were. It was a snapshot of who was in jail, and which districts they came from, on just one specific night. This was before the creation of multi-member council wards so there were at that time over 1,200 districts.

The study disclosed that half of the prisoners came from the poorest 155 wards. A quarter came from the 53 most deprived areas, 35 of them in Glasgow, and others from areas, in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee or Lanarkshire, noted for their poverty. There were also 269 wards without prisoners.

English prisons would have shown similar results although across a larger number of areas. Since then, both in England and Scotland the prison net has widened, as well as worsened with societal changes.

We have also become a far more retributive society. Demands for action against crime have seen sentence tariffs rise and changes in society and law enforcement have seen the numbers for those jailed for drug offences or historic sexual crimes increase significantly. But the links between poverty and incarceration remain both stark and clear.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of poor people would never consider committing a crime, let alone perpetrate one. They are also far more likely to be the victims of crime and must live with behaviour which blights so many deprived communities. There’s much to be said of the mantra “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime,” even if Tony Blair’s government forgot the second part.

The current prison crisis is not new. Numbers had been rising but have worsened over recent years. The challenges for justice secretaries north and south of the border are immense, though far worse in the latter.

Most of the solutions to criminal offending lie in addressing poverty, deprivation, drug and alcohol abuse, along with unemployment and hopelessness. They are outside the control of prison staff and depend on actions by governments at all levels and by other agencies. They also take time to implement and take effect.

Governments and communities live in the here and now. Lawlessness and serious criminality cannot be tolerated. Communities require action to be taken and the wider public needs reassurance.

Prison staff who face personal risk in dealing with inmates are also entitled to support.

Governments want to stay in office. Fail to act on crime and you will be removed by the charlatans and by those whose repression would fall upon the working class rather than on the criminals perpetrating crime and disorder.

Investment in the prison estate and handling offenders does come at the expense of new schools, hospitals and other civic centres. Prisons though are bursting at the seams. Early release schemes are certainly required as there is simply no alternative to them. Building new prisons, even while creating a plan which would reduce the need for them, is also essential.

The latter should not mean private prisons. Clive Fairweather, a former commander in the SAS, who served as HM Inspector of Scottish Prisons, stated that in his former role he had required to authorise the taking of life. He said he did so under the authority of the crown on his cap badge.

Depriving someone of their liberty should similarly be for the state and not a private corporation. That’s as lucid an argument as there is against private prisons, never mind their cost and operation.

Working-class communities are not harsher in their demands for punishment even when they are the ones most afflicted. Vigilantes are not reflective of the wider area and the siren voices to “lock them up and throw away the key” almost invariably come from those in leafier parts of the country.

Poorer communities can easily differentiate between who they see as the bad boy or troubled lad, and the bad girl or sad lass. They know who needs a shoulder to cry on, who needs a helping hand, or those who need a foot up the backside. Equally, they also recognise who represents a danger or a menace and therefore need to be put away.

These communities, after all, must live with these people. It’s a position shared by the police, who need to focus on the few rather than sift among the many.

Reducing, if not ending, routine short sentences is therefore necessary. It takes weeks to process a prisoner and identify their needs and then more weeks to prepare for their release.

Any sentence of a few months, not years, is simply warehousing, with no opportunity for prison staff to address an individual’s needs.

Wacky ideas spouted by some politicians about using remote Scottish islands, prison ships or other empty buildings are simply insane and ill-thought-out.

Where do you house the inmates, let alone the prison staff? What do the latter or their families make of it? There’s also a duty of care to those incarcerated and deprived of their liberty. The idea that making life as grim as possible for prisoners is as sensible as shaking wasps around in a jar before releasing them.

Removing foreign prisoners is also a ruse. Prisoners should, wherever possible, be incarcerated where friends and family can maintain contact. But those demanding deportation should remember that what goes out also comes in.

Deporting convicts will see our own returned here and there’s quite a few of them overseas, and not just in the Costa del Crime.

The long-term solution must mean tackling poverty and deprivation, but it also requires changes in sentencing and penal policy. The war on drugs has been a failure. It locks up thousands with no reduction in consumption, let alone harm.

But such social changes need wider support than merely government edicts. Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Alex Norris could do worse than seek to establish a commission to review sentencing and prisons.

This should include representatives from minority and deprived communities, while selecting someone from the right with enlightened views as chair, such as David Gauke or Rory Stewart. There are better and more just ways to protect our communities from crime.

Kenny MacAskill was Scottish justice secretary from 2007-14, and served in the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2016 and the British Parliament from 2019-24.

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