A punishing look at prison

PRISONS are brutal and abusive institutions that have no place in the 21st century.

That is the view of Dr Paul Mason, leading justice expert and prison abolitionist.

Paul Holland would no doubt agree. As the Evening Press revealed yesterday, the former security firm boss from Skewsby near Easingwold has been sent back to jail despite being cleared of rape - because the alleged sexual assaults of which he was cleared happened while he was on parole for an earlier offence.

That, Dr Mason pointed out, was rough justice - and a betrayal of the tradition in British justice of being "innocent until proven guilty".

Many would agree. Dr Mason, however, went much further. The Cardiff-based academic and founder member of pressure group No More Prison said that prisons should be abolished.

Prison, he told the Evening Press, was a "fundamentally flawed" institution. "Prison is not something that works," he said. "It's a brutal and abusive place that just commits damage to people."

Some would argue that it is murderers and rapists who commit damage to people, and that prisons are the only effective way of punishing them, protecting ordinary people from harm, and providing a measure of comfort to the families and friends of those who have been murdered or abused.

So does Dr Mason really believe that people such as quadruple killer Mark Hobson should not be locked up? Or that prison is not the right place for double murderer John Paul Marshall, or for convicted rapist Dean James Robinson, who broke into an 85-year-old woman's home, threatened her with a knife and forced her to take off her underwear before stealing several hundred pounds?

The academic sighs. He does not have all the answers, he says. And he is not saying that dangerous offenders should be left to walk free and terrorise people. But what we as a society should be committed to doing is trying to work out what makes people offend. And we should be willing to work with even the most violent offenders to try to diagnose the psychological or other problems that caused them to offend, and then treat them.

"I don't see the point of putting someone for 23 hours a day in a cell and leaving them there for the next 30 years," he says. "I cannot see what that serves apart from retribution."

No More Prison is a new pressure group set up at the beginning of this year with the aim of abolishing prisons. The organisation brings together academics, people who work in prisons and ex-offenders, all of them committed to the idea that "prisons are failed institutions that do not work. They are places of pain and social control and are brutal, abusive and damaging to everyone who is incarcerated in them".

Maybe. But while Dr Mason may not think retribution is a sufficient reason for sending someone to prison, surely the families of loved ones who have been raped and murdered have a right to expect, if not retribution, then at lest the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator properly punished?

"I'm lucky," says Dr Mason. "No one close to me has been killed in that way. It is difficult for me to second-guess the emotions of victims' families. But prison does nothing to bring back a loved one who has been lost. Revenge does nothing to make matters any better. We cannot in the 21st century have a criminal justice system based on retribution."

The reality of prison is that it is a convenient dumping ground that enables us as a society to turn our backs on the problems that lead to crime, Dr Mason says.

Much of the frenzy to "lock 'em up and throw away the key" is driven by national tabloid media headlines about paedophiles, rapists and murderers - people who are demonised by our society, Dr Mason says.

Politicians are far too eager to pander to the demand for harsher prison sentences, with law and order becoming a political football as the parties compete with each other to get tough on crime.

But while serious and repeat criminals such as Hobson, Marshall and Robinson generate the headlines, most prisoners are relatively minor offenders, Dr Mason says. And prison does nothing to turn them into better citizens.

Much burglary and theft is drug-related, Dr Mason points out - and prison is the last place we should be sending people who have a drug problem. "Prisons are awash with drugs."

The £40,000 to £50,000 spent to keep someone in prison for a year could be better spent on education and tackling social deprivation, Dr Mason says - measures that would help reduce offending, if only we as a society could get over our obsession with shutting people away.

Prisons are inefficient, he says, and also brutal and dehumanising. Self-harm, suicide and attempted suicide are rife - and once someone has been imprisoned, society turns its back on them.

"Prisoners are invisible. Most people just don't think about them," he says. "Even in crime dramas - you get to the 'you're nicked', and that's the end of it. You see the arrest, and no more."

That is not good enough in a civilised society, he says.

So what would be his alternatives?

He doesn't have all the answers, he admits - especially for violent or dangerous criminals. But for more petty offenders, he would like to see non-custodial alternatives such as more community orders, "restorative" justice in which criminals would be forced to confront their victims, and a much greater emphasis on drug rehabilitation and on tackling the social deprivation, poverty and poor educational opportunities that lead to crime.

He also thinks the Dutch model of jailing criminals at the weekends only - when they most value their freedom - but allowing them to work during the week might be worth trying.

"I haven't got a definitive answer for everything," he says. "But if we can at least have a debate and look at what the alternatives might be, that's a start."

"What rubbish... it's too dangerous to contemplate"

RELATIVES of York murder victims today reacted angrily to Dr Mason's calls for prisons to be abolished. Catherine Wilkins, whose parents James and Joan Britton were two of Mark Hobson's victims, said: "I think it is a load of rubbish. Total rubbish."

Mrs Wilkins said she was convinced nothing could be done to change Hobson - and that it would be too far much of a risk ever to let him out of prison. "It is too dangerous to contemplate," she said.

She added that while nothing could bring back her parents, at least with Hobson in prison she felt as though he was being punished as he deserved. "I feel as though he is where he should be."

Rosie Wall, mother of one of John Paul Marshall's two victims, Daniel Wall, added she would be devastated if she thought people such as Marshall and Hobson would one day be freed "to just do what they like".

As it was, they were better off than their victims, she said.

"We've got to live with our son being murdered for the rest of our lives. The person who has done that should have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Murderers, rapists and paedophiles should be locked up and the key thrown away."

She did agree that alternatives to prison should be considered for petty offences. She said more money should be spent on tackling the problems of drugs abuse, which led to so much crime.

Updated: 10:12 Wednesday, April 19, 2006