In December, the Government set out their long-term ambitions for prisons in the long-awaited Prisons White Paper. Included in the White Paper are a series of promising proposals including: a roll-out of in-cell technology, plans to improve safety, and improved training and support for prison officers and prisoners. The overall strategy however is hampered by a failure to address the most endemic issues facing our prisons.
In this blog, our Communications and Evidence Assistant, Grace Davis, summarises Khulisa’s response to the White Paper consultation (read our response in full here).
What’s promising:
The creation of an innovation task force
We were impressed by the government’s commitment to be led by the evidence in designing the future regime, and believe that the creation of an innovation task force made up of experts from front line services, academia and third sector organisations is a promising development. We hope that this collaborative way of working will help drive real progress in tackling social and justice issues.
The focus on improved relationships and support
Khulisa also supports the commitment to building a skilled and resilient workforce, and improving relationships between staff and prisoners. Relationships with trusted caregivers are the strongest buffer against the effects of trauma and adversity. Centering the design of future prisons regimes around nurturing relationships should be a key guiding principle in creating safer prisons.
We also support the introduction of an Enhanced Support Service providing individuals with specialist support. Too often prison is inappropriately used because mental health treatment beds cannot be found. Although we maintain that the government should do more to ensure that people are placed in the right place to receive the treatment they need, we support the plan to ensure that those with the most complex support needs have access to specialist support. Having said that, to ensure that individual prisoners do not continue to fall between the gaps, this support should be provided in all prisons, instead of only those where the most complex behaviour is found.
Staff training for trauma informed practices
The government also made commitments to improve training for prison officers, with specific recognition of the need to provide trauma training. Our response welcomed these plans, and suggested ways in which that training could be improved. We argued that, given the unique position prison officers occupy as caregivers, they must receive training on how to understand both the behavioural presentation and the underlying emotional needs behind behaviour, and how to respond in an effective and trauma-informed way.
Furthermore, in order to be effective in their role, we called for there to be a specific focus on training prison officers to recognise issues with their own wellbeing, and look after their self-care. There is a close link between the wellbeing of young people and the adults in their lives, and, as such, staff must learn to take care of their own wellbeing in order to create a nurturing environment for prisoners.
Better support for transition into the adult estate
The government’s ambitions to better support transition into the adult estate is a step in the right direction. Young people have been placed in adult establishments that lack the necessary support for their needs. This often leads to worse outcomes for them compared to their older counterparts, including having worse relationships with staff, being far more likely to be involved in violent incidents, and being more likely to self-harm.
There is evidence that these outcomes are significantly improved for young people when they are appropriately supported in their move to the adult estate. This includes the success of Hydebank Wood Secure College in Northern Ireland, where clear transition plans for young adults, combined with a supportive culture aimed at nurturing positive relationships between staff and those under their care has meant that young adults in Northern Ireland are far less likely to be involved in violence and to self-harm than their peers in England and Wales.
We welcome the similar pilot scheme for the coordination of staff at the unit at HMP Deerbolt with the children’s estate, combined with the use of a maturity screening tool to create tailored plans for young adults. However, there is definitely room for improvement – such as staff members needing better training on how to deliver interventions designed for young adults. We hope our recommendations above, on areas of training staff should receive, helps plug these gaps.
Where the strategy falls short:
The problem of overcrowding has barely been addressed
The Government has announced plans to provide 20,000 new prison places. However, with prison populations set to rise by 18,920 by March 2026, in an already overcrowded prison system, this barely addresses the problem of overcrowding.
There are more effective ways to address the problem of overcrowding than building more prison places. These include addressing the root causes of offending and reoffending by investing in preventative programmes that support young people and their families in the community, as well as other measures such as diverting people from prison, introducing a presumption against short-term sentences, and ensuring those struggling with mental ill-health are supported in secure mental health units.
The ongoing issue of overcrowding will only hinder the Government’s proposals set out in the White Paper. Overcrowding has meant that prisoners trying to access education have not been able to due to there not being enough prison officers to take inmates to and from classes. This only worsens the outcomes for these prisoners, as well as increasing the feeling of isolation that prisoners have felt due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and worsening their mental health.
Therefore, the success of all of the Government’s plans, fundamentally, depend on dealing with the issue of overcrowding in our prisons first.
The rolling out of in-cell technology hasn’t gone far enough
In a digital age, and especially with the difficulties Covid-19 has presented for prisoners, designing prisons with digital in-cell technology is crucial. This helps prisoners access education and training opportunities, and can mitigate the far-reaching effects the pandemic has had on the mental health outcomes of those in our prisons. With no access to vital support services provided by charities like Khulisa, prisoners, many of whom were living with mental health issues even before the pandemic, spoke of increased anxiety and a deterioration of their mental health.
Whilst we welcome the government’s plans to increase the number of prisons with in-cell technology from 5 to 11 by the end of this year, we maintain that these plans need to go further faster.
Areas for improvement:
The Prison Education Service must be adapted to the needs of prisoners
With employment outcomes for ex-offenders being poor, prisons must adapt to support the needs of those in their care. However, there is currently nothing in the White Paper that separates the work of the proposed Prisoner Education Service from the work being done by education departments up and down the country. Without doing so, they may simply repeat the mistake of successive prison education policies by presuming typical levels of cognitive and emotional ability. On the contrary, many prisoners live with impaired cognitive, emotional and communicative functions that negatively impact their ability to engage with education and employment activities. Furthermore, with 9 in 10 young people in the secure estate having been excluded from school, many of them never had the chance to develop social and emotional skills.
We recommend that the Prisoner Education Service provides social and emotional skills development. This can help give prisoners the foundational skills to engage in society, and to close the skills deficit they live with. These skills are proven to mitigate the effects of trauma and mental ill-health, help people manage behavioural difficulties, improve attainment and employment outcomes, and help prevent criminal behaviour and reoffending. This should be led by evidence of what prevents reoffending and improves life outcomes of prisoners. A failure to focus on their development will only worsen the cycle of crime.
Conclusion
Whilst Khulisa believes that there have been some good proposals in the White Paper, these are overshadowed by a lack of support to address overcrowding and the growing population of prisons. Until this problem is addressed, many of the proposals will be ineffective.