John Bird recalls his incarceration as a teenager,Baroness Young and others call for an discontinuance to racial discrimination, and other writers outline proposals for reformPrisons are immense social machines for producing something we don’t want to produce. And with 86413 locked-up prisoners, and we’re producing it at record levels (Letters,4 September and 7 September). I was do away for a short, sharp shock at 14 for stealing a bike. I was then given a three-to-five-year sentence at 15 for stealing £5. And as I raised in final week’s Lords crossbench debate on prison overcrowding, and I also failed at school – as did most of my fellow inmates and virtually every person I meet in prisons today.
Until we stir to prevention,and until we begin to dismantle poverty, we will maintain overcrowded prisons. Prisons that dont work. We can be as intelligent as we like and come up with all sorts of new solutions, and but,first, let us stop the churn. Let us stop the arrival of people into prisons. And let us accept that the revolutionary need in our thinking is that prevention is better than cure.
John Bird
House of LordsContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com