As a former young offender I know rehabilitation in prisons is lacking. But it was a letter from my victim that made me change
After the crimes, the punishment. Sentences handed down barely a fortnight after the mass riots across England have included prison terms of up to four years, where those on the receiving end will spend around two entire years in prison, with the latter part of their terms served on probation within the community. Of the 1,474 who have already appeared before the courts, over 1,000 have been remanded to custody, which, to you and I, means spending time in prison.
But what can we expect our prisons to achieve with these rioters?
In 1999, at the age of 16, I phoned the police and handed myself in for a violent offence I had committed the previous evening. I did this thinking that the punishment I would receive would be no more or less than what I deserved, and believed that it would serve a purpose beyond simplistic retribution. I was aware that I had overstepped the boundaries set down by society, that I had become a dangerous individual. I expected to be taught a lesson and, perhaps naively, that I would emerge from my punishment a reformed character.
However, from the moment I entered Reading young offenders institution, it was clear that the practice of prison did not include reform or rehabilitation. There was no interest from either the regime or the guards who kept us. The point of prison was simply to keep me there. This would, theoretically at least, make sense if I was to never be released. But after pleading guilty to grievous bodily harm, the sentence I received was four and a half years (I went on to serve three).
Indeed, of the thousands of young people aged 15 to 21 whom I shared prisons with, not a single one received a sentence that would keep them out of society for their anticipated natural lives. A couple committed suicide, one was murdered by his cell-mate, and several will still to this day be awaiting parole from a life sentence, but everyone else has since been released back into the community. Ministry of Justice data confirms that 75% of young people reoffend within a year of being released from prison, and no doubt many of the others just evade capture.
There are those who argue that the reason for the high rate of recidivism is due to prison being too soft and too comfortable ? a place where prisoners can watch TV all day and play PlayStation. Yet research in Italy and the US suggests that far from reducing reoffending rates, harsher prison conditions may actually increase reoffending. And prisons in England and Wales are not exactly cushy. The final 18 months of my prison term was spent on a wing in Portland YOI where there was no in-cell sanitation and according to the most recent Prison inspectorate report in July 2009, it still had "conditions [which] can only be described as squalid".
The problem with our prison system is not that prisoners get to watch TV and play games, or that they get fed three (undelightful) meals each day. The problem is what they are not doing in prison. For the limited period of time that I was offered education, classes lasted only a few hours. The quality of teaching was poor, and the negligible expectation of the teachers was matched by the low ambition and efforts of the students ? going by recent reports, things haven't changed.
I did an anger management course (quite important for a violent offender), but this lasted just one hour per week. So what was I to do with the remaining 26,200 hours of my imprisonment? The vast majority of my time was spent rotting away in my cell, and the time spent out of my cell was more often than not punctuated by fear and intimidation.
Around the time of my 18th birthday, I received a three-page letter from the victim of my offence. In this letter he explained the impact the offence had had upon him ? how his family had been distraught, and how his emotional suffering had long outlasted his physical pain. I really don't know what I should have expected, but somewhere along the way I had neglected to consider my victim. Receiving this letter brought home every aspect of the offence that was the reason for my punishment. The most interesting point he made, was that he was in recovery, and wanted the same for me.
Of course, it didn't reform me instantly; it was no magic bullet. But it certainly brought me to my senses and stopped my further decline. Sadly, the criminal justice system in England and Wales does very little to foster communication between the offender and the offended, with restorative justice programmes being made available in less than 1% of cases.
However, one need not rely on the justice system for such contact to be made. To those who have been victims of the recent riots (or indeed any crime) where a perpetrator has been identified and sentenced, I would strongly encourage them to do as my victim did, and write a letter (for example, by using the prisoner location service), where they can convey their hurt and anger directly to the prisoner.
As society's ultimate rejection, prison is intrinsically destructive. But seeing as we plan on releasing all the recent rioters from prison at some point, it might not be such a bad idea to work towards increasing their empathy towards those they have hurt.
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