Comment

Abstract

This is a wide-ranging paper, touching on at least four areas: (a) the efficacy of imprisonment; (b) the need for further privatisation and the incentivisation of contractors by linking profits to reducing recidivism; (c) the possibility of new types of provider; and (d) the potential use of vouchers. Reforming prisonersOn the first issue, the paper concentrates almost solely on the need to change prisoner behaviour on return to the outside world. While I think this is a humane and sensible approach, it is clear that prison serves a number of purposes. Classical criminology would point to several possible functions of punishment, whether imprisonment or anything else. Prisoner reform is certainly one such function, but (in no particular order) there are also issues of deterrence, incapacitation, retribution and restitution. I'm not sure reform is always at the forefront of politicians' or voters' minds.I think that what the author has in mind here is the low-skilled, poorly educated individual -something of a victim himself or herself -who can be turned from a life of crime into a solid and reliable citizen. At the moment the system is not very good at turning such people around, and Guy Opperman (and the government) may be right in saying that we want a greater degree of incentivisation of prison contractors to this end. Whether such incentives, apparently moderately successful at the pilot level, can succeed when applied more generally is something of an act of faith. We know that pilots are not always a good guide to wider results, as they often lack proper controls (matched institutions with similar intakes, in this case) and attract a degree of enthusiasm and effort from staff which is difficult to replicate when rolled out across the system.One thing that bothers many commentators is that, compared with virtually every developed country apart from the United States, the UK jails enormous numbers of people. Doing this may have some positive effect in keeping down crime -from the incapacitation effect, certainly, and possibly (though less plausibly) from the deterrent effect. But it is a costly business, and I am not sure we need quite so many people behind bars. These include people who I am not sure should be in prison at all -such as fine defaulters, various types of white-collar criminals, drug addicts and 80-year-old sex offenders (who in Italy appear to be merely sentenced to house arrest).There are others whose social ruin is already complete and are just killing time. These are disgraced journalists, corrupt policemen, defrocked clergymen, politicians who have cheated on their expense claims. Opperman's 'reform' model doesn't really fit these people, who are never