[Music]
when I found out that I’d be speaking
here to you today on the topic of
prisons I was pretty excited and I
called my mom’s tell her all about my
plan to speak about the social injustice
of our prison system and her response
was slightly less enthusiastic than I’d
expected
she said most people probably won’t
listen to that kind of talk because for
most of us prison is so far removed from
our day-to-day lives that we just don’t
care so if you want people to pay
attention tell us how prison affects all
of us as usual she had a point
so rather than speak to you about the
human rights angle on prison reform
I’ll instead share with you some
information in facts about our prison
system so that you can make up your own
minds about how it’s performing and how
it might be able to be improved and
something I’ll see that prison really is
an issue that does affect all of us I’d
like you to imagine that you had a
million pounds to invest and you chose
to invest it with me and I lost half of
it and you had another 1 million pounds
to invest and you gave it to me again
and I lost half not a great investment
strategy but that’s pretty much what
we’re doing with our prison system
except for the stakes are exponentially
higher every year UK taxpayers spend 2.8
billion pounds on prisons thinking that
they’ll lower crime and every year 45%
of people leaving prison riaf end and we
continue to do the same thing every year
despite getting the same poor results
the bottom line is that our prisons are
highly ineffective and the question that
comes to my mind is haven’t we come up
with anything better and if not why not
to begin answering this question I
thought it would be helpful to provide
some background information on prisons
where did it come from and who’s in
there as I’m aware that unlike me most
of you probably don’t Google prison
every day
well may seem like prisons have been
around for a very long time they’re
actually a pretty new concept the
establishment of the modern-day prison a
secure criminal rehabilitation center is
only two centuries old from the 1800s
although the theory underpinning these
prisons is much older dating back to a
two thousand five hundred year old
premise from Plato that we could both
punish and reform at the same time when
you think about it the notion that you
can both punish and reform at the same
time is slightly contradictory it’s like
the classic carrot and stick argument
except suggesting that you can give
people both the carrot and the stick
together and she’d the same results so
it’s not too surprising that almost
immediately after the first prisons were
created to both punish and reform
prisoners a debate broke out among the
general public about what was the right
balance the pro punishment group argued
that prisons were too soft they should
be harsher to punish prisoners for
wrongdoing for breaking the law for
harming victims and deter them from
committing future crimes scare them
straight prisons should punish more the
pro-reform group argued the opposite
prisons are too harsh it’s enough of a
punishment to lose your freedom and be
separated from society beyond that
prisons should be humane institutions of
moral instruction and rehabilitation and
should correct the behavior of prisoners
so that once released maybe model
citizens prisons should reform more it’s
been nearly 200 years yet as you can see
from these recent newspaper headlines
the debate on whether prisons should
punish more or reformed war really
hasn’t changed that much what has
changed is who’s in our prisons today
there are about 85,000 prisoners in the
UK one in three of them is under the age
of 30
one-in-six is over fifty and one in 35
is a veteran if you imagined yourself
walking into a prison into a wing that
had exactly 100 prisoners who
represented the national averages you’d
find that 11 of those prisoners are on
remand meaning that they haven’t been
convicted of a crime and are awaiting
trial
the majority 54 are there for a
non-violent offense like theft or drugs
15 have committed a violent offense and
5 are in for sexual crime it’s also
possible that a few of these prisoners
are innocent I’m aware I just presented
quite a few numbers so if you only
remember one from this entire talk I
hope it’s this next one there nearly
every prisoner 99.9 percent of them will
be released at the end of their sentence
and we’ll come back to society of the
entire UK prison population there are
only 59 prisoners serving whole life
sentences the remainder of the 85,000
prisoners will be released and we’ll
come back to society so the question
that that leaves us with is what kind of
prison experience do we want prisoners
have given that they will be coming back
home to what extent should prisons focus
on punishing or reforming rather than
give you more statistics I’d like to
share with you a story about a prison
that punishes and a prison that reforms
through the true life experience of a
man named Noah and while Knoll is just
one person his story is reflective of
that of many people I’ve met over the
past decade who spent time in prisons
Knoll is a Londoner born in the 1960s at
the age of 14 while skipping school with
a friend Noah was picked up by the
burglary squad and despite not having
done anything wrong he was beaten that
by them Noah says that his anger at this
injustice led him to throw himself into
crime into an all-out war
resulted in him spending much of his
adult life locked up behind bars in a
series of UK prisons
I spoke to know about his prison
experience what was it like what did
prison do for him at first no said he
was sent to prisons like Wandsworth
where the main focus was on punishment
deterrence making prisoners suffer and
feel remorse through shame and pain Noll
said that I want worth the first thing
that he noticed was that as soon as he
entered he was treated like property
commodity stripped of everything that he
owned including his first name from then
on he was known by his prisoner number
and sometimes by his last name at
Wandsworth he said prisoners were only
allowed to shower once a week they’d get
a change of underwear every two weeks
and they were locked into their cells
for 23 hours a day with one hour of gym
access which was denied liberally at the
discretion of prison staff as a result
no had plenty of time to self-reflect
and he spent it focusing on his hatred
for authority and Wandsworth the prison
staff and prisoners treated each other
with contempt and hostility and the
language used in this prison was
animalistic mealtime was referred to as
feeding time and the prison staff used
to say that happiness was door shaped it
would come when prisoners were locked up
at Wandsworth there was no education or
encouragement no referred to the
experience as boring with periods of
brutality a waste of space I hate
Factory and a place where you could
enter unable to read or write and leave
two decades later still unable to read
or write
I asked Noah what happened when he left
Wandsworth did the harsh approach work
Noah said that Wandsworth was horrible
he never wanted to go back but he and
his fellow prisoners left Wandsworth
bitter and resentful without practical
life skills for how to support
themselves legally in the community and
the more he faced challenges like trying
to get a job or find housing the angrier
more bitter he became and the more he
wanted payback against the authority
system and the people who had treated
him so poorly in addition although it
does sound cliche Knoll said that prison
taught him how to be a better criminal
at one prison he learned how to get a
gun which facilitated his career as a
bank robber and he went on to commit
over 200 bank robberies and he spent
time and many more UK prisons each of
which had a similar focus on punishment
all of this changed however when Noah
was sent in the early 2000s to Grendon
prison
Glendon is unique as the only UK prison
with the sole focus of reform ensuring
that prisoners receive the education
training and stimulation to promote
their successful reintegration back into
society
Grandin operates on the principle of
normality life on the inside of the
prison reflects life on the outside and
prisoners are treated as people with the
future potential to contribute at
grenzen Noah said that he was listened
to and made to feel safe the prison
staff treated him with respect and not
only asked him for his first name but
told him there’s as well and Brendan
will spent 10 hours each day in
education work or therapy rather than
use his mental energy focusing on his
hatred for the authority system he spent
it working on his problems rebuilding
relationships with his family and
getting ready to make the significant
life changes necessary in his life to
ensure that he live a positive life once
released and not recreate the same
mistakes of his past when Noah left
Brendan instead of leaving bitter he
left with hope he felt that he had a
chance and not only did he not riaf end
but he went on to become the editor of a
national newspaper and write six books
he pays taxes now and contributes
positively to our society the same as do
you and I and when I asked know about
Brendan he credits it with giving him
the chance to change and turn his life
around
so what was the better option in which
of these two cases would you be more
comfortable with someone like Noll
leaving prison and coming back to
society as your friend colleague
classmate neighbor or employee
Wandsworth offers society and almost
satisfying vengeance and harshly
punishing Noll for breaking the law and
harming victims but Noll also left
Wandsworth bitter and resentful without
practical life skills or knowledge on
how to break the cycle of crime Grendon
on the other hand offers conditions but
some people would say are too good for
perpetrators of crime they’re not harsh
enough but think of it this way
no left Grendon with real potential to
live a positive life on the outside real
potential to live a law-abiding life
real potential to pay taxes all of which
indirectly contribute to your own
well-being through lower crime and lower
tax some of you may be thinking that
this story was nice but surely if we
look at the numbers they’ll show that a
prison model based on punishment is more
effective at deterring crime so let’s
look at the statistics they show that
for prisoners serving comparable
sentences the reoffending rate at
Grendon is 8% relative to 24% elsewhere
moreover the research shows that
prisoners who participate in prison
based rehabilitative programming have
much lower reoffending rates those who
receive drug rehabilitation programming
in prison have a reoffending rate of 31%
education in prison 19% and vocational
training 17% the same findings apply
outside of the UK as well if we look at
the United States a country that’s known
for its prison system which focuses on
punishment and Norway which is well
known for a prison system focusing on
reform we see that the 2-year me
conviction rate for prisoners leaving
American prisons
is 36% and it’s 20% in Norway
that’s nearly 50% lower when the prison
seeks to reform and it’s not like the
reformed prison system is not much more
expensive either
today the annual cost of housing one
prisoner for one year is 43,000 pounds
of Grendon and 32,000 pounds at
Wandsworth and the difference pays for
itself pretty quickly with the lower
reoffending rate so remember your
original 1 million pound investment
where would you rather put it what I’m
trying to share is that some prisoners
will reoffending on everyone will leave
a reformed prison as a model citizen but
the majority of prisoners will be
released from prison and will come back
to society and they are people who if
given the right interventions can be
productive citizens the evidence clearly
shows us the prisons that reform or make
common sense and financial sense and yet
despite all that knowledge we continue
to debate whether our prison system
should punish more or reform more and
for people like me who interact
regularly with the prison system this is
exceptionally frustrating and I ask
myself the question given everything
that we know why is this so hard it
could be because when somebody breaks
the law and harms another person or harm
Society most of us feel anger and want
vengeance and I would feel the same way
if someone hurt me or my family and
those emotions can get in the way of
logic or maybe it’s because many of us
just haven’t thought that much about
this issue it has it seems pressing or
important enough to us or we haven’t had
the right information and so we just
stuck with the status quo for 200 years
but I hope what we’ve learned is that we
can’t have both punishment and reform in
a prison it doesn’t work so as a society
we have to choose one or the other
because
doesn’t make sense to keep rehashing the
same debate punished or a forum keep
wasting billions on an ineffective
prison system and keep advocating for
harsher punishments that we think will
deter crime but have actually been
proven to decrease our safety so here
are the three questions I’d like to
leave you with as a society are we ready
to accept that being tough on crime
through harsher punishments and prisons
that focus on punishment has the
unintended consequence of being tougher
for all of us for the collective good
are we ready to give up our desire for
prisons that punish in favor of Prisons
that reform are we ready
to build a reformed prison system that
is the benchmark for the rest of the
world in effectively reducing
reoffending I think we’re ready
so let’s upgrade the standards of our
prison system to a 21st century model
for reforming people who’ve committed
crime rather than stagnate with the
2,500 year olds platonic concept thank
you
you
when I found out that I’d be speaking
here to you today on the topic of
prisons I was pretty excited and I
called my mom’s tell her all about my
plan to speak about the social injustice
of our prison system and her response
was slightly less enthusiastic than I’d
expected
she said most people probably won’t
listen to that kind of talk because for
most of us prison is so far removed from
our day-to-day lives that we just don’t
care so if you want people to pay
attention tell us how prison affects all
of us as usual she had a point
so rather than speak to you about the
human rights angle on prison reform
I’ll instead share with you some
information in facts about our prison
system so that you can make up your own
minds about how it’s performing and how
it might be able to be improved and
something I’ll see that prison really is
an issue that does affect all of us I’d
like you to imagine that you had a
million pounds to invest and you chose
to invest it with me and I lost half of
it and you had another 1 million pounds
to invest and you gave it to me again
and I lost half not a great investment
strategy but that’s pretty much what
we’re doing with our prison system
except for the stakes are exponentially
higher every year UK taxpayers spend 2.8
billion pounds on prisons thinking that
they’ll lower crime and every year 45%
of people leaving prison riaf end and we
continue to do the same thing every year
despite getting the same poor results
the bottom line is that our prisons are
highly ineffective and the question that
comes to my mind is haven’t we come up
with anything better and if not why not
to begin answering this question I
thought it would be helpful to provide
some background information on prisons
where did it come from and who’s in
there as I’m aware that unlike me most
of you probably don’t Google prison
every day
well may seem like prisons have been
around for a very long time they’re
actually a pretty new concept the
establishment of the modern-day prison a
secure criminal rehabilitation center is
only two centuries old from the 1800s
although the theory underpinning these
prisons is much older dating back to a
two thousand five hundred year old
premise from Plato that we could both
punish and reform at the same time when
you think about it the notion that you
can both punish and reform at the same
time is slightly contradictory it’s like
the classic carrot and stick argument
except suggesting that you can give
people both the carrot and the stick
together and she’d the same results so
it’s not too surprising that almost
immediately after the first prisons were
created to both punish and reform
prisoners a debate broke out among the
general public about what was the right
balance the pro punishment group argued
that prisons were too soft they should
be harsher to punish prisoners for
wrongdoing for breaking the law for
harming victims and deter them from
committing future crimes scare them
straight prisons should punish more the
pro-reform group argued the opposite
prisons are too harsh it’s enough of a
punishment to lose your freedom and be
separated from society beyond that
prisons should be humane institutions of
moral instruction and rehabilitation and
should correct the behavior of prisoners
so that once released maybe model
citizens prisons should reform more it’s
been nearly 200 years yet as you can see
from these recent newspaper headlines
the debate on whether prisons should
punish more or reformed war really
hasn’t changed that much what has
changed is who’s in our prisons today
there are about 85,000 prisoners in the
UK one in three of them is under the age
of 30
one-in-six is over fifty and one in 35
is a veteran if you imagined yourself
walking into a prison into a wing that
had exactly 100 prisoners who
represented the national averages you’d
find that 11 of those prisoners are on
remand meaning that they haven’t been
convicted of a crime and are awaiting
trial
the majority 54 are there for a
non-violent offense like theft or drugs
15 have committed a violent offense and
5 are in for sexual crime it’s also
possible that a few of these prisoners
are innocent I’m aware I just presented
quite a few numbers so if you only
remember one from this entire talk I
hope it’s this next one there nearly
every prisoner 99.9 percent of them will
be released at the end of their sentence
and we’ll come back to society of the
entire UK prison population there are
only 59 prisoners serving whole life
sentences the remainder of the 85,000
prisoners will be released and we’ll
come back to society so the question
that that leaves us with is what kind of
prison experience do we want prisoners
have given that they will be coming back
home to what extent should prisons focus
on punishing or reforming rather than
give you more statistics I’d like to
share with you a story about a prison
that punishes and a prison that reforms
through the true life experience of a
man named Noah and while Knoll is just
one person his story is reflective of
that of many people I’ve met over the
past decade who spent time in prisons
Knoll is a Londoner born in the 1960s at
the age of 14 while skipping school with
a friend Noah was picked up by the
burglary squad and despite not having
done anything wrong he was beaten that
by them Noah says that his anger at this
injustice led him to throw himself into
crime into an all-out war
resulted in him spending much of his
adult life locked up behind bars in a
series of UK prisons
I spoke to know about his prison
experience what was it like what did
prison do for him at first no said he
was sent to prisons like Wandsworth
where the main focus was on punishment
deterrence making prisoners suffer and
feel remorse through shame and pain Noll
said that I want worth the first thing
that he noticed was that as soon as he
entered he was treated like property
commodity stripped of everything that he
owned including his first name from then
on he was known by his prisoner number
and sometimes by his last name at
Wandsworth he said prisoners were only
allowed to shower once a week they’d get
a change of underwear every two weeks
and they were locked into their cells
for 23 hours a day with one hour of gym
access which was denied liberally at the
discretion of prison staff as a result
no had plenty of time to self-reflect
and he spent it focusing on his hatred
for authority and Wandsworth the prison
staff and prisoners treated each other
with contempt and hostility and the
language used in this prison was
animalistic mealtime was referred to as
feeding time and the prison staff used
to say that happiness was door shaped it
would come when prisoners were locked up
at Wandsworth there was no education or
encouragement no referred to the
experience as boring with periods of
brutality a waste of space I hate
Factory and a place where you could
enter unable to read or write and leave
two decades later still unable to read
or write
I asked Noah what happened when he left
Wandsworth did the harsh approach work
Noah said that Wandsworth was horrible
he never wanted to go back but he and
his fellow prisoners left Wandsworth
bitter and resentful without practical
life skills for how to support
themselves legally in the community and
the more he faced challenges like trying
to get a job or find housing the angrier
more bitter he became and the more he
wanted payback against the authority
system and the people who had treated
him so poorly in addition although it
does sound cliche Knoll said that prison
taught him how to be a better criminal
at one prison he learned how to get a
gun which facilitated his career as a
bank robber and he went on to commit
over 200 bank robberies and he spent
time and many more UK prisons each of
which had a similar focus on punishment
all of this changed however when Noah
was sent in the early 2000s to Grendon
prison
Glendon is unique as the only UK prison
with the sole focus of reform ensuring
that prisoners receive the education
training and stimulation to promote
their successful reintegration back into
society
Grandin operates on the principle of
normality life on the inside of the
prison reflects life on the outside and
prisoners are treated as people with the
future potential to contribute at
grenzen Noah said that he was listened
to and made to feel safe the prison
staff treated him with respect and not
only asked him for his first name but
told him there’s as well and Brendan
will spent 10 hours each day in
education work or therapy rather than
use his mental energy focusing on his
hatred for the authority system he spent
it working on his problems rebuilding
relationships with his family and
getting ready to make the significant
life changes necessary in his life to
ensure that he live a positive life once
released and not recreate the same
mistakes of his past when Noah left
Brendan instead of leaving bitter he
left with hope he felt that he had a
chance and not only did he not riaf end
but he went on to become the editor of a
national newspaper and write six books
he pays taxes now and contributes
positively to our society the same as do
you and I and when I asked know about
Brendan he credits it with giving him
the chance to change and turn his life
around
so what was the better option in which
of these two cases would you be more
comfortable with someone like Noll
leaving prison and coming back to
society as your friend colleague
classmate neighbor or employee
Wandsworth offers society and almost
satisfying vengeance and harshly
punishing Noll for breaking the law and
harming victims but Noll also left
Wandsworth bitter and resentful without
practical life skills or knowledge on
how to break the cycle of crime Grendon
on the other hand offers conditions but
some people would say are too good for
perpetrators of crime they’re not harsh
enough but think of it this way
no left Grendon with real potential to
live a positive life on the outside real
potential to live a law-abiding life
real potential to pay taxes all of which
indirectly contribute to your own
well-being through lower crime and lower
tax some of you may be thinking that
this story was nice but surely if we
look at the numbers they’ll show that a
prison model based on punishment is more
effective at deterring crime so let’s
look at the statistics they show that
for prisoners serving comparable
sentences the reoffending rate at
Grendon is 8% relative to 24% elsewhere
moreover the research shows that
prisoners who participate in prison
based rehabilitative programming have
much lower reoffending rates those who
receive drug rehabilitation programming
in prison have a reoffending rate of 31%
education in prison 19% and vocational
training 17% the same findings apply
outside of the UK as well if we look at
the United States a country that’s known
for its prison system which focuses on
punishment and Norway which is well
known for a prison system focusing on
reform we see that the 2-year me
conviction rate for prisoners leaving
American prisons
is 36% and it’s 20% in Norway
that’s nearly 50% lower when the prison
seeks to reform and it’s not like the
reformed prison system is not much more
expensive either
today the annual cost of housing one
prisoner for one year is 43,000 pounds
of Grendon and 32,000 pounds at
Wandsworth and the difference pays for
itself pretty quickly with the lower
reoffending rate so remember your
original 1 million pound investment
where would you rather put it what I’m
trying to share is that some prisoners
will reoffending on everyone will leave
a reformed prison as a model citizen but
the majority of prisoners will be
released from prison and will come back
to society and they are people who if
given the right interventions can be
productive citizens the evidence clearly
shows us the prisons that reform or make
common sense and financial sense and yet
despite all that knowledge we continue
to debate whether our prison system
should punish more or reform more and
for people like me who interact
regularly with the prison system this is
exceptionally frustrating and I ask
myself the question given everything
that we know why is this so hard it
could be because when somebody breaks
the law and harms another person or harm
Society most of us feel anger and want
vengeance and I would feel the same way
if someone hurt me or my family and
those emotions can get in the way of
logic or maybe it’s because many of us
just haven’t thought that much about
this issue it has it seems pressing or
important enough to us or we haven’t had
the right information and so we just
stuck with the status quo for 200 years
but I hope what we’ve learned is that we
can’t have both punishment and reform in
a prison it doesn’t work so as a society
we have to choose one or the other
because
doesn’t make sense to keep rehashing the
same debate punished or a forum keep
wasting billions on an ineffective
prison system and keep advocating for
harsher punishments that we think will
deter crime but have actually been
proven to decrease our safety so here
are the three questions I’d like to
leave you with as a society are we ready
to accept that being tough on crime
through harsher punishments and prisons
that focus on punishment has the
unintended consequence of being tougher
for all of us for the collective good
are we ready to give up our desire for
prisons that punish in favor of Prisons
that reform are we ready
to build a reformed prison system that
is the benchmark for the rest of the
world in effectively reducing
reoffending I think we’re ready
so let’s upgrade the standards of our
prison system to a 21st century model
for reforming people who’ve committed
crime rather than stagnate with the
2,500 year olds platonic concept thank
you
you
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