MORNING SERIAL
WELSH prisons are in such a poor state that people who enter them without addictions often leave hooked on narcotics like spice. Analysis of data by think tank Reform shows one in seven prisoners are becoming addicted to illicit substances, with the figure increasing from 6% to 15% between 2014 and 2019. This is part of what has become a seamless transition from sleeping in a cell to sleeping on the streets – and was the case before the coronavirus crisis.
Combined with a privatised and equally overwhelmed probation service, a costly merry-go-round has been created for those who transgress in our society that does little to deter, provides no sense of justice for victims, cuts off petty criminal offenders from support and serves as a criminality finishing school. So the depressing, monotonous, misery never ends for victim or perpetrator. And this is not to mention the underfunding of our courts.So our prisons were another hole in our society’s underbelly ready to be carved open by Covid. Like many of the others there were two reasons that our elected officials never got round to filling it. First (and most importantly), it was not politically expedient to do so. Elections are not won on the back of prison reform, in the same way that they are not won on tackling domestic violence, climate change or inadequate social care. The political system rewards short-term headlines over long-term success. It shifts the focus of our politicians away from successful, sustainable governance, to simply staying in power. So social ulcers such as a failing justice system go untreated, if they are even acknowledged.
The second reason is that they are really hard to fix. They are complex problems and people who come bearing simple solutions to complicated problems should be treated with the utmost suspicion. Crime rising? Increase sentences! Planet warming? Just plant some trees! Welfare state expensive? Work-shy benefit scroungers!
On April 28, in a ‘shocking’ turn of events, the predictable disaster made its way into Welsh prisons.
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