SIR — I welcome the debate between your correspondents who place the emphasis on prison as punishment (Mr Thacker, June 18) and as re-habilitation (Mrs Hobday, June 4). I would like to add that prison is only one part of a wide network of social control and social care. It deals with the failures of these other systems
Factors which haven't received a mention include all those problems which properly should not be dealt with in prison at all, but which the prison service is landed with because of failings elsewhere in our social provisions.
Lord Bradley's report
on "People with mental health problems and learning difficulties in the Criminal Justice System" (April 2009), makes disturbing reading. A tenth of prisoners have a serious mental health condition which the prison service has no competence or facilities for. Over two-thirds of prisoners have two or more mental health problems. Over three-quarters of prisoners have literacy problems.
Add in the very high proportion of prisoners whose childhoods were spent in care — half of all prisoners under 25 were in care as children — and we can see that prisons are the sumps which house the failures of all pre-prison services.
The recent government green paper on "looked after children", should end the disgrace of children in care being ejected to fend for themselves as soon as they reach 16, which was almost a fast track to prison.
Other studies point to the futility of dealing with the nation's drug problems as a criminal issue. De-criminalisation would reduce crime, assist in treatment and would cost less, but the media clamour for retribution drowns out these saner counsels.
Instituting a more severe regimen may satisfy the tabloid scaremongers, but the problems would remain, contributing to the endless cycle of deprivation /offending/punishment…
J. W .R. Clark,
Woodland Way,
Old Tupton,
Chesterfield.
