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WPIC submission to Sentencing Review



Who we are

This submission is made by the Wandsworth Prison Improvement Campaign (WPIC), a unique local group that has emerged from Wandsworth Quaker meeting determined to improve conditions and outcomes for prisoners in our midst. Our mission is to ensure that those responsible for HMP Wandsworth give priority to making it a safe and decent place. We are not concerned with fine words but with the realities on the ground. We are supporting the new Governor in his efforts for change. 


Our evidence is about what we have observed of the consequences of sentencing policy and practice.


Prison numbers

We welcome the review and especially its three principles. If they are to be met the numbers in prison need to be sustainably reduced to no more than about two thirds of the present total. We expect this Review not merely to avoid another crisis but to bring the numbers imprisoned to a point where prisons become safe and decent places housing so that prisoners can be rehabilitated and prepared for the outside world.  In the case of Wandsworth this would mean the “certified normal capacity” of 964 became the maximum rather than the current use of the “operational capacity” of 1538.        


The drivers of increased use of prison

The key driver is a notion in the media of the “demands” of the public - with scant evidence. Our experience of the public reaction locally to our exposure of the conditions in Wandsworth prison is that the public can appreciate and respond positively if given the facts in a different framing. In a year’s campaigning we have received almost no opposing comment and much support, including at a public meeting widely advertised as open to all comers. Our experience has been that when citizens find out what is going on in their backyard they show shock and embarrassment.     


Our experience suggests a significant change in attitudes can be brought about with confident leadership.


Sentencing does not meet statutory purposes

It appears to WPIC that the statutory purposes of sentencing and the practice have come adrift. Sentences (especially longer prison sentences) are punishing the offender but are not reforming and rehabilitating them, protecting the public nor making the offender give something back.


A man serving time at HMP Wandsworth has not only lost his liberty but he is also enduring very poor physical conditions, exposure to violence, mental stress at times amounting to torture, utter boredom, lack of exercise and lack of purposeful activity. The evidence is in Inspection and IMB reports over several years and in recent Inquest reports.  The same is true for several other prisons. Sentencing policy and guidance should work to ensure that the overall number and periods of sentence should not exceed the spaces available at prisons that meet acceptable standards.


Even the purpose of punishing the offender is achieved in the most unimaginative and ineffective way because so little use is made of alternatives to prison. In addition very little rehabilitation work or preparation for release has been possible for several years.


We are familiar in Wandsworth with the large proportion of prisoners who end up in prison almost by default, with mental health and addiction problems, inadequate education and poor social capital. Overcrowding and poor conditions in Wandsworth Prison act to reduce still further their ability to live well in modern society. This is true even for people on remand. From what we have seen and heard in Wandsworth it is clear that prison is not a suitable place for anyone with serious mental health problems or addictions.     

 

Vulnerable men, elderly men and young men in prison

This is particularly true for vulnerable men, whether they be elderly, young, far from home and family, suffer from mental health problems or poor mental capacity or are physically disabled.  


From our experience at Wandsworth, we can evidence how sentences for elderly men cause suffering beyond the intended punishment. We have seen lack of wheelchairs, immobile prisoners dependent on other prisoners to get their meals, cells having to be shared with incontinent cell-mates, lack of the level of daily care the elderly often need. It will be very difficult to provide humanely for such prisoners without great expense.


Men of 18 – 25 can be immature, physically, socially and mentally and very vulnerable away from their families. They are particularly susceptible to bullying, addictions, violence and being recruited into gangs. Prison will always tend to be a breeding ground for crime unless there are distinct programmes and activities developed for this group outside prison, in their communities.


Recall

We do not see a case for recall except when further offences or serious and/or repeated breaches of licence are committed and there is no other effective sanction for such breaches of licence.


Alternatives to prison: the role of the family

We strongly support a policy shift towards alternatives to prison and to managed transition between prison and full release, such as daytime employment outside and weekend time with family.   These will need to be developed carefully and will depend on building up a strong cohort of probation officers and voluntary support with sufficient flexibility to fit the needs of different kinds of offender.


Maintaining family connections while an offender is in prison will also be important. There is good evidence that prisoners who maintain connection with supportive families are better able to adjust to the outside and stay crime-free. Yet our experience is that far from those connections being encouraged and facilitated families have not been well treated at visits and between visits, and their needs have not been well considered. Too often phones haven’t worked, codes not been given out promptly, families not told when their relative has been moved. Visits can be cancelled without families being informed, they are not well catered for in the visitor centre from dirty toilets to lack of provision for children. On occasion, visitors have been publicly humiliated and made to wait standing in the cold with children in arms. Families are not well-informed about prison rules so we have seen them go to great lengths to bring in appropriate clothes only to be turned away.


Prisons encouraging and facilitating connections between prisoners and their families would be a vital part of any move to allow more of a sentence to be served in the community.       

  

 

Two matters not directly arising from our experience at Wandsworth


Resisting new offences and longer sentences

The results of this review could be undermined if Parliament continues to increase the length of sentences for existing offences or add new offences which carry custodial sentences. Only this week (January 2025) Government has announced three such potential additions: possible reclassification of ketamine to a class A drug, potentially bringing many suppliers and possessors into line for longer custodial sentences; grooming to be an aggravating factor in the sentencing for child sexual offences; and adding offences of failure to report or covering up child sexual abuse.  Any proposed measure that could lead to an increase in the prison population should have to carry an impact assessment measuring that impact.   

 

Joint Enterprise

Through a family of a prisoner serving a long sentence for a crime he did not commit except by involvement through joint enterprise, we have learnt of the serious detriment and lack of justice for those caught up in this way, often young men. We hope the review will address the injustice of joint enterprise. 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

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