The final post in this “Welsh Justice System” series focuses on the least comfortable element – prisons and prisoners – with the death penalty debate thrown in at the end for good measure.
Not everything relating to penal policy will be covered otherwise this would be twice the length and I’ve done enough already.
There’s little point discussing the future of the prison system without a closer look at what, and who, prison should be for.
This is where politics and social attitudes come into play.
More conservative-minded people may believe as many criminals as possible should go to prison as a punishment and deterrent to keep the law-abiding public safe and cut crime, with inmates being fit to return to society when they can prove they can behave themselves. Critics may argue that this view is lazy and outdated, focusing too much on the stick rather than the carrot and doing little to deal with the causes of crime or cut reoffending.
More liberal-minded people may believe rehabilitation should take precedence over punishment, with prison being left as a last resort. Critics may, again, argue that this is soft-headed and could potentially leave the public at risk if rehabilitation efforts fail. It also doesn’t provide justice to victims and redirects more attention and resources to undesirable elements of society at the expense of law-abiding citizens.
The general sense from opinion polling is that the UK public backs the conservative view in greater numbers, while academics, left-wing politicians and others fight a seemingly losing battle to make the case for a broader, whole-system view of punishment and rehabilitation that focuses on more than just prisons.
According to YouGov6, 70% believe punishments aren’t harsh enough – and there was majority support for this view regardless of voting intention. There’s also been consistent support (occasionally majority support) for the statement that “prison living conditions are too easy”7. This contradicts some of the evidence we’ve seen from the Wales Governance Centre, prison officers and others mentioned earlier that suggest prisons – even the modern ones – are fairly unpleasant environments and increasingly dangerous.
 Who goes to prison now?
Here’s a snapshot of the sentences being served in Welsh prisons (in 2019).
Naturally, this will vary from year to year and depends on how “tough on crime” particular governments want to appear to be.
As far what you can take from that, you have 2,248 inmates who were serving either long or indeterminate sentences (4 years+, life, imprisonment for public protection) – all of these have likely done something that warrants a prison sentence regardless of your views on punishment and rehabilitation. The 478 recalled have presumably reoffended, so like it or not deserve to go back, plus the remand prisoners.
Then there are the 1,115 serving between 1-4 years; whether some of those need to be in prison depends on whether it fits the crime. Those on sentences under 12 months – 391 – probably wouldn’t be in prison if there was a reasonable alternative.
As for the types of crime:
The vast majority of prisoners in Wales (3,055) have either committed a violent, sexual, weapons-related or theft-based crime. Depending on the specifics, it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t be in prison.
Drug-related offences appear to be the area most in need of reform – but that’s an entire topic in itself – while the number of people being imprisoned for summary offences seems relatively high (though that would include things like drunk driving).
As mentioned in Part III, people from non-white backgrounds are proportionally more likely to be given a prison sentence than whites.
The vast majority of people who are sentenced to prison in or from Wales are men, though (as mentioned earlier) the Wales Governance Centre says there were around 279 Welsh women prisoners in 2019 – all of whom would be sent out of the country as there is no women’s facility in Wales. Around 20% of women sentenced to prison in Wales were handed a sentence of one month or less, which you could argue is completely pointless.
Who should go to prison?
It’s an uncomfortable question with no single “right” answer, but if the prison system is going to be reformed then we may not like the answers.
Ultimately, this would be for the judiciary and sentencing councils to decide. As for my personal view (you’ll probably have different views):
- Serving a minimum sentence of one or two years. We could move away from short prison sentences and only imprison people who warrant denial of liberty for an extended period. Short prison sentences could be automatically suspended – similarly to how the system works in Spain. The only exceptions could be things like contempt of court.
- Violent, deviant and calculated offenders who would otherwise present a clear danger to the public or risk to national security. This would include people convicted of murder, rape/sexual assault, violent assaults like GBH, sexual offences involving children, terrorism-related offences, organised crime, high-level fraud, weapons-related offences or offences with a high level of pre-planning or premeditation.
- Those convicted of crimes with a “high gravity of offence” but are otherwise non-violent. This would include those where negligence caused death or serious injury rather than malice (i.e. causing death by dangerous driving, corporate manslaughter). It would also include those convicted based on aggravating factors such as targeting vulnerable people (i.e. defrauding pensioners or the disabled) or having used coercion rather than violence.
- Breach of probation, court orders or suspended sentence conditions – as currently.
- Repeat offenders for whom community-based rehabilitation and community sentence options (Part XV) have either proven unsuccessful or have been exhausted, so a custodial sentence is deemed to be the only option left by the courts.
- Offenders deemed to require closely supervised rehabilitation in a secure environment. This could include convicted criminals with a complex mental health or substance abuse problem that drives their behaviour. Community-based rehabilitation may not be as consistent or intense as it needs to be to maintain long-term changes. A secure hospital environment may be more suitable than prison (more on this later).
6: YouGov, (July 2021). “Should there be harsher punishments for criminals?” Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/legal/articles-reports/2019/10/01/brits-want-harsher-punishments-criminals
7: YouGov, biennial tracker (2019-2022). “Are prison living conditions too easy?”. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/philosophy/trackers/are-prison-living-conditions-too-easy
