How would you feel if you were sentenced to years in a system where the rules and environment constantly evolve? Prepare to peer behind the bars with our guest, Laura Owen, a prison law consultant, and Phil Wheatley, a seasoned prison governor and former Director General of the prison and probation service.
They examine profound changes within our prison system under the microscope, drawing from first-hand accounts of Laura's clients and Phil's on-the-ground experiences.
Listen in and witness the transformation of the prison community through the lens of those who live and breathe it - from the departure of veteran staff to the entrance of newbies.
Can you imagine a world where the keepers of justice are grappling with funding woes and staffing dilemmas? This episode takes you on a journey into these complexities.
Learn how goodwill, not legal aid props up much of the sector's work, and the unfortunate realities when financial support falls short, leaving essential services like mental health care on the chopping block.
Join us as we put our heads together with Phil and Laura to brainstorm potential remedies, the incentives that could persuade staff to stay in the profession, and the actions a well-resourced Lord Chancellor could take to mitigate the issues.
Prepare for a revealing conversation that contrasts the prison system of yesteryears with today's landscape and challenges the status quo.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
How would you feel if you were sentenced to years in a system where the rules and environment constantly evolve? Prepare to peer behind the bars with our guest, Laura Owen, a prison law consultant, and Phil Wheatley, a seasoned prison governor and former Director General of the prison and probation service.
They examine profound changes within our prison system under the microscope, drawing from first-hand accounts of Laura's clients and Phil's on-the-ground experiences.
Listen in and witness the transformation of the prison community through the lens of those who live and breathe it - from the departure of veteran staff to the entrance of newbies.
Can you imagine a world where the keepers of justice are grappling with funding woes and staffing dilemmas? This episode takes you on a journey into these complexities.
Learn how goodwill, not legal aid props up much of the sector's work, and the unfortunate realities when financial support falls short, leaving essential services like mental health care on the chopping block.
Join us as we put our heads together with Phil and Laura to brainstorm potential remedies, the incentives that could persuade staff to stay in the profession, and the actions a well-resourced Lord Chancellor could take to mitigate the issues.
Prepare for a revealing conversation that contrasts the prison system of yesteryears with today's landscape and challenges the status quo.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice Podcast. In this two-part episode, we've been exploring the issues in the prison system with two experts prison governor and director general, Phil Weakley, and prison law consultant, Laura Owen. Last time, Phil and Laura talked about the huge backlogs in the prison system caused by successive government funding cuts. In this second part, they discuss how the prison experience itself has changed, with experienced, knowledgeable officers leaving the profession and inexperienced staff struggling to cope. They also talk about the positives of their roles and how they would like to see the prison system change in the future.
Speaker 2:Laura, do you have stories from your clients where they say oh, you know, when I served the sentence back X number of years, this was what was going on, and now I'm finding myself in this situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of people, especially a lot of people that have been through the system for a number of years, are saying now how much custody has changed. Younger people are coming in but, like Phil just said, the experience of the staff is completely different to how it used to be. That side of staff that had the knowledge that could manage people, that could work with them and speak with them as humans seems to have disappeared, and we seem to do have more of a culture of younger prison officers that don't have the experience, that are just trying to control as opposed to relate to people and engage with them as a human, and a lot of people seem to struggle with that side of it as well, especially that. I've been in the system for a number of years and it's something that a lot of clients say to me regularly. Now I can't do this anymore. The system's changed, everything's changed, and it's not where I want to be anymore.
Speaker 2:Let me ask this just for a practical example Laura, I'll ask you about now, and Phil, if you don't mind, I'll ask you about how it was, perhaps in your early 20s. So again, varies from prison to prison. But let's just say you're run-of-the-mill category B prisoner. So this would be your non-extremely violent, would you say at the beginning of a sentence. Non-extremely violent inmates, so someone who's serving a sentence or on remand for supplying drug, something along, those are scurglary, anything in that kind of range. One of the mill prison. What's a day in the life of an inmate look like now.
Speaker 3:It's quite a difficult one because a lot of establishments are still using COVID as a means of keeping people in the cell for a lot longer than they would have in the past. Some have gone back to normal, so they would usually get up in the morning and go to work A lot of work in kind of the workshops places like that, wing cleaners, some will have survey jobs. They would then have go back to their cells, usually about 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, and then go back out in the afternoon and again just work. Some prisons are now back to giving association in the evening, so they would have a couple of hours out of their cells on the wings in the evening and then they would be locked up then for the rest of the evening.
Speaker 1:Association in prisons is the time that prisoners spend out of their cells. They can use it to socialise, make phone calls and use communal facilities. Other behaviour programmes are provided in prisons to try and change people's attitudes and behaviours that will reduce the risk of them re-offending. They help to build positive social attitudes and encourage people to consider their goals for the future.
Speaker 2:And how does that work, also in terms of programmes, courses, education, visits?
Speaker 3:So programmes usually take priority. So if someone has a programme that they need to do as part of their sentence plan, that would then pass it into their regime for whatever period that programme was for. Programmes have changed a lot recently. Whereas most of the programmes are kind of rolling programmes, the lengthier kind of more intense ones, so the individual would then fit that around their routine. Whilst they're on that, so a programme such as the Kaiser, which has three different strands, fit to cover your general violence, your interpersonal violence or your sexual element. They would usually before a minimum of six months, up to a maximum of 18. So the individual would do that however many days are we depending on their sentence time and their needs when their tariff was expiring, when they were coming to reviews. So that would all fit around as and when they needed it.
Speaker 2:And visits. Availability in terms of being able to see family and friends.
Speaker 3:Family visits seem to have gone a lot more back to normal. We're a lot of prisons now. Even when I still do face-to-face visits, family visits now seem to be back to normal. The visits they get depend on their IEP status. So someone that was what their class has enhanced prisoner, they get more visits than someone that would be on like a basic regime, and they would usually be on basic regime if they'd kind of disobeyed the rules.
Speaker 1:IEP stands for Incentive and Earned Privileges. There are different levels of IEP based on each individual's behaviour. Iep status can affect how many visits prisoners are allowed each month and access to TV and time outside their cell.
Speaker 3:When as compliant as other prisoners. But family visits seem to be completely back to normal. I've not heard any complaints from family members. Now it seems to be the legal visit side of it that seems to have more problems than the domestic side of visits.
Speaker 2:Phil, can you give us a little bit of insight as to when the system was working a lot better, how different it would have been to what we've just heard?
Speaker 4:Yes, I think, in terms of operating well. So prisoners were being treated decently in most prisons. I mean, there will never be staff misbehavior or things go wrong. But whether the quality of care was quite good, we're probably looking at the late 2000s, before 2010,. Around about 2006, 2007,. Things were about as good as they got. There was a greater provision of programs than per head of the population, so there was a greater provision of offending behavior programs, less difficulty therefore doing the things required to get parole Time out of cell was much greater in nearly every prison and particularly in category B training prisons.
Speaker 4:So evening association was standard and it was a big deal when, in order to save money during the labour period in charge not a conservative decision reductions in funding meant that we locked up early on a Friday and Friday evenings. Everybody was behind their door and that was a real change and it was the first sign that falling government funding and austerity later on was going to really cut back into prison regimes. Otherwise prisoners were out of their cells for most of the day. Lock up at lunchtime, lock up usually at tea time, evening association and behind your doors. 8.30 was about half of the course. 9.00 when I first joined the service, interestingly, and a reasonable variety of quite well-paid in prison terms jobs, as we got quite a few in from the private sector which paid better, so we were doing work for companies who were paying to get work done in prison.
Speaker 4:That doesn't mean prison was perfect and at that point I think I could say that amongst all prisons, even the most difficult prisoners, any form of abusive behaviour towards prisoners was not tolerated. It didn't mean it never happened, but there was no culture of this is okay here, which there have been. If you went back in time in the 60s and 70s, you hit a prison officer, you probably expected to be hit back by prison officers and everybody thought that was okay. I never did, but some people thought that was okay and that sort of culture completely disappeared by the mid-2000, 2010 period. So that, I think, was prisons at their best and we thought they would go on improving.
Speaker 4:Because we spent a long time improving them, we didn't think we were going to stop improving them, but actually they've slid back under pressure of lack of resources and too many prisoners, and too many quite difficult prisoners, because it is difficult to do a long-term sentence If you're going to do double the time. That's really hard work. If you're on IPP sentencing, you never know when you're going to get out. It's very difficult and therefore you tend to be difficult for good reason, because this is messing with your head and you're finding it a real struggle.
Speaker 2:So accepting and putting to one side for a moment the fact that resources need to come from the government and there's a massive lack of funding across the board. Can something be done aside from that between, maybe, the prison officers, prison officers association and lawyers such as yourself, Laura? Are there some ideas that could be put forward for a greater openness, transparency or a way to let a more well-old machine function with another well-old machine?
Speaker 3:I think it's a difficult one to answer because I think a lot of it comes down to treating people with dignity and respect and that doesn't seem to be coming from the prison not all prisoners but from prisoners and then the staff alike.
Speaker 3:So I think that's a difficult one. But I think if you treat people like humans you can relate to them more, you can engage with them better. So that would be the first thing just to kind of take people back, to just treat people like humans, because that is one of the things a lot of prisoners will have concerns about how they are treated, especially by staff younger than them. That is something that doesn't seem to come through in the training of how to treat people and again, I'm not generalising all prison officers, but in a lot of the newer prisons or in the prisons where their intake is quite young members of staff, it seems to be do as I say and it doesn't seem to have that respect side of it, if that makes sense. So I think it's just taking things back to basic, just basic humanity, to engage with people and help people that way.
Speaker 2:And let's go back to funding for a moment. I think you touched upon legal aid. So you, I think, would you say most of the work that you do is legally aided, publicly funded.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so 99% of the work I do is legal aid, legally based, and that's again why so many firms are closing, just because there's just the funding isn't there. We're working significantly more on fixed fees to ensure that we get paid for the work we actually do. Otherwise, like I said before, we can do 10 hours of work and get paid for four of them, but what other sector would say that or deal with that? They wouldn't, which is why so many firms are closing or just closing their prison ward apartments down, because there just isn't the money there anymore.
Speaker 2:So these are the aspects of what you do that aren't funded.
Speaker 3:Yes. So if you, I tend to have a lot of clients that have difficulty in mental health issues. We only get paid for a parole board review and adjudication, and that's primarily what legal aid covers now for prisoners. So there are numerous times where I might have to contact different agencies to try and get different helping that I don't get paid for to assist the prisoner because they're not getting the help any other way.
Speaker 2:Phil, if you had a magic wand for a day, if you were the Lord Chancellor and there was a budget, what would you? I mean, it's a really open-ended question, isn't it? But is there anything specific, any specific ideas you would have in terms of where that budget would go?
Speaker 4:At the moment I'd be spending the money to try to make sure that I could end up with a mixed group of staff, so they aren't all young and they aren't all old, but I've got a mix of experiences and I've got consistency. So I haven't got a high turnover of staff. So I'd have to address the staff terms and conditions to ensure I incentivize people to stay and I incentivized a wide range of people to join. No-transcript.