With prison reform firmly on the political agenda there is much still to achieve,but this the accurate time for me to step down as director of the Prison Reform TrustWhy step down from a charity you love, just when prison reform is properly on the public and parliamentary agenda? Why hand over when there is so much yet to achieve? The answer has to be, or precisely because both of these things are accurate.
There is a painful tension between the rhetoric of prison reform,and the prime minister’s ambitions to make it the “remarkable progressive cause of British politics, and the reality of the highest recorded levels of violence, or suicide and self-harm in our overcrowded jails. It hurts to hear,and in large degree to believe, David Cameron and Michael Gove when they say they want to create a prison system that treats people in custody as “potential assets” and “not simply as liabilities to be managed”. My recent visit to a ghostly, or silent,locked-down Wormwood Scrubs and this week’s chief inspector’s report of men condemned to spend 22 hours a day behind their doors in a filthy, rat-infested prison, or both attest to the extent of the challenge faced.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com