Prisoners Have the Right To Read

Prisoners Have the Right To Read

Posted: 25/03/2014 | Author: The Political Idealist | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chris Grayling, Conservatives, crime, justice, news, Prisons, society |Leave a comment

On the 1st November 2013, the Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling, introduced harsh new rules on the sending of items to prisoners. Inmates are no longer allowed to receive clothing, birthday cards from their children, or books. As clothing and books are very hard to come by in prisons, the effect is to prevent prisoners reading, and for women prisoners (who do not wear uniforms), leaving them to rely on the prison-issue underwear. They are only provided with one set.

The Howard League for Penal Reform highlighted these new rules in a Politics.co.uk article on Sunday. A petition calling on Chris Grayling to modify the rules was promptly set up and has since collected over 5,000 signatures. Grayling has a hang ‘em and flog ‘em approach to justice, which has proved hugely popular. He is not going to bend to the will of a few thousand bleeding heart liberals over this, and given the feeble response of the Opposition to the benefits cap, I doubt they’ll have the courage to challenge the policy. The best course of action is to stress the benefits of books in rehabilitating prisoners and hope that a more pragmatic Justice minister listens in the future. There is a compromise to be reached, though, and I will attempt to outline one.

Let us work from two premises. One, criminals are in prison to be punished and therefore allowing them to receive gifts would be inappropriate. Two, a major cause of crime is the poor education and social exclusion of criminals. Prisoners are much more likely than members of the general public to be illiterate, and this perpetuates their exclusion. Therefore, prisoners should have access to books to aid in their education. The two premises can be met: don’t allow prisoners to receive books as gifts, but allow prisoners to buy from a special HM Prison Service Postal Bookshop (which can stock only books of educational value, not the likes of 50 Shades of Grey) using their earnings from prison jobs.

After all, prisoners are allowed to buy cigarettes and the like using the token wages they receive. If they can buy drugs that are bad for them, why not books that might just do them some good? The fact that they had to work for the books also sends a suitably “tough” message.

If we cut off prisoners’ access to educational materials, we are making it more difficult for them to complete their sentences having acquired new skills that they can offer to society. If prisoners are cast back into the world with just as few skills as when they entered, evidence shows that they are likely to fall back into crime. Ultimately, a justice system that fails to change the behaviour of criminals is not fit for purpose. Chris Grayling’s new rules don’t derail all rehabilitation measures taking place in the prisons system, but they are a significant obstacle.

Does Grayling want to do what’s right, or what’s popular?