Malaise in our jails

The loss of control at hMP Birmingham is disturbing (Mail).

This malaise in our jails goes back decades. having worked in the Prison Service from the Sixties through to the Noughties, I can chart the demise. The rot started in the Seventies with modernisation and progressive penal reforms.

The increase of relative inmate freedom corresponded with a reduction of the staff’s jurisdiction over their charges and an influx of do-gooders into the system.

The prisons system was functional and structured in the Sixties because there was real discipline.

The only solution for rescuing a beleaguered service is to create conditions of imprisonment that will make offenders not want to come back. Unfortunately, the two barriers are the human Rights Act and the pernicious prisoner litigation culture.

Prison ministers are here today, gone tomorrow, and have no more solutions than the prison cat.

DAVID FLEMING, Downham Market, Norfolk. IT APPeARS that the contract for Birmingham prison will be handed back to G4S after six months. Once taxpayers have paid to clean up the mess, it’s back to the private company that couldn’t cope and the lucrative contract will roll on.

S. T. VAUGHAN, Birmingham. PRISONS minister Rory Stewart has vowed to improve the prison system in 12 months or resign. If he can’t improve on the current shambles, he should be sacked. RICHARD CHAMBERS,

Langford, Beds.