Prisons after Mountbatten
Sir: In his article 'Prison security or public safety?' (16 August), Giles Playfair asks whether the extra £2f million spent on pre- venting the escape of a very small number of prisoners, only a minute percentage of whom remain at large, is justifiable. His question becomes even more acute when he demonstrates so well that this emphasis on prison security means less effective treat- ment inside prison for the much larger num- ber who return to society at the end of their sentences and are more likely to commit offences because the causes of their recidivism have not been tackled while they were inside.
Because he was looking only at the prison scene. Giles Playfair neglected to make the further point that any treatment in prison can.-be effective only if it is supplemented by services in the community ready to help and support men on their release. It is in contrast to this that we need to measure the fact that the additional £2f million spent on security amounts to as much as half of the total annual expenditure by the Govern- ment on the' whole of the statutory and voluntary services involved in both proba- tion and after care.
Th- h is been a rapid development in facilities to support the probation service in its after-care work, and both local authorities and the general public have increasingly helped finance these voluntary efforts. Inevitably, however, many of the public are confused as to which are the priorities: security or treatment and resettlement. No effective growth in the community's contri- bution to after-care can be sustained until the Government is prepared to devote the same measure of concern to helping offenders become effective members of society as it does to ensuring their tem- porary exclusion from it.
Bryan Reed Deputy Director, The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, 125 Kennington Park Road, London SEI I
Previous page
