It’s a lightweight scheme open to satire and sarcasm
IF, during my time inside, anyone had come to me and my fellow prisoners and said, ‘We’re going to have a roller disco party tonight as part of a rehab programme,’ we would have all said: ‘Pull the other one, guv.’
The people who dreamed up this project were simply not sensitive to public perception and reaction. It is vital in rehabilitation to keep the support of the public and this will undermine reform in the criminal justice field.
For rehabilitation to work, it has to be disciplined. It has to consist of quite hard self-examination and self-motivated change. Going to a party won’t do that.
I have a very favourable view of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) compared to England and Wales when it comes to pioneering initiatives. The SPS has done so much more to promote serious rehabilitation and suddenly we are in danger of having those good initiatives tarnished by what will look to most people like a lightweight, and frankly indefensible, scheme open to satire and sarcasm.
A roller disco party sounds frivolous and the public are likely to react negatively.
I’m all in favour of building up the self-esteem of inmates who want to change. I’m also sympathetic to the argument that this could be a way of getting some prisoners to take exercise.
But roller disco parties have the feel of an exercise that will only temporarily build up a bit of party-going hedonism – and that’s not what prisons are about.
In general, the public expects prisons to be places which protect them from dangerous criminals, punish the guilty and rehabilitate with discipline and determination those prisoners who want to go straight and rejoin society.
The rehabilitation of women prisoners is particularly complex and difficult. They tend to have very complex factors in their crimes, such as having been subjected to domestic violence.
But one crucial element in rehabilitation is mentoring, which is a dedicated form of befriending and guiding – something which can’t be done on roller skates.
No one is saying we have to go back to a draconian regimen. But I would say to the SPS: ‘Think again on this one if you want to carry public opinion with you.’