Introduction
Prison systems in most parts of the world are undergoing different challenges. For example, the current prison system in England and Wales is considered to be in crisis (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). The challenges escalating in the prison system include cases related to self-harm, violence over the past few years, overcrowding, and understaffing. The quality of healthcare, education offered, and availability of rehabilitation programs in prison systems are of poor standards. To reduce these challenges, many changes addressing the surging of these issues need to be made. For example, the authority in power should prioritize creating extra prison spaces. However, this requires a substantial investment of resources to ensure prison safety and rehabilitation services for post-release offenders. Programs and initiatives that address the cause of crimes need to be implemented in various systems, especially in education systems. Therefore, the prison crisis in England and Wales is contributed by factors like overcrowding and failure to address underlying crime that require urgent intervention to promote safety and better living conditions in prison.
Discussion
The prison system in England and Wales is in crisis because of different constituents, which leads to the deterioration of the prison system. Different inspectorate reports and news from various media houses and campaign evaluations state that the significant cause of the crisis in prison systems is poor safety and care services offered to prisoners and staff (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). These result in the emergence of unconducive conditions that result in violence, corruption, harm, and disorder. Consequently, there are reported a high number of deaths in custody, high rates related to the usage of drugs, and increased cases related to self-injury in prison systems (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union has made the government shift its focus from passing prison and Court bills into law. Consequently, this has forced the government to fail to deliver its promises. Thus, failure to implement laws results in the escalation of news related to the prison crisis
The political systems prison crisis through the shifting of justice secretaries who keep promising changes that do not happen. For example, in December 2017, the then-justice secretary David Lidington delivered a speech that articulated reforms to mitigate the prison crisis. The same day, the inspection report was released that exposed how the prison systems were worse. The following year, in January of 2018, the new state secretary, David Gauke, received an urgent notification from the chief Prison inspector requiring him to notify the public concerning steps taken in addressing eight deaths that emerged from Nottingham prison the last two years (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). Therefore, it is evident that there is a severe problem facing the prison system that requires all stakeholders in society to reduce crime.
The economic crisis that took place in 2008 led made the government to impose austerity cuts on prison systems. Thus, this has led to the deterioration of conditions in prison systems. For example, persistent overcrowding in prison has led to freeing offenders with minor mistakes. Consequently, this has compromised the safety of the private and public sectors in the country. As a result, various scandals have emerged, showing the dark side of prison systems. For example, the killing and escape of two prisoners from Pentonville prison. Furthermore, other hygiene and poor living scandals were reported at HMP Liverpool (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). Hence, it is evident that crime-related issues are rising in England and Wales due to corruption.
Various reports have been showing why the prison systems in England and Wales are in crisis. For instance, the Council of Europe’s committee responsible for preventing torture and human mistreatment published a report on the status of prisons in England. In the report, most prisons are in crisis because of poor detention facilities and procedures. Most prisons in England lack safety for inmates and staff. The national inspection report made similar claims. In the report, the Ministry of Justice released data showing that there were 350 deaths found in custody, whereby 120 of them were self-imposed (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). These were the shocking figures recorded in a single year; hence, this clearly shows how prison systems are in crisis.
Cases related to self-harm have been on the rise in the recent past. This is due to the challenges that prisoners go through. For instance, cases related to assaults have been growing steadily over the past few years. This involves cases related to prisoner-to-prisoner or prisoner-to-officers. The number of reported related assaults was 20 425 in 2018, and in 2019, the number of reported cases was 25 031 (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). These figures manifest how the prison system is in crisis. Hence, the increase in violence has affected the way prison officers work.
Consequently, prison officers have continuously called for a strike that is being halted by court order. Some of the grievances raised by prison officers include job cuts, which affected their work environment conditions and increased their exposure to danger and harm. The police raised concerns about drug misuse that resulted in prisoners’ lack of discipline. The state of staff corruption is high, which stimulates the mismanagement of resources (Chamberlen & Carvalho, 2019). These circumstances paint a clear picture of a severe crisis in prison systems.
The parliamentary system in England and Wales was against the backlog of cases, especially in Crown Courts. This has led to the accumulation of cases; for instance, 62,000 cases were recorded last year since the government standoff with barristers because of legal aid (Kirk, 2022). Further, 3,500 cases have been reported over the last three months (Kirk, 2022). The conflict between Barristers escalated when the criminal bar association (CBA) rejected John Boris’s government’s new legal fees offer. The then secretary of Justice, Raab Dominic, refused to give in to CBA’s demands, which demanded more legal fees. These forced the barristers to vote in favor of going to strike. The court is setting a new scheme whereby trials are set to happen in 2024 (Kirk, 2022). Therefore, witnesses, defendants, and alleged victims will be tried after a year.
A new justice secretary was appointed who ensured the conflict ended by agreeing with the Barristers to suspend the strike and accept the legal fees. However, the barristers suspended the industrial action, and only 54% agreed with the move (Godfrey et al., 2022). These left other barristers dissatisfied. Therefore, there needs to be continuous monitoring of the government management of the legal budget. Even after the easing of conflict between the CBA and the government, there is continuous unrest across the legal system because of the failure of the government to fulfill its promise in reforming the legal aid and flagship IT sector (Godfrey et al., 2022). Therefore, it is anticipated that there will be strikes due to the failure of the government to offer the promised reforms.
The staff in courts and magistrates are planning to strike if the promised improvements are not met. In addition, the backlog of cases has been attributed to the minimal commitment provided by court staff over the last few years. However, the government insists that the emergence of covid-19 has resulted in a backlog of cases. The delays experienced in the prison system and courts had been long-term challenges even before the emergence of covid-19. More than 40 000 cases were recorded outstanding in courts (Godfrey et al., 2022). The government catalyzed for delay of cases in courts after limiting the number of sitting days. Therefore, these led to the idleness of legal professionals and victims facing long waiting times for trials in courts.
The emergence of covid-19 led to the accumulation of cases in courts to more than 50% of the previous years (Kirk, 2022). The outstanding cases in courts are approximately over 60,000, which delays the offering of justice in courts (Godfrey et al., 2022). Consequently, this makes more people commit a crime since the time taken for crime committers to face trials fails to guarantee justice at the right time.
The immediate areas of immediate concern in prison systems involve different areas that need urgent actions. For instance, overcrowding prisons in England and Wales create widespread and complex challenges, especially in maintaining prisoners’ health and providing safe living conditions. Overcrowding in prisons leads to insanity and violent conditions that are risky to prisoners’ mental and physical well-being; thus, this leads to stress and psychological torture. The crowding rate in prisons remains worrying since it is in huge numbers. Approximately 80 000 people are held in penal institutions, which include pre-trial detainees, sentenced or remanded (MacDonald, 2018). This accumulation of prisoners is causing the suffering of staff workers in prison. For instance, prisoners are violent prisoners and have a high infection rate. Consequently, the conditions in prison systems are deteriorating up to the point that it is not meeting the expected international standards and rules. In addition, there is a shortage of prison officers; consequently, this has led to the failure of prisoners to receive their healthcare appointments (MacDonald, 2018). Therefore, these issues need urgent intervention to reduce mental health problems that are rising urgently.
There is a shortage of healthcare workers for prisoners; therefore, prisoners are untreated, leading to psychological torture that affects the general well-being of prisoners. The failure to meet the demands of the prison officials and staff contributes significantly to failure and crisis in prison systems. The number of healthcare and prison staff in the prison systems has reduced to 30% (MacDonald, 2018). Therefore, prisoners fail to participate in the appropriate rehabilitative procedures and leisure activities due to understaffing of officials (MacDonald, 2018). Consequently, prisoners spend extra time locked in prison cells; thus, this makes them live unhealthy lives.
The shortage of medical staffing violates international standards of the article of social and cultural rights (SCR), whereby each prisoner is given autonomy to better physical and mental health standards. SCR works with a united nation for social development to enhance awareness and ensure social protection, especially for prisoners. The failure to provide quality services to prisoners leads to unacceptable delays. The lack of high-security and medium beds in hospitals contributes to this. The shortage of medical staffing in prison is not justified as a way of punishing prisoners with unconducive living conditions that affect prisoners’ physical and psychological health (MacDonald, 2018). Consequently, prisoners are entitled to well and facilitated medical care with minimized harm. Offenders need to be taken care of to recover from illness; otherwise, they could do the offense again. Prisoners receive illegal substances like psychoactive substances that contribute to their poor health status of prisoners (MacDonald, 2018). Therefore, poor health care and prison protection are urgent areas that require serious attention.
Another area that needs urgent attention is the lack of security, which needs to change desperately. The members of parliament have raised concerns about the status of security in prisons, especially the manner the government pledges on prisons ahead of the upcoming election. The justice committee led by Bob Nail has criticized the approach taken by John Boris. According to the justice committee, the Prime Minister needed more explicit long-term strategies and reforms to transform court systems operations. The committee required the Prime Minister to clarify how the government could meet the pledges made by increasing legal funding. However, leaders are accused of using the situation for political gain (Savage, 2021). The ministry of justice has acknowledged the prison system’s pressing security issues. The chief inspector, however, highlighted that the major security issues are experienced because prisons are under-resourced, making prisons violent, especially during the covid-19 period when there was onerous restriction in prisons (Savage, 2021). Consequently, prisons’ insecurity is attributed to how officers use force to protect other staff and themselves.
The issues that are surrounding prison systems need to be solved. This can be done by adopting different strategies. For instance, ensuring reduced prison overcrowding is the key to mitigating the challenges and health problems the staff and prisoners are experiencing. To reduce overcrowding, the government should start programs that enable prisoners to manage drug abuse. These can be done by initiating education programs that sensitize released offenders to ways of avoiding crimes (MacDonald, 2018). Hence, failing to re-offend reduces prison crowding and provides society safety since crimes are minimized.
The European Union (EU) encourages the judicial systems to adopt and promote fair sentencing strategies and care programs that increase social reintegration. Social integration involves the integration of institutional programs that play a significant role in designing offenders in a manner that makes them re-enter and be accepted in society. These programs include education, job training, mentoring, counseling, mental health care, and substance training. When fully offered and assessed to offenders, these programs become effective. Some agencies have volunteered to offer community-based programs that offer follow and after-care services to offenders (MacDonald, 2018). The government should take the initiative of linking institutional services with community-based programs to ensure offenders are well-trained and well-supported before being released to society. To ensure effective social integration, the government should develop straightforward intervention programs such as grouping crimes into their groups for a more accessible identity of offenders and facilitating education programs that reduce recidivism (MacDonald, 2018). Therefore, offering training services to offenders transforms their lives, leading to adopting a healthy and safe lifestyle.
Funding prison systems in England and Wales has been a long-term challenge, contributing significantly to the prison system’s challenges. To transform prisons as a way of reforming offenders, creating new funding opportunities for the prison system is necessary. This can be done by adopting a transformative prison act funded by the ministry of justice (Clear et al., 2018). The program allows states to apply and request funds that offer supportive practices that could improve the condition of prisoners and staff members. The funds could offer supportive training programs to cognitive communities with special operations in different prison units. The funds could also offer therapeutic programs that support and improve social behaviors. These programs could include anger management, artistic schemes, and family and parenting workshops. For instance, the California transformative act has improvised mental health and created self-awareness through artistic work (Clear et al., 2018). Hence, these schemes could be significant in providing rehabilitative sessions to offenders.
Additionally, in response to handling prison crises such as self-harm, the police and legal representatives should shift their focus from incapacitation to ensuring rehabilitation. To ensure there is change, the government should provide extra legal funds that are used in rehabilitation missions that are aimed at transforming prisons. Rehabilitative transformation should be based on evidence, therapeutic programs, and impacts on incarcerated individuals. Revisiting of some prison policies should be incorporated such that imprisoned people receive fundamental credit for engaging in comprehensive schemes such as cognitive communities. States, prison departments, and the ministry of justice should implement innovative programs and models that improvise the manner prisons operate (Chamberlain et al., 2021). Hence, these mitigate the escalation of issues related to prison crises, such as lack of security.
To avoid people from being dragged to legal justice because of petty offenses, public safety can be secured by using community justice centers (CJCs). The CJC offers advisory services to people in crisis due to the use of substances, mental conditions, or family trauma. Research shows that community-based programs such as public or social services help traumatized people improve their condition rather than using the criminal justice system (Chamberlain et al., 2021). Using community-based programs could reduce social work’s burden from escalating in prison systems. Hence, these programs may reduce health and mental challenges.
The prison crisis experienced contributed to low budgetary plans for prison systems. The government has responded to these by rebuilding and renewing the prisons. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, confirmed that there is a plan by the government to build more prisons as a way of ensuring there is safety. The deputy prime minister added that the government is deploying a technology-based model that could help stop the flow of drugs, phones, and weapons into prison cells. There is a plan to eliminate drug dealers and offenders to cut crime and keep the public safe. The allocation of extra funds has backed up these strategies to prison systems, whereby approximately 4 billion euros have been allocated to prison systems (Loader, 2020). The budget is expected to build modern, secure, and innovative cells with conducive conditions to rehabilitate offenders and ensure safety. An additional six prisons are expected before 2027 (Rushchenko, 2019). The prisons will contain facilities that will provide offenders with vocational training skills (Rushchenko, 2019). Hence, these will transform offenders from criminals to productive people that society can accommodate.
Additionally, there is a plan to recruit more officers in the next three years. It is approximated that more than 2,000 officers will be employed in the next two years. There will be a new retention scheme to keep existing staff members in the police service. The prison governors will be guaranteed more autonomy to run their jails. There will be a new performance measure that will be used to in ensuring there is adequate security, training, and minimized drug use and addiction. Prisoners under construction will be used as training centers for prisoners (Boin, 2018). Additionally, these programs will help trained offenders find jobs that will reduce the chances of re-offending as a measure of cutting crime. There is a plan to crack down on drug dealers and traffickers in the supply chain and criminal gangs making hefty profits from illegal merchandising. These will reduce more exposure of young people and youths to the use of drugs, who are the primary target of this criminal (Boin, 2018). Hence, this will result in safety across the country, which is the government’s aim.
Conclusion
In conclusion, prison systems in England face a crisis that is contributed by several factors. For instance, the government has consistently failed to provide an adequate budget for the prison system. This has contributed to prison overcrowding since the available cells cannot accommodate the rising number of offenders. The government has failed to fulfill its promise to reduce challenges in the prison system. The accumulation of these challenges has further led to the escalation of other issues like creating unconducive living conditions in prison, self-harm, and insecurity that has led to cell deaths. These challenges need urgent intervention in order to reduce their accumulation. For example, the government should increase its legal aid to prisons, enabling more prisons to be constructed. Hence, these will lead to the creation of rehabilitation centers that will transform offenders into the right people that can be accommodated in society. The government will crack down on drug dealers who benefit from illegal business. Thus, these will ensure enough security, and by doing so, there will be a safe environment for living.
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