Written evidence submitted by Constitutions Rights and Justice Research Group – University of Worcester (RAR0030)

Introduction

1. This evidence is submitted by the University of Worcester’s ‘Constitutions, Rights and Justice Research Group’ (herein ‘the Group’)[1] to inform the Justice Committee (the Committee) and its inquiry, ‘Rehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending’. Its contributing authors are Dr Chris Monaghan (Principal Lecturer in Law, Worcester), Courtney Smith (Lecturer in Criminology, Worcester), Dr Michael Lane (Lecturer in Law, Worcester) and Susan Jarvis (Independent Monitoring Board Member).
2. The submission addresses questions 1-4 and 7 of the call for evidence.

Q1: Reoffending in England and Wales

3. In October 2024, the reoffending rate for October-December 2022 was published, indicating a rate of 26.4%.[2] This was down 0.1% on the previous quarter for 2022. However, there was an overall increase in reoffending rates in 2022 of between 1 and 1.3 percentage points compared with the relevant quarters in the previous year.[3] Comparisons between rates measured pre-October 2015 should be cautioned due to changes in data sources.[4] Additionally, due to changes in cohort range (from 12 monthly to quarterly), comparisons should be avoided with statistics pre-October 2017 as these were not measured in the same way.

Measuring Reoffending

4. The method used in England and Wales is ‘Proven Reoffending Rates’. This involves relying on official records including police and court report documents to look at offences committed within one year following the original conviction or caution.[5] Statistics are informed by records on the Police National Computer and only those offences recorded by police are included. This means that the data may present some inaccuracies and under-representation.[6] To account for this, this data is adjusted by applying the ‘Offender Group Reconviction Score’ (OGRS4/G), a risk assessment measure based on a given group’s likelihood of reoffending.

Comparisons with Other Countries

5. Due to global differences in methodologies and definitions of how reoffending is measured, it is very difficult to accurately compare global recidivism rates. For instance, the Republic of Ireland measures reoffending within three years of prison release[7] whereas Australia measures recidivism within two years of release.[8] This should be considered when measuring the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes. Nevertheless, it appears that a 2-year reconviction rate measurement is the most common globally.[9] For more accurate comparisons globally, it may be necessary for the domestic approach to be adapted.
6. If considering a comparison of a 2-year reconviction rate measurement, Australia reports a rate of 42.5%[10] and New Zealand reports a rate of 37%.[11] While the US does not report a 2-year reconviction rate, rates measured on a 1-year basis (43%)[12] may be helpful when conducting a comparison with the UK. However, it should be noted that the US also reports a 10-year recidivism rate which stands much higher at 82%.[13]

Q2. Regime Offer in Different Prisons

7. Under the former Conservative Government, the Female Offender Strategy 2022-2025 sought to improve outcomes for female offenders through the implementation of services to meet the needs of those in prison.[14] This included increased presence and access to social workers, and health professionals, bespoke training for officers and increased presence of Domestic and Sexual Abuse workers within the prison estate. Many of these measures were to combat high levels of self-harm among female prisoners.
8. There are special privileges afforded to remand prisoners as these individuals have not yet been convicted for the offence with which they have been charged.[15] Remand prisoners are presumed innocent, and their normal rights and freedoms should not be deprived (excluding those inherently affected by imprisonment) as per PSO 4600.[16]
9. Young offenders will be placed in a custodial setting as near to their home as possible, provided the setting can meet the individual’s needs.[17] Children are provided with a Custody Support Plan Officer who remains their main point of contact. Children are given 30 hours of education and training a week, in a routine that follows a school day timetable suggesting there is more routine and predictability within the youth custody regime.[18]

Encompassing Individual Desistance

10. The regime offer, particularly in relation to skills development, education and training, appears to target primary desistance processes that seek to address behavioural patterns associated with relevant offences.[19] However, prison has been found to potentially reduce the likelihood of desistence in other ways by undermining specific factors known to contribute towards the process – stable employment, accommodation and strong family relationships.[20] There is evidence to suggest that those who serve a prison sentence are more likely to re-offend when compared to those on community sentences.[21] There is some argument for the system to adopt a strengths-based approach to rehabilitation and prison regime that would place more emphasis on individuals’ core values and capabilities, thus promoting pro-social behaviour and encouraging engagement with desistance processes. This should not overshadow risk-based assessments but instead both considerations should be balanced.

Q3: Prisoner Health and Wellbeing and Rehabilitation

11. The male Long Term High-Security Estate (LTHSE) faces unique challenges. Above all else, prisoners facing lengthy sentences need hope. The prospect of a long future in custody can lead to despair unless appropriate help is provided. Despite many prisoners suffering from a range of mental health problems, screening and treatment for these are totally inadequate. More therapeutic communities in prisons are required and better training of officers in mental health and trauma would improve outcomes for prisoners. Treatment facilities for mental health should be available as soon as the need is identified but there are lengthy waits for beds in secure hospitals.
12. Long-term prisoners need incentives if they are to progress and rehabilitate. As many officers are leaving the service, there is an increased demand for experienced, well-trained officers. More trained key workers should be employed and more imaginative use made of the ‘Incentives and Earned Privileges’ system could offer real hope to prisoners who want to do everything possible to progress with their sentence.
13. Across the prison estate more broadly, the Social Market Foundation found that ‘[o]nly 35% of those with mental health issues receive help, while 32% finish addiction treatment programmes in prisons and secure settings’.[22] These statistics are concerning and indicate a failure to properly support the health and well-being of prisoners.

Q4: Training and Education in Prisons

14. It is important to reflect on the issue of education in prisons through a human rights lens. The UK has various international obligations to ensure the right to education for everyone.[23] Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) this right does not compel the state to establish educational facilities for all prisoners, but instead requires, where these facilities are available, that prisoners have ‘an effective right of access to them’.[24] Other international instruments to which the UK has acceded, but which are not incorporated into domestic law, more explicitly recognise that education should be made available in prisons for both adults and young persons.[25]
15. Whilst educational facilities are to varying degrees available in all prisons in England and Wales, the quality of provision and the opportunity for offenders to access these facilities is problematic. In the case of the LTHSE estate, whilst English and Maths provision to level 2 helps many prisoners who have not been able to access the learning opportunities offered by schools, education provision generally ends at this stage. Unless there are private funds, there is no opportunity for advanced courses for those prisoners in the LTHSE until they are within a few years of their release date, which could be decades. Enthusiasm for learning is thus encouraged by supportive teachers for only a very brief early period in the context of lengthy sentences. Additionally, workshop provision varies throughout the LTHSE, but work is often tedious and unfulfilling. Prisoners thrive on meaningful skilled work but securing external contracts for prisons is difficult.
16. Across the prison estate more broadly, the Committee should have reference to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) inspection reports which receive input from The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) or the equivalent body in Wales, Estyn. Analysis of HMIP reports published by the Inspectorate in 2024[26] finds that of the 37 inspections that involved Ofsted or Estyn, 19 (51%) were deemed to have an overall effectiveness that was ‘inadequate’,[27] 10 (27%) ‘required improvement’,[28] and 8 (22%) were ‘good’.[29]
17. In the case of Young Offenders Institutions (YOIs), a recent report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons found that since 2014, the provision of purposeful activity (including, but not limited to education) across the four YOIs in England and Wales[30] has deteriorated.[31] Whilst these observations reflect a modest sample of the prison estate, it is clear that many prisons are plainly not providing sufficient education for offenders. The same report highlighted consistent, intersecting barriers across the youth estate: severe staff shortages, restrictive regimes, increased isolation, and poor leadership.
18. Another factor that impacts the opportunities for prisoners to engage in education and training is the amount of time spent in cells. The Social Market Foundation, in a 2023 briefing, reported that ‘53% of prisoners are in their cell for more than 22 hours a day – rising to 69% during weekends’.[32] This is far too long and prevents prisoners from being able to engage in meaningful activity.

Q7: Prison Buildings and Rehabilitation

19. Fair treatment of prisoners, including the conditions in which they are kept, is important in a modern democratic state. Failure to respect the rights of prisoners could result in a breach of Article 3 of the ECHR,[33] for instance where there is severe overcrowding or if prisoners are living in an ‘unsanitary environment in prison’.[34] Examples include Price v The United Kingdom (2001).[35]
20. More recent case law suggests that prison conditions continue to fall below the standard required under Article 3. Notably, in 2023, a German court refused an extradition request by the United Kingdom because it was unable to assume ‘with sufficient certainty that the prosecuted person would receive humane conditions of detention there in the case of his extradition to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland’.[36] This was due to the conditions of British prisons, which the defence argued had ‘chronic overcrowding, staff shortages and violence among inmates in British prisons’.[37]
21. Other evidence reveals that prison conditions in England and Wales are below the standard of what is to be expected. A House of Commons Library Briefing Paper noted in 2023, ‘[t]here are long standing concerns that the prison estate is unfit for purpose. The estate includes many dilapidated and overcrowded prisons’.[38] In terms of crowded conditions, some 20.6% of prisoners are held in crowded conditions on a typical day.[39] The overcrowding is a result of the growth in the prison population from the 1940s onwards. For example, in the 1980s the prison population was in the 40,000s, and at present this number is over 80,000.[40] The government expects that the number of prisoners will be over 106,000 by 2027.[41]
22. The poor conditions and overcrowding have had a tangible impact on the prison service being able to promote rehabilitation. Comments by the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, in his 2020-21 Annual Report, further reiterates our earlier points regarding the opportunities to engage in training and education:

[T]oo many prisoners were locked up with too little to do before the pandemic and the situation became much worse this year, even in training prisons. In the last year leaders have had to make difficult decisions about staffing and services. This has meant that many prisoners have been denied the opportunity to get onto programmes that were part of their sentence plan and have therefore been unable to progress to a lower category prison or to a successful parole hearing.[42]

Even those prisoners who were in the lowest category, category D in Open Prisons, could not take advantage of the ability to integrate back into society:

They arrived having proved they could be trusted in a less secure environment with the expectation that they would begin to experience life as a citizen rather than as a prisoner.[43]

The Chief Inspector argued that the more time prisoners spent in their cells was detrimental to rehabilitation, ‘[t]he reality is that prisoners are not being rehabilitated when they are banged up’.[44] This was despite the fact that locking prisoners in their cells had reduced violence during COVID-19.[45]

23. Research by Karen Bullock and Annie Bunce further reiterates the link between prison conditions and rehabilitation. They found that

‘[p]risoners are more likely to engage with rehabilitative efforts which are perceived to be legitimate, which include the maintenance of adequate living conditions, having opportunities to undertake meaningful rather than superficial work, having some choice about how to utilize rehabilitative opportunities and generate positive, collaborative relationships’.[46]

24. The previous government had argued that building more prisons would help to ‘[create] the right conditions to reform and rehabilitate offenders and ultimately cut crime’.[47] They noted that the prison estate did not accommodate the accessibility needs of elderly prisoners or prisoners with mobility issues.[48] The new prisons would be built to ensure that they were ‘designed to facilitate education and employment, rehabilitation, healthcare and purposeful activity’.[49]
25. Yet, the Howard League has criticised this policy and has instead argued that the focus should be on reducing prisoner numbers.[50] In 2023, its Chief Executive, Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.) gave a lecture based on correspondence received from prisoners.[51] Coomber noted that whilst building new prisons seems attractive, this was an ‘overly optimistic, and naïve, puff’ and rather than offering ‘purposeful activity’ the ‘experience has shown that the very announcement of more prisons means they encourage inflation of the use of prison’.[52] Prisoners were critical of the lack of rehabilitation due to overcrowding and locking prisoners in their cells for most of the day. Coomber quotes one prisoner who stated ‘give us the opportunities to find a job that we will enjoy, and train us to do it, and you won’t see us again’.[53]
26. The bottom line is that the current prison stock is not adequate and cannot accommodate the current number of prisoners. This results in overcrowding which, along with poorly maintained buildings, subpar facilities and funding cuts, results in poor conditions for prisoners.[54] The solution is to increase funding to recruit more staff, who are trained to look after prisoners properly, to rebuild and maintain the prison estate, and to shift the focus more towards treating prisoners (for mental health issues, drug and alcohol dependency) and rehabilitation.

Recommendations:

27. The Government should:
1. Commission an independent, longitudinal study comparing reoffending rates in England and Wales with other states to better assess the effectiveness of current and future measures.
2. Commit to reducing the prison population.
3. Enhance the training of prison staff to better identify and address prisoners’ mental health conditions.
4. Ensure sufficient staffing in all prisons to enable prisoners to spend appropriate time out of cells to engage in purposeful activity.
5. Provide sufficient funding to renovate and subsequently maintain the quality of prison buildings.
6. Ensure that prison conditions are compliant with the UK’s international human rights obligations.

Date Submitted: Thursday 16th January 2025

References

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