‘We can cut crime if inmates have a job to go to’
In his blue hard hat, Dominic Raab stood in front of one of the first barless prison windows in British penal history bathed in a winter morning’s sunlight.
The reinforced window, 50 per cent larger than traditional barred glass, was set in a “show” cell at the newbuild Glen Parva prison in Leicestershire, where the Justice Secretary this week marked the completion of one of seven accommodation blocks.
The cells – lighter and airier owing to the bigger windows – look more like student rooms and are set in a campusstyle layout with wider corridors in the blocks to minimise the confrontations that can occur when prisoners pass one another on the narrow terraced walkways of a Victorian jail.
The design aims to create a sense of normality as inmates prepare for release, officials say. It is also the “greenest” jail in the prison estate, with solar panels helping to generate 35 per cent less CO2. But these are not the only innovations Mr Raab hopes will set the jail apart.
The £170million facility, due to open in early 2023, will also be a test-bed for his plans to open up the prison “workforce” to employers in order to cut reoffending rates, by getting prisoners into jobs, and tackle Britain’s skills shortages.
It is one of six jails in a £4billion prison-building programme to provide 18,000 extra places by the mid-2020s to cope with a surge in criminals being jailed by an additional 20,000 police officers and from new laws imposing longer sentences for violent, sexual and terrorist offenders.
“Frankly it ought to work as in any other workforce, which is that there’s a pool of labour there, those that are able and willing and security vetted, and you give the employers the access to them,” Mr Raab says. “So if there are staff shortages, you’re not going to fill them all with the 83,000 prison population but, actually, they can make a material difference.
“And think what that does, not just for business, but what it does for offenders because we know the chance of turning their lives around and keeping them on the straight and narrow and reducing reoffending is much, much higher if they’ve got a stable job to go into.
“My pledge to all of the employees is, we will do, and I will push through everything we can, within reason, within the safety that prisons operate, to make sure that we have a more meaningful and more agile, more flexible prison structure to encourage them in.”
The policy is already in operation, in embryonic form, at Glen Parva, with 47 inmates and ex-offenders working full-time, on full pay, for Lendlease, the contractor building the new “Cat C” prison that will house 1,680 prisoners in their final 18 months before release.
However, Mr Raab is aiming for a “quantum leap” from only 14 per cent of former prisoners at present who are in jobs six months after leaving jail to more than half. “If someone said to me double that, I’d say then double it again, but I can’t tell you over what period of time that’s feasible,” he says.
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) research shows that getting ex-prisoners into work cuts reoffending rates by at least 9 per cent, while equally important is a stable home to go to and treatment for drug or drink addictions.
Which is why Glen Parva and its sister jail, HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire, opening in February, are to pioneer two new policies that will be key planks in Mr Raab’s prisons White Paper to prepare offenders for work: in-cell technology and prisoner “passports”.
Every cell will be equipped with links for computers so that inmates can access online courses, training and treatment, maintain contact with their families, and apply for jobs.
“I would want a presumption that rather than just sitting back in their bunk… waiting for release to hit them, offenders in their cell can take advantage of technology to take a bit of control and responsibility for their life,” says Mr Raab. “To be masters of their own destiny, even in the institutional setting of a prison and start preparing themselves.”
He cites literacy and numeracy classes, vocational courses “whether it’s computer programming or other things”, or practical tests such as the online theory exam for a driving test.
It will provide a direct link to employers. “One of the things we found is, getting employers to be able to have direct contact via the prison governor, but with offenders who are duly vetted so that they can apply for jobs, is really important,” he says.
“Again that’s another thing that online in-cell technology can produce. If you think of the four or five strands of rehabilitation and reform for offenders, getting them off drugs, some of that treatment can be done online.
“Mental health support can be done online. Skills can be done online. Applying for jobs can be done online. Staying in contact with loved ones in a more regular way can be done online.
“It’s just all part of the strands that will give them the best chance of going straight, which means we cut crime by reducing the offending. That’s really the pragmatic thing that I have my laser-like focus on. How can we improve public protection by reducing reoffending in the prison estate?”
Mr Raab admits there will be risks in providing access to the internet, which is why it will not be unfettered.
”There will obviously be high-risk inmates where any online access we would be anxious about,” he says.
That will mean vetting and restrictions on what prisoners can access, but he believes most could benefit and is already considering whether the technology could be made available at older prisons.
In fact, he says the “sky’s the limit”. “There are risks, but there are also enormous opportunities and we’d be crazy not to tap them,” he adds.
“The truth is, within the prison setting, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to channel and focus what access offenders get, and which offenders, so you tap the advantages but you don’t expose anyone to any of the risks.”
Mr Raab is also proposing prisoners should have “passports” whereby they will be expected to amass “stamps” for skills they learn and training they complete as well as keeping a record of how they maintain family contacts and whether they have stable accommodation to go to on release.
It is an idea he has brought to the MOJ, which is now being worked up by officials for the White Paper.
It means offenders will get the “digital backpacks” from the point they enter jail, providing what Mr Raab describes as a “passport for re-entry into society, with all the things that they need to notch up – the stamps if you like, to make that work.”
“It’s to make sure all the strands, all the elements of the jigsaw, that allow a prisoner to go clean and go straight, are all there. It’s something which I think will be good for the self-esteem of offenders,” he says.
“But it is also something which is demonstrable to everyone on the outside who’s looking at someone that’s newly released from prison and gives them confidence that this person is serious about putting their life back on the right track.
“It’s about making sure that the prison estate and the probation service are planning as one for that process from the first day when they end up in prison.”
However, those who refuse to cooperate could face the loss of prison privileges such as free time out of their cell, or access to the gym or the workshop, though he adds: “I think we need to work through the details of this.”
The passports could even lead to an offender being freed, or alternatively spending longer in jail. Asked if they could be used by parole boards, Mr Raab says: “I’m interested in that idea. I’m interested in anything that an offender can do to demonstrate that they really are serious about going straight.”
The passport will also act as a potential CV for employers. “One of the overriding things employers say they need offenders to have is a CV,” he says.
“They need them to have a bank account and they need them to be able to demonstrate the right to work… all of those things the online in-cell technology could help with.”
The MOJ has opened talks with the Department for Work and Pensions to set up bank accounts for offenders while they are in prison so they can pay in earnings and benefits.
The rules allow inmates on day release to earn “the appropriate rate for the job at or above the national minimum wage”. Pay is, however, subject to a levy deducted after tax and court-ordered compensation worth up to 40 per cent of earnings.
Work schemes such as call centres and restaurants staffed by offenders – and already set up at some prisons – are also likely to be expanded.
“The MOJ needs to be more agile about this, more flexible. The opportunities are legion. We’ve got to grasp them and we have just got to be a bit more creative in our mindset about it,” says Mr Raab.
The new policies may seem liberal. But there is an economic and social logic, in that 80 per cent of crimes are committed by repeat offenders and there are one million job vacancies.
There is also a counter-intuitive point that Mr Raab is keen to highlight – that ex-prisoners can make better workers. “You’d think that employers were nervous about hiring offenders but employers consistently tell me they’re incredibly well motivated,” he says.
“They’re not just employable, they’re very promotable. They have less sick days than the average employee that they hire. Overall, the feedback I’ve had has consistently been that this really works for businesses.”
‘Offenders in their cell can take advantage of technology to take a bit of responsibility for their life’