Britain should move thousands of inmates into low-security open prisons, according to David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, who is chairing the government’s Sentencing Review. Gauke’s comments have sparked a predictably furious backlash, but he’s absolutely correct – and I should know.
Locking someone up costs the public about £52,000 per prison place each year
“We don’t make as much use of open prisons as we might do,” says Gauke, who thinks open prisons might be the answer to addressing the prison overcrowding crisis and reducing reoffending. The reality is that open prisons are one of the few parts of the justice system that work well. It makes sense to make better use of them.
During my time as a prisoner, I experienced the worst and best of the British prison system. I served the first half of my sentence at HMP Wandsworth, a ‘closed’, high security, Category B prison in central London. Almost everyone now knows that jails like Wandsworth are filthy, rotting and crowded. But those material conditions were far from the worst thing about ‘Wanno’: the sheer waste of it all. Locking someone up costs the public about £52,000 per prison place each year. That money pays for most inmates to lie on the bunks for 22 or 23 hours a day, staring at daytime TV. Many turn to drugs, alcohol or self-harm out of boredom or despair. Even those who do get time out of their cells for ‘purposeful activity’ often find they are performing menial and pointless work, or pursuing courses which are low value and not recognised outside of prison. It’s no surprise that closed jails produce a very high level of reoffending.
The near certainty of being caught quickly means most prisoners in open jails respect the rules
The second half of my sentence could not have been more different. At Hollesley Bay, an ‘open’ or Category D prison on the Suffolk coast, I saw what a good, effective jail looks like. There we were able to apply for ‘Release on Temporary Licence’, or ‘ROTL’. Under this scheme, inmates can leave the prison each day to work or study, returning in the evenings to eat and sleep. Men gained real qualifications at local colleges and universities, or worked for local employers, paying taxes and also an additional contribution to the Victims’ Surcharge fund. Those who work may either save money for their release, or send money home to their family. Either option is likely to make their life after prison more stable, and a return to crime less likely. ROTL is also available for ‘home leave’. After proving themselves to be trustworthy, prisoners can spend up to four nights a month at home. This is a huge incentive towards good behaviour and helps inmates reconnect with their families, sometimes after years away; again, this makes reoffending less likely.
Open prisons have minimal security, and prisoners could often simply walk off the site if they chose. They generally don’t though. The opportunity of work, study and home leave is powerful, and the threat of recall to closed conditions, along with the near certainty of being caught quickly, means that most prisoners in open jails respect the rules.
All of this seems to work. Only about 10 per cent of those released from open prisons reoffend, far lower than the average reoffending rate. Critics say that those trusted in open conditions are probably less likely to reoffend anyway. There has been no systematic effort in the UK to assess the effectiveness of open prisons after adjusting for who is sent there, but a study in Italy showed that a year in open conditions reduced reoffending by up to six percentage points. Open jails are also much cheaper, costing around £27,000 per place each year.
The concept of open prisons might seem strange to outsiders; after all, people want prisons to protect the public. But while they must do that, we need to realise that rehabilitation itself is an important element of public protection. Almost all prisoners will be released one day. Minimising the chance that they reoffend reduces future crime and means fewer victims.
England and Wales have around 5,000 prisoners in open conditions out of a prison population of 97,000 or so. Meanwhile, Spain holds approximately 25 per cent of its prisoners in open conditions. If the UK moved towards a similar approach, we would have over 20,000 open prison places. This radical shakeup is absolutely achievable. Permitted development rules allow rapid expansion of existing open prisons, and shifting the population balance in this way would save significant running costs. There are many people currently languishing in closed jails who could be managed safely in the open estate.
So it’s good news that David Gauke is feeling bold, but he could be even bolder and consider whether prisoners could be directed to open conditions at sentencing. Some courts have probation officers on site who write pre-sentencing reports. It should be possible for judges, lawyers and probation professionals to determine which prisoners are sufficiently low-risk to be directed to open jails rather than left languishing in filthy overcrowded and expensive prisons. This would allow their rehabilitation to begin sooner, save money and reduce pressure on our crowded closed ‘reception’ prisons like Wandsworth. Right now, prison doesn’t work. But with changes like this, perhaps it could.
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