Turning prisoners into taxpayers

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Turning prisoners into taxpayers was declared as "nothing but a good thing" by prisons minister Crispin Blunt.

Blunt was speaking at the Howard League for Penal Reform's fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, 'Take action 2010: Real work in prisons’.

The minister was keen to stress that in providing work places in prisons the government would not be starting from scratch, with prisoners currently working in a number of areas such as textiles, laundries, food preparation and service and land based activities.

However he declared the current system of work in prisons to be "far from satisfactory".

"What I would like to see is working prisons which prisoners aim to get to," he said.

"In order to get there they would need to gain the necessary literacy, skills and be clean of addiction.".

Frances Cook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform told the meeting that the nature of prison has to change if people are to be spending long periods of time there.

"30,000 men in prison for life potter around like they are in an old people's home," she said.

Putting prisoners to work was thought by the panel to be a good way of preparing prisoners for the outside world in equipping them with the necessary skills, but to also give them a sense of purpose.

Dominic Raab MP (Con, Esher and Walton) recalled the statistic that prisoners are "three times more likely to offend if not enrolled in any form of work or education" throughout their stay in prison.

Referring to the current prison system, Raab said it was failing "in its inability to equip people for a law abiding life style through education and work".

"Work pays, work is beneficial," said member of the justice select committee Claire Perry MP (Con, Devizes).

She was also keen to point out the important part work can play in keeping the reoffending rate down.

"Currently prisoners leave prisons with a small discharge grant and it is then six weeks until they are able to 'sign-on'," she told the fringe.

"The easiest way for prisoners to earn money when they leave prison is to reoffend."

And as Frances Cook pointed out "prisoners are able to earn a small amount of money to put aside for their release", there would be less need for them to reoffend.

"Prisoners could send money home, they could pay taxes and contribute to victim's charities," she said.

Blunt favoured a different approach, wanting to keep "a sum of money" earned by a prisoner aside for a period of two years once they are released.

"Receiving the sum of money would be conditional upon behaviour and would work as an incentive for good behaviour," he said.

Employing prisoners would not be straight forward, if prisoners are to pay tax this would mean they would have to be given full employment rights, something which Cook said the Howard League had encountered difficulties with before.

Talking about a small graphic design studio, set up inside a prison by the Howard League and functioning as a proper business, Cook said:

"The Inland Revenue returned a cheque to me to the value of £15,000, which was paid in tax by the prisoners. They said that prisoners can't pay tax, because that means they would have to have full employment rights."

When it came to the question of who would be tasked with controlling work placements within prisons the panel were in agreement that it should not be within the control of prisons.

Blunt stated: "We need to make sure that we establish effective links between prisons and businesses that will make use of the services prisons have to offer."