Should UK prisons shift their focus from release to rehabilitation?

Unfortunately, the issue is not that the British Government is blind to the problems associated with UK prisons.

Certainly the idea that prisons should focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment is not a novel one, and Michel Foucault’s view that “prisons do not diminish the crime rate…detention causes recidivism” can be cited in his Punitive Society Lectures back in the 1970s.

Rather, the attitude adopted by the British government is that of Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who argued that prisons were a means to an end which prevented the prisoner from carrying the work to another market.

Perhaps this would explain the enhanced powers given to UK policemen in the Crime and Policing bill that was introduced into parliament last week.

However, this comes at a time when the government’s approach to overcrowded prisons is sparking controversy. It is now offering early release rather than considering why the prisons are so full in the first place or the poor treatment endured by those incarcerated in these institutions.

While this has meant that many people serving time for less serious crimes were released after having served 40% rather than 50% of their sentence, it’s done nothing to improve the conditions of, and resources available to, those behind bars.

With this in mind then, we must consider whether Labour’s emphasis on release over rehabilitation is a sustainable, or indeed humane, approach to the UK custodial system.

Los jovenes encarcelados

Aside from the rate of reoffences, the failure of the youth custody system in the UK is also obvious when considering that the rate of suicide, violence, and other types of harm in Spanish youth re-education centres is also much lower than here.

Despite Plummer and Beake asking these questions a decade ago, it seems little has been done to make any of these necessary changes.

In January 2012, Jake Hardy took his own life after being bullied by other people, both kids and staff, at Hindley young offender institution in Wigan.

Although the inquest jury released a damning verdict of Hindley, including staff failures to prevent Hardy’s death, the Youth Custody report carried out less than two years ago in 2023 paints a less than optimistic picture of the wellbeing of young offenders in UK facilities.

It revealed, amongst other tragic statistics, the rising levels of violence and self-harm by more than a quarter in youth custody in England and Wales.

While it’s impossible, and inadvisable, to generalise the reason for violence and low levels of wellbeing in UK youth custody, it’s obvious that this view of young people as inmates rather than as children isn’t working as a prison model.

Research tells us that young people are increasingly suffering from poor mental health as a result, in part, to a lack of socialisation – and that’s out in the non-incarcerated world.

In prison then, with almost a third of young people spending most of their time doing nothing, and more than half reporting that they felt uncared for by the staff, it’s not exactly a huge leap to connect the increase in serious disorder in UK youth custody with the lack of productivity and compassion faced by those inside.

Even for under 18 year olds, convicted offences are kept on the Police National Computer database. The message from the British government then is clear: once a criminal, always a criminal.

This model of cyclical incarceration presents UK young offenders centres as a self fulfilling prophecy, preventing people from becoming functioning members of society by condemning them to pay for the crimes they committed as children whilst offering no rehabilitative alternative.

By contrast, Spain’s young offenders’ criminal record is cleared at 18, making it possible for previously convicted teens to get on with their lives – once they’ve been rehabilitated. In UK reeducation centres such as Ward, which follows a model more similar to Spain’s since it was taken over by Diagrama, there’s even an “autonomous block”.

This is where young people in the weeks before their release-date have the opportunity to practice looking after themselves without supervision prior to social reintegration.

In Diagarama’s reeducation centres in Spain, such as La Zarza in Murcia, los jovenes encarcelados find themselves occupied for the majority of their days. Translating to “blackberry bush” in English, whether intentionally or not, its name alone suggests a place in which you can reap the fruits of your labour when it comes to positive rehabilitation.

Aside from playing sports, tending to farm animals, and gardening, the young people at La Zarza often return to their room only to sleep, at night and during a 45 minute siesta in the afternoon.

They’re even allowed to go home for the weekend as a reward for good behaviour in what’s known as a semi-open stage. This is a huge switch from places like Feltham young offenders institution, where young people have been known to spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells.

As for the staff in centres like La Zarza, they all have qualifications for this type of work specifically. They get involved with activities, use positive affirmation, and build strong and consistent relationships with the young people who undertake 25 hours of lessons every week.

Significantly, they’re not called guards, but “educators”.

A psychological approach to prisons

Run by La Fundación Diagrama Intervencion Psicosocial, (aka Diagrama), La Zarza is one of 38 similar centres in the country which have changed the way youth incarceration is viewed based on positive psychology and humane approaches to reeducation.

Upon arrival, each child is put through a 20 day induction which involves a medical and psychological assessment and produces an individual plan for their time in the centre.

This is a bit like an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) for students in England, whose individual needs are often shown to be more adequately met in an SEN rather than a mainstream school.

What’s more, the cost per child is also significantly lower, at around £70,000 per year. In the UK, this is around £140,000 per year.

Bentham is wrong to view prisons as a necessary means of separating criminals from “regular people”, or as somewhere which will concentrate on the repeated production of a certain kind of person forever constrained by his conviction and corresponding cell time.

As David Romero Maguire, chief executive at Diagrama, explains, there’s no point in making [young people] miserable because they’ve committed a crime. “What we need to do”, he says, “is cheer them up in terms of making them learn, and learning should be a good experience.”

This includes not only academic knowledge and practical skills – both of which are offered by Diagrama’s centres – but also by offering young people the space to cultivate more open-minded approaches to the treatment of themselves and others.