Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Prison plan 'will cut reoffending'

UK: A network of community prisons to help cut the number of criminals who re-offend has been outlined by Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

In his first major speech on penal policy, the Home Secretary also renewed his backing for greater involvement of the private and voluntary sectors in dealing with offenders.

He told a conference organised by the Prison Reform Trust (PRT): "We should aim to provide good local community prisons which allow individuals to maintain family and community ties and have the ability to provide excellent support and interventions.

"I see these prisons becoming far more engaged with their local communities, and better at building relationships with a wide variety of other organisations.

He added: "I believe that we sometimes fail to give enough emphasis to the powerful impact of supportive relationships to prisoners to realise that offenders often care deeply about letting down those closest to them and want to show that they can change but somehow just never get there.

"An offender is much less likely to re-offend if he feels part of a family and community, from which he receives support as well as owes obligations."

He said the Prison Service should move towards keeping remand prisoners separate from sentenced inmates.

There should also be "planned and guaranteed" housing for released inmates, because currently one in four serving short-term prisoners lose their homes on release.

However, developing such support packages was an "enormous task" which would take years to achieve, he admitted.

The Home Secretary added: "I see no reason of principle or practicality why offender management should not be provided by the private or voluntary sector."

By Just Us posted 27 September 05

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