Private Prisons: a success or failure? (Photo: Web)

While the concept of private prisons is alien to Indians and many others, countries such the US and UK have them in place. The UK, known for the most privatized prison system in Europe is spreading their presence to resolve issues such as overcrowding and higher costs.

That leaves Carol Pounder, the mother of Adam Rickwood, unhappy as she was assured that her son was safe when she last saw him in a privately-run Secure Training Centre. She was completely unaware of the events which were about to unfold in the coming days. The death of her 14-year old son, who had hung himself with a shoelace, could have been prevented had the staff in the private prison, run by the multinational firm Serco, been careful.

The boy committed suicide a day after the method of restraint used on him involving a “karate-chop” blow to the nose, which would have been extremely painful and resulted in bleeding. He was the youngest child to die in prison custody in the UK in the recent history. Critics have raised questions whether staff members are being adequately trained at these prisons to deal with vulnerable people like Rickwood.

The loss of Rickwood is a reminder that private prisons are a catalogue of failures, according to his mother. There are many concerns raised about their safety records as Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which provides a way of funding public sector buildings, pay their officers half of what the state sector does, which means they tend to have fewer and less experienced warders. A survey commissioned by the Prison Service Pay Review Body in early 2003 found that average pay for prison officers and senior officers is more than fifty percent in State prisons. According to Hansard, the House of Commons official report, five privately-run prisons have more than half its staff with less than 5 years of experience.

Private prisons, including the STCs “should be closed immediately or there will be more deaths,” said Pounder. “Most staff members don’t have the right qualifications or training to handle the most vulnerable kids in the society, and restraining isn’t the answer to discipline them.”

A report in 2003 by the National Audit Office, an independent organization that scrutinises public spending on behalf of the Parliament, has also pointed to a lack of experienced staff and a high staff turnover. As a result, it argued, the environment in private prisons is generally less safe than in publicly-run prisons, where prison officers on average have more experience.

That is not the only issue. There are also doubts about the effectiveness of their rehabilitation efforts. Prisoners in private jails are more likely to be involved in serious assaults and more likely to re-offend once they have been released, according to Prison Reform Trust　(PRT), a charity campaigning for penal reforms.

Currently, there are eleven prisons run privately in the UK, which was initiated by Margaret Thatcher’s government in the early 90s. According to PRT, Serco PLC subsidiary, Premier Custodial Group, is the largest provider of private prisons, operating four prisons. Falck AS, formerly owned by Group 4, which is the holding company for Global Solutions Limited, and Kalyx, which is owned by the Paris based multi-national corporation Sodexho, operate three each. Securicor Justice Services, now owned by Group 4 Securicor, operates one.

They now house 10 percent of the total population in prisons and may take a bigger piece of the pie in the coming years as the government has put a lid on its budget for the Prison Service. The Home Office earlier this year told the Prison Service to find savings of 80 million pounds for each financial year between 2008 and 2011 from an annual budget of 2 billion pounds.

The scale of the savings demanded was astonishing to many, at a time when the government is grappling with an overcrowding crisis in a struggle to house more than 80,000 inmates. The fact that no money has been allocated to run the new prisons indicates a clear message: there will be more privately-run prisons in England and Wales.

“The government is going more in the direction of introducing more private prisons,” said the Guardian prison correspondent, Eric Allison. “All the new upcoming prisons will most likely be privately run.” The UK already has the most privatised prison system in Europe, and although there are not as many private jails as in the United States the proportion of prisoners in private prisons is higher, according to the Prison Reform Trust.

STCs are also privately run, at a cost to the public of 172,000 pounds per place per year. Pounder’s grievance is that at that price, seven times the cost of the most expensive public school, the public should expect that those in legal responsibility of some of society’s most vulnerable juveniles do better than resort to violence every time a child fails to obey their order.

According to her, it became clear at Adam’s inquest that staff and management of the centres have persistently broken the rules on restraint. The government now intends allowing them to stay within the law when using force but the STC staff claim restraint for non-compliance is necessary for them to maintain “good order and discipline.”

Despite several deaths, like Rickwood, at private prisons, the government’s explanation remains that private-run prisons are cost effective. In contrast, some critics say that such claims by the government that PFI projects are cost-effective and save public money are “unfounded.”

According to researchers from Edinburgh University, the government’s claims that nearly 88 percent of PFI projects were delivered on time and within budget as opposed to 70 percent of public projects, which were delivered late with 73 percent costing more than expected, were “either non-existent or false.”

The government currently signs contracts for 25 years with companies to run prisons. According to March 2007 issue of a UK magazine, Public:Private Finance, new prisons will “almost certainly” be privately financed.

That worries Catherine Hayes about the effect of private prisons on criminal justice policy. Hayes, a caseworker at the Inquest, an independent organization that helps provide legal advice services to bereaved families on the inquest system, condemns private prisons as “morally repugnant.”

“It is wrong for anyone to be making money from punishment of offenders,” she said. It raises a question why would these companies want to reform and rehabilitate prisoners if they are making sterling out of it, she added.
Juliet Lyon, the director of the PRT, demands to see a shrinking market for private prisons even though good business practice demands a growing market. “A vested interest will develop in having a sizable prison population,” she said.

As the government wants to escape the current crisis faced by prisons in the UK, the introduction of private prisons is starting to influence policy. There are moves to further deregulate private prisons, by removing the government-appointed controllers that monitor them. Two more prisons are being established in the UK, which are likely to be privately run.

This is happening despite a BBC undercover report on Rye Hill jail, located in the West Midlands region of England, broadcast in April this year. The programme showed widespread intimidation of staff members, and prisoners, who had easy access to drugs and mobile phones. Chief Inspector Owers made critical comments about the private prison in her inspection reports in 2003 and 2005 about the safety of the place.

Another report by PRT acknowledges that “private sector innovation has, in some cases, improved regimes but it raises questions about efficiency savings and the need for private companies to achieve economies of scale. Unpublished figures show that the performance of private prisons against key targets is mixed with many failing to meet targets on serious assaults, drugs and purposeful activity. Whilst there are some private prisons that are performing very well others are experiencing difficulties. Overall the pay and conditions for staff in private prisons are inferior to those in public prisons and staff turnover is higher.”

At a time when prison population is close to being at a record high, the report says: “there is a need to question a system where companies have a vested interest in keeping the prison population as high as possible.”

Still, some say that introducing competition in the operation of prisons has helped improve performance in PFI jails. A report by National Audit Office commends the PFI prisons, saying they can provide examples of good practice for publicly funded jails, although it admits there is still room for improvement.
Lord Ramsbotham, former Chief Inspector of Prisons, agreed and pointed out that many of the private prisons are among the best run in the system, which is also reflected in Owers’ reports.

“While morally it is not right to have private prisons, but treatment and conditions are a lot better,” said Ramsbotham, who had visited a few of these prisons for inspections.

Critics like Stephen Nathan, editor of Prison Privatisation Report International, can not agree that there can be any good in a society by having private prisons. He thinks the idea of privately run prisons is flawed.

“Rye Hill is not one off, the problems are systemic,” said Nathan. The pursuit of profit is incompatible with rehabilitating prisoners and providing adequate working conditions for staff. “It is a wrong policy and the prisons do not solve the problem of overcrowding,” he said, adding the government cannot continue to ignore the evidence.

Between, 1998 and 2006, companies such as Global Solutions, Serco and G4S were each fined about 1.3 million pounds, 605,380 pounds and 970,741pounds respectively　for poor performances as measured in terms of the contractual performance management system, according to the Hansard published on February 27, 2007.

India has been criticised by human-rights activists for the issues of overcrowding, lack of basic facilities in the prisons, and it is high time the government addressed some of these issues now. Still, one must hope that it never follows the path that the UK has adopted which seems ethically wrong. The severe conditions in the prisons should prompt the government to pump more money into public services such as prisons rather than allowing private companies to get money out of the victims.

No to Women Prisons (Photo: BBC)

Whilst the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia’s, an Indian offender in the UK, was a positive one, inspiring a Bollywood movie; most tales are not. Ahluwalia, a victim of domestic abuse, killed her husband after leading 10 years of life, full of agony and misery, with him. She was fortunate to have her life sentence quashed in 1992 after her guilty plea to manslaughter charge was accepted.

The mother of two is now known in both India and the UK, for being honoured at the first Asian Women Awards for breaking the taboo of domestic violence, and for prompting a change in the British law. Still, majority of women, who are not only minor offenders but also victims of homelessness, heavy debt, mental illness, drug addiction and domestic violence, don not get justice in punitive societies like the UK.

Donna Williams, an ex prisoner, is one of them. She spent two years in Styal prison, two miles southwest of Manchester Airport, for breaching conditions. She is glad to survive it through, but feels sorry for those who can not. She was taken in for harassing a social worker with whom she had an argument.

“I was going through a mental depression and probably needed a cure for that,” said the 25-year old, in her trembling voice. “Instead they locked me in for 2 years.”
“The officers in prison treated us like dirt and didn’t have the time to attend to prisoners` needs,” she said. “There was no sort of psychological help provided, considering my state of mind and what I was going through,” said the resident of North Wales, recalling how she tried to take her life so many times.

The 25-year old Williams is not alone. There are about 4,390 women in UK prisons and the gender makes up more than 5 percent of the UK’s total prison population of 80,937, the Home Office data as of September 14 shows. According to the government’s findings, the most common offences are theft and handling stolen goods and most receive sentences of less than a year. Women commit less crime than men: just 20 percent of offenders in England and Wales, who are cautioned or found guilty, are women. Four out of every five known offenders are male.

Meanwhile, in India, women make up for less than 4 percent of the prison population, which stood at 325,000, according to the National Human Rights Commission’s most recent annual report published last year. Most women in India are incarcerated for petty offences, mainly committed to escape poverty, according to India Vision Foundation, a non-profit and non-government organization to bring reform in prisons. That can be explained when about 300 million Indians have to live on an income of less than 1 dollar a day.

The proportion of women in Indian and UK prisons is quite close and so are the natures of their offences. Women prisons are filled with those, who commit minor offences, and are vulnerable in nature, with backgrounds of poor mental health, abuse, poverty and disadvantage, said Frances Crook, director at Howard League Penal Reform, a London-based charity organisation.

“Prison should be only used for violent offenders,” Crook said. “Majority of them (women) have had mental health interventions and prisons aren’t equipped” to deal with their mental-health needs, she added.

The Howard League recommends resources should be transferred to community programmes and treatment facilities for females. Crook emphasized the current system does not meet rehabilitation needs, with two-thirds of women released from prison reconvicted within two years.70 percent of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders, according to Prison Reform Trust. Half of those sentenced to custody are not registered with their general practitioner prior to being sent to prisons.

Recent analysis of data drawn from OASys, the national offender assessment tool by analyzing 158,161 female offenders assessed in 2005, found that 39 percent had been victims of domestic violence; 33 per cent had accommodation needs; 32 percent had misused drugs; 29 percent had education and training needs, 28 percent had financial needs, 24 percent had misused alcohol, 16 percent had particular needs in relation to employment and 10 percent were assessed as posing a medium, high or very high risk of harm to children.

Ex-prisoner Williams’ mental condition deteriorated in the prison as she was “more depressed” being away from her family.

"I was cutting myself up. I just thought, I’m in prison and I might as well give up on everything else,” said Williams, who was initially put under “suicide watch,” but was later taken off it. She has seen other vulnerable women like herself suffer too. She has lost a friend, with mental-health and drug addiction issues, who ended up committing suicide, and witnessed another inmate hanging in a cell right across hers.

All these concerns were voiced in the Corston report, titled as the review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. The report was published in March in the wake of the deaths of six women at Styal prison between 2002 and 2003. Of the 43 recommendations made by Labour baroness Jean Corston, the main ones include custodial sentences for women must only be for serious and violent offenders, and that “the existing system of women’s prisons should be dismantled and replaced by smaller secure units for the minority of women for whom the public requires protection.”

Although the previous home secretary, John Reid, was trying to remove vulnerable women from prisons, the report was not overly welcomed by the Home Office, which said that it would be carefully studied and examined before implementing any changes. Lady Corston said large proportion of the women in prison in England and Wales could be better dealt with in community centres, which could deal with their problems of mental illness, addiction and history of abuse.

“I am dismayed to see so many women frequently sentenced for short periods of time for very minor offences, causing chaos and disruption to their lives and families, without any realistic chance of addressing the causes of their criminality,” she said.

Carrie Mitchel, a spokeswoman for English Collective of Prostitutes, which campaigns against punitive measures against prostitution, also wants the government to do more, and soon. “The government needs to make sure they have enough money so that these women do not get into these situations where imprisonment in the only option,” she said, adding, a lot of them are single parents trying to raise their kids by resorting to crime.

More than half the women in prison are mothers, another reason for the government to carefully evaluate custodial sentences for them. It is estimated that almost 18,000 children a year are separated from their mothers through imprisonment, according to the Corston report. The effect on these children is “often nothing short of catastrophic,” said Lady Corston in her publication.

No one can explain this better than Sue May, who was in prison for 12 years for a crime she claims she did not commit. May, who has always maintained her innocence for killing her aunt, was freed from the prison in 2005 after a parole board agreed her release.

“My kids have fallen out and I feel this happened because I was in prison for a crime I did not commit,” said the 61-year old mother of three. “It is a disjointed family we have now, which would have never happened in my presence.”
May’s older son was 25 and the twins were 23 when she was sent to prison. She was lucky that her kids were a bit older and she had the support of her family and friends during her imprisonment but not everyone in prison is fortunate enough to have that cushion, she said.

“I was the main bread earner at home and my being in prison meant my kids were left with very little,” she said. “They could have easily gone the wrong way had it not been for all these people supporting me and my kids.”
May knew a lot of mothers, who were left homeless, after their time in prison. “The system is not in place and there is no help for people after they leave the prison,” prompting women to re offend, she added. She has now appealed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission so that she can be referred to the Court of Appeal to prove her innocence.

The proportion of female prisoners re-offending has doubled in the last decade and so has the women population. The Fawcett Society, an organization that leads campaign for equality between women and men in the UK, does not think that the government is doing enough to address some of the key issues.
In their recent report published on July 11, the organization said “At a national level, central Government policy relating to female offenders is felt to be contradictory.” The report cited the Home Office’s 9.15 million pounds commitment to developing community provision for women offenders and women at risk of offending, but has, at the same time, increased the prison capacity for women, which undermines some of the resettlement efforts.

The Howard League claims community programs are much more successful at reducing crime rates. Research indicates that 64 percent of female prisoners are convicted again within two years of release, versus 47 percent for those given a community sentence. Community programs also cost between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds of taxpayers' money a year for each offender versus 39,000 pounds for a prison inmate.

The public opinion survey on women in prison conducted by ICM, a market research company, showed that 86 percent of the 1,000 people polled showed support for community alternatives to prison. Also, almost three quarters did not think mothers of young children who commit non-violent crimes should be behind the bars.

Women should be treated differently from men, as the recent findings from the Fawcett report suggest that the “pains of imprisonment” are severe for women, who have higher rates of self-harm, mental illness and suicide in custody than men. The loss of family ties and separation from their children make for a disrupted life.

“The Fawcett Society's findings and Baroness Corston’s review have provided compelling evidence that Britain's criminal justice system is failing vulnerable women,” said a spokesperson from the Equal Opportunities Commission. “Wherever the criminal justice system touches women's lives - whether as victims of crime or as offenders - the new gender equality duty has the potential to make services work better.”

While the Ministry of Justice acknowledged their awareness of “people in prison who ought not to be there,” it said, it is for the courts to decide in individual cases whether a prison sentence is appropriate or not. “We have outlined our intention to remove these where appropriate, and to use tough community sentences to deal with less serious, non-violent offenders. Government is keen to encourage greater use of community alternatives for women wherever possible.”

Lady Corston said a radically different approach was needed, with ministers announcing a clear strategy within six months to replace existing women's prisons such as Holloway and Styal with small, geographically dispersed, multi-functional custodial centres within 10 years.

To judge by what the women ex-prisoners say, perhaps there is a need to take a prompt action in making changes to the current penal system, just like they did in Ahluwalia’s case, where the British judiciary, for the first time, recognized that the defence of provocation could be applied to women who kill in response to long periods of abuse. Her case upturned the British judiciary and her appeal and retrial are now a part of every basic criminal law text in Britain. Her high-profile case prompted the making of a Bollywood movie “Provoked,” which was released earlier this year and starred Aishwarya Rai, India’s most popular actress.

Unless the authorities do something, there will be more psychologically impaired women like those as Williams and May, who are everyday dealing with the after effect of prisons.

“I am trying to start to get my life back on track but I don’t have the confidence,” said former prisoner Williams. “I still don’t go out much and like to be alone.”

May also enjoys her time in solitary and isolation.

“Whether you have committed a crime or not, you are damaged in a prison,” she said. “I was locked inside for twelve years and got used to that life. While now I like spending time with my family, my best time is still the time on my own.”

Although the UK society is more advanced and developed than India, its prison system is in shambles. Whether it is East or West, the judicial service has a duty to protect vulnerable people like women in prisons. It also has a responsibility to find other alternatives to penalize minor offenders. Incarcerating an increasing number of women is not the answer but addressing core issues, such as, mental heath, poverty, lack of support system for women with kids is the key.

Where are India's Democratic Values? (Photo: BBC)

While the international community was quick to react to the recent violent crackdown on pro democracy protesters in Burma, the most obvious voice, the voice of India, the world's biggest democracy, was missing. The first ever statement that appeared from the neigbouring nation appeared on Wednesday, that too, in response to pressure from the West urging India, along with China, to use its influence in support of people of Burma.

"We are concerned at the situation in Myanmar and are monitoring it closely. It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue," said External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in a short public statement made on the subject so far. "As a close and friendly neighbor, India hopes to see a peaceful, stable and prosperous Myanmar, where all sections of the people will be included in a broad-based process of national reconciliation and political reform. Myanmar's process of national reconciliation initiated by the authorities should be expedited."

The statement comes from the same nation, which was once the first neighbouring country to criticise the Burmese military government during the 1988 people’s uprising. It was India that backed the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu, the celebrated opposition leader, who was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award in 1993.

So what has changed? India reviewed its policy towards Burma in the early '90s and shook hands with the military regime. The world's second most populous country’s interest in defending its political and financial gains was motivated by Burma's importance to its rival – China. India is competing with China to gain access to Burma's sizeable gas and oil deposits, as well as expanding trade with the regime in quite a few other areas such as arms, telecommunications, according to campaigner Matthew Egan. They are also issues with a cross-border insurgency movement where the regime has cooperated to help tackle insurgents in the north-east of India.

"It is very disheartening to see such a (cold) stance," said Egan, who is involved with Burma Campaign UK. "If India starts to criticize the Burmese government they fear that they will lose economic and political influence to the Chinese in Burma, despite the fact that they are a democracy themselves."

"They do have an opportunity to use their leverage as a major investor in Burma to help bring about a move to a national reconciliation by encouraging the military to release all political prisoners and start a meaningful dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters," he added.

India is becoming one of Burma’s largest export markets. India and Burma have set a $1 billion bilateral trade target in 2006-07, almost double their trade in 2004-05.

Some campaigners fear that most of the investment into the country is not spent on the population, but is seen as a means to provide a lifeline to the regime, to solidify their own position.

"An effective array of economic sanctions and arms embargo might be the only way in getting the regime to shift and start talking, as currently they are quite secure as they as foreign investment allows them breathing space.”

India should be setting a good example by upholding democratic values, rather than allowing human right abuse, or else, its image as the world's largest democracy would not only be tarnished, but will also be questioned, both at home and internationally.