We should not be surprised by the president of the Prison Governors Association’s view that politicians have reduced the Prison Service to “lunacy” (Prison places in England and Wales are ‘bust’, says governors’ union chief, 9 October). The roll call of shame is long: first, England and Wales have 159 per hundred thousand of the population in prison, which is high. Second, the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10. In many European countries it is 14. Third, the demands on probation services to return people on probation to court and people on licence straight back to prison for a missed appointment breach takes no account of the fact that such people are on probation or licence because they broke the rules – indeed, they have spent a lot of their lives breaking rules.
And lastly, remands in custody pre-sentence are dispensed far too readily and sentences have got longer over the past decade or so. Is it any wonder that the prison system, like the criminal justice system, is not merely broken but smashed to smithereens?
Andy Stelman
Retired assistant chief probation officer
