Pod Save the UK
Inside out: How to fix the UK’s prison system + Labour embraces unpopularity
Thu, 12 Sep 2024
Exclusive INCOGNI Deal ➼ go to https://incogni.com/podsavetheuk to get 60% off your annual plan!The government has won a vote in the commons over its controversial winter fuel payments - but Keir Starmer knows he’s not winning over the public. Unpopular decisions are the theme of the day as Nish returns to join Coco on the PSUK couch. Later, our hosts are joined by former inmate turned podcaster and TV host David Navarro, alongside CEO of the Prison Reform Trust Pia Sinha to discuss the disastrous state of the UK’s prisons. It’s an eye opening chat - through David’s lived experience and Pia’s knowledge of the system we gain a better understanding of where our justice system is going wrong and how we can begin to fix it. Nish fights sleep as we’re brought up to speed with the Tory leadership latest, before firing up in disappointment at misguided comments on the Grenfell disaster from two former Prime Ministers. Coco lightens the mood with the unexpected love story between two of Westminster’s best known MPs. Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.Useful Links: David’s Channel 4 Documentary https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secrets-of-uk-prisons-untoldPrison Reform Trust https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Guests: Pia Sinha, CEO Prison Reform TrustDavid Navarro, Host, Delinquent Nation Audio credits:Sky NewsBBCContact us via email: [email protected]: 07494 933 444 (UK) or + 44 7494 933 444 (internationally)Insta: https://instagram.com/podsavetheukTwitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheukTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheukFacebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheukYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/podsavetheworld
Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Coco Kahn.
And I'm Nish Kumar. And this week, we're embracing the government's newfound unpopularity.
And later, we're joined by two very special guests to discuss the challenges facing our prison system. But first, Nish is back. Return of the Mac. Where have you been?
I've been on tour. I was off last week because I was doing a last minute run of previews just before the tour started and the tour is up and running.
Well, obviously I'm heavily biased, but I have seen the show and it is fantastic and probably libelous. It's definitely not libelous.
I want that to be made very clear. For any lawyers listening who aren't going to come to the show, it's definitely 100% not libelous.
But maybe adjacent?
I believe that it's legally caveated sufficiently. Okay.
It is a spicy show. And if you would like to see a legally caveated show, you should absolutely get tickets. It's running around the country to end in November.
I'm off to Scotland tomorrow. I'm off to Glasgow tomorrow. Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. I am all over the entire United Kingdom. And I'm also doing a date in Dublin, which I'm very excited about.
But anyway, let's get into the political news of the week, where Keir Starmer asks, well, who wants to be popular anyway?
We're going to have to be unpopular. Tough decisions are tough decisions. Popular decisions aren't tough, they're easy. When we talk about tough decisions, I'm talking about tough decisions, the things that last government ran away from, that governments traditionally run away from.
I'm convinced that because they've run away from difficult decisions, we haven't got the change we need for the country.
That's Keir Starmer, who seems to have aged 100 years in the last couple of weeks, speaking to the BBC's Laura Koonsberg last Sunday.
This is at least an evolution of last week's things are going to get worse mantra, but it is a strange tone for the government to set. As all week long, front pages of websites and newspapers have been cluttered with headlines decrying the government's stance on winter fuel payments for pensioners.
And on Tuesday afternoon, we saw the government's policy of means testing the up to £300 payment put to the test in a vote in the House of Commons. The government won comfortably with 348 votes to 228 for a majority of 120. Only one Labour MP voted against the government, but a number quietly abstained.
So we spoke about this on the podcast last week, but Nish, what are your thoughts on this?
Listen, I think the case that I think the Labour Party is trying to make is that by means testing these payments, you can make a meaningful saving by making sure the money doesn't go to people that don't necessarily need it. But I think it is also... very difficult because there is always a concern that people will fall between the cracks when you make this kind of cut.
And there are people that exist on the borderline that badly need these kind of fuel payments and may lose out over the winter. And also in terms of the saving, it's expected to save between £1.3 billion in 2024, 2025 and £1.5 billion in subsequent years, which given what the government is trying to address is a £22 billion black hole is a real concern. And my issue with this
And my issue with this kind of rhetoric around this is this idea that if you're making benefit cuts and you're saying you have to do this because you have to make tough and unpopular choices, my question is always, who are those choices going to be unpopular with?
Because regardless of what Keir Starmer says about governments dodging decisions, we've had between 10 and 14 years of unpopular decisions. And I think the government could have saved themselves a huge amount of political power
If they had announced these cuts in concert with, say, changing the structure to capital gains tax or inheritance tax, the Resolution Foundation this week has been urging the government to announce changes to cap gains and inheritance tax and national insurance in next month's budget. that would raise more than £20 billion a year for the Treasury.
You know, which again, given that the Chancellor was trying to plug a £22 billion hole, feels like a much, much, much more significant figure. And when we talk about unpopular decisions, the question is always, who are these decisions unpopular with? And it may well be that when we come around to the budget, Rachel Reeves does announce a change to those policies.
I would say that if you had telegraphed some of those policies in concert with this idea that you're cutting fuel payments to pensioners, you might have saved yourself a hell of a lot of political difficulties. My grandmother is a pensioner. And I also think that if we're looking at the way the pension systems are rolled out, and I think this is true of a lot of benefits,
there needs to be a simplification of the way that these things are dealt with and the way that these things are administered. There is simply no way without my mum doing everything, my grandmother would be able to claim benefits she's entitled to.
It's all online as well, isn't it?
It's all online.
Yeah.
which obviously I understand is ostensibly designed to make things more straightforward. But you also have to consider who the target audience are of your sort of technical changes. And I also think that there needs to be a simplification of the processes that allow people who are eligible, because there still are a number of pensioners that are eligible for this.
And there is an argument being made by some Labour MPs that actually this helps them provide more targeted benefits to the people who need it most.
So if the government is taking the chance to implement some unpopular policies, we thought we'd help with some of our own contributions. So let's start with the realistic, a bit of crystal ball gazing for Keir Starmer's foretold things getting worse. We've already discussed some potential new taxes, rejigging inheritance tax, that would be unpopular.
Capital gains tax changes, that would be unpopular. We had Paul Johnson from the IFS come onto this couch and make a very good case for changing up council tax banding.
Yeah.
I mean, what else could they do that would really suck for them?
I mean, I think if they want to be incredibly unpopular again with some of the wealthier people in society, I think that they could clamp down on tax avoidance. I think that's another thing that closing those tax loopholes would be hugely, hugely significant. Let's take a moment to dream up some more imaginative unpopular policies. Let's start blue sky thinking.
Okay.
What are your wildest unpopular policies?
Okay, so I'm going to say something and I know I'm going to outrage many people.
If you say anything negative about Taylor Swift, I will immediately distance myself from it. I don't need the rage of the Swifties.
How about this? Dog owners. I think you should have a license to own a dog. Oh my God.
Because not being funny... Why are you doing this?
I'm sorry, but there's too many badly behaved dogs, Nish. People don't know how to train their dogs and look after their dogs. I'm just saying, I think you need a license.
Can I just say, I don't disagree with you, but you can't tell British people that their dogs are a problem.
I know.
My mother-in-law is Canadian, repeatedly says the strangest thing about coming to this country is finding out that British people prefer dogs to children.
Okay, all right, listen, let's be more egalitarian. How about licenses for all pets? Cats, rabbits, parrots.
What, you're going to license people to own a budgie?
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, there you go, Keir Starmer. If you want to ruin your standing with the British public, that's a policy for you.
Listen, I think if you want to go full unpopular decision, I actually don't even know how unpopular it is. Let's go full Brazilian and ban Twitter.
Okay.
Full Brazil.
Yeah, full Brazil. That sounds like something I asked for at the Sabbath. I don't know which you should be saying that.
I think let's give the country a Brazilian.
Okay.
And ban Twitter. If you look at the last month and a half in British and American politics, the race rights in this country were driven by misinformation that was spread on Twitter.
Yes.
And if you look at the last week in American politics, the rumours that immigrants are now eating cats... has actually spread and been given credibility by Twitter. So I'm just saying, maybe, and also like I'm still on Twitter, maybe for my own benefit.
Yeah.
Some prohibitions are for our own benefit.
Good and welcome. Okay. I've got one.
Here we go.
I went to see the new Beetlejuice yesterday. Shouldn't have been made. Ban reboots. What do you think?
I don't mind banning reboots.
Yeah?
I don't mind banning reboots. I think this should be an application system. Yeah, but I don't want to ban all reboots because then I wouldn't have got to see James Acaster in Ghostbusters. And that was one of the most hilarious moments of my life.
But there has to be some sort of board, the reboot board, and you submit to them why you're rebooting it. And I think you have to sufficiently prove that you will add something.
Well, I don't want to split. I don't want to get too in the weeds of the terminology here. But technically, Beetlejuice is not a reboot. It's a sequel.
Okay, all right, fine.
So you think sequels or reboots, they have to go in front of a board?
Yes.
I would say I'll introduce the law because purely for my own amusement, I would say I would agree with you, but you get a pass if you put Acaster in it. If you could stick Acaster in a reboot or a sequel, fine. I definitely don't want to see Schindler's List 2 starring James Acaster. That's all I'm saying. That might be the line.
I know we've been a bit silly here, but listeners, if you have an unpopular policy you think might make the UK a better place, let us know. Email us at psuk at reducedlistening.co.uk. And if you've not already, don't forget to subscribe so that you can hear it in next week's episode.
And after the break, we're going to be talking about some other potentially unpopular policies as we discuss the UK's broken prison system with some very special guests.
So, Keir Starmer says he's going to have to make unpopular decisions, and while the most unpopular this week may be taking winter fuel payments off millions of pensioners, releasing prisoners early is also something unlikely to get him a slap on the back at Arsenal matches.
This week, over 1,700 prisoners in England and Wales have been let out early after serving 40% of their sentence as opposed to the usual 50% in an attempt to ease overcrowding in our critically full prisons.
Last week, the England and Wales prison population hit another record high of 88,521, leaving just 1.2% of available space.
The new temporary measure excludes people with sentences for violent crimes over four years, sex offences and certain domestic abuse-related crimes.
And if this all sounds a bit familiar, it's because the last Tory government had the same problem about a year ago. Faced with prisons almost running out of space, it brought in an emergency policy which saw 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early between October and June.
So how has our justice system become so broken and could more radical and, dare we say it, unpopular changes help fix it? Pia Sinha is CEO of the Prison Reform Trust and a former prison governor. And David Navarro is host and producer of Delinquent Nation on YouTube, in which he interviews fellow ex-prisoners. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Thanks for coming on. Pia, we've actually spoken to you on the show before. We spoke to you last October, just as the Tories were rolling out their own early release scheme. Do you think this plan from Labour is going to work any better?
No, I think it's the short answer.
I think the reason for that is, is as you've seen last year... I would really have respected it if you just said no, and that would have been the end of the conversation. Nope, end of conversation. Moving on.
Shall I expand? Please do. But you've seen a year later, we're back to that same point. So it's a very, very temporary measure. It buys you a bit of breathing space. But ultimately, as a long term fix, you have to look at how you curb the demand coming into prison.
And that is the only way that you can make this problem go away for longer than six months or a year, because we'll be here again next year if we only do this.
I do just want to pick up on this early release. David, actually, some of the people being released early have nowhere to go. Last month, prison inspectors found that a quarter of prisoners at HMP Nottingham released under that scheme were homeless, leading some returning to the prison system. So what are some other challenges that people face when they get released?
Reintegrating into society is a big one because when you're in prison, I feel like you're in a totally different world, different rules. And especially when you've done quite a long time, you come out and you have to reintegrate back into society. Then you've got like the housing, relationships. and then trying to take a different path rather than the path that you've been going down.
Peter, there's been some reports of victims not being informed of upcoming releases with the exclusion from early release, not applying to all domestic abusers, as well as probation officers not having enough time to prepare for these releases. Is this now going to create a new separate raft of problems?
I think potentially, yeah, I think you were talking about reintegration and planning for release. One of the key functions of prisons is that as you're technically or in theory, as you're coming towards the end of your release date, you should have people who work in the prisons and outside the prison helping you with your employment needs, your housing needs, your treatment needs, etc.
informing victims, you know, all of that planning needs to take place. If you move that forward, then that planning time gets squashed. So the efficiency of all of that drops. And one of the things that came out in the reports is that victims are not being informed of the fact that their perpetrators are getting released early. And that can feel very traumatic for them.
I think that people know that eventually people need to get out. But when you know that's happening and you've had time to prepare for it, you're mentally more equipped for it. And that's the bit that's not happening. So that's one problem in terms of how it impacts victims. But the other is that... Probation, generally, when you come out, you come out on license conditions.
And one of the things that recalls you back to prisons is not necessarily that you've committed another offense, but that you've breached your license conditions. And those could be something as straightforward as you've not maintained your tenancy or you've made yourself homeless. because you've got kicked out of your flat or you're not living in suitable accommodation.
And you're essentially punished for that.
You're punished for that. Yeah. And especially when there's no accommodation that's suitable anyway, you know, you might be sofa surfing. And for some people, that's the only option that they might have. And so you so the kind of fallacy in all of this is, is that your recall rate then increases.
So if you're sending people out early, but then they're coming back in before their original release date anyway, you're just making it a kind of a really unworkable strategy to release pressure in prisons. And we had a number of prisoners getting interviewed yesterday as they were coming out of prisons.
And so many of them were just resigned to the fact that they're going to come back in a few weeks time. So it just feels like a very short term approach to dealing with the problem.
Obviously, David, you interview ex-offenders on your YouTube channel. That resignation that Pia talked about there, is that something you've encountered as well?
I think that accounts for certain prisoners. Obviously at the present, between 20 and 30% of prisoners get recalled anyways. And I think some of the people that may have said, you know, I'm going to be back in there, they might be like drug addicts that haven't sorted out their addiction while they're in there. And I think they probably would have got recalled anyways.
For like the people that actually want to change or feel like they want to change their life, we'll take this as an opportunity.
So in general, the sense I get from you is that the early release scheme, you think it's good, it's positive.
Yeah. I think it's positive as in, because the prisons are full, obviously. And I think we're kind of making a big deal out of it. Maybe, I think some of it's political, you know, trying to get at Labour a bit. Do you know what I mean? But I feel like,
for the people that qualify for it, and I think the maximum time is five years, the earliest they can get out is three months early, which before this, there were schemes like HDC tag, which was like three months early you get out. What is that? Sorry, I just, we don't, it'd be good to explain. So HDC is home detention curfew. It's like a tag. And if you're well behaved in prison,
you kind of, you get eligible to get a tag and come out three months early. But I think that was, if I'm not wrong, I think that was under four years at the time. Yeah. So now this is like five years and under. So they've changed it a little bit, but there's been loads of schemes for people to come out three months early.
I think we're making such a big deal out of this, you know, because so much people was released at one time. I think we're making such a big deal out of it for political reasons. I think the actual thing is, prisoners were going to get released anyways before Christmas.
Yeah, and he's right. If you got sentenced to under four years, you were released at your 50% mark anyway. So halfway point. So you're getting 10% earlier. There's not actually a lot in the scheme of things.
And also, I'm still unlicensed, by the way. It runs out next year. But my probation told me that they get an extended license. So if they do 40% in prison, they do 60% outside here. So they've come out of prison early, but their sentence hasn't been shortened. So in that 60% of time, they can still get recalled.
And they do.
Yeah. And it's like Pia said, It could be anything. You know, I've known people to like miss an appointment or like, you know, be in the wrong car without telling them that I'm going to be in this car. Or I didn't tell that person that I'm going to be in Newcastle today or like another part of the country.
And then they get stopped and it's like, all right, you're recalled because you didn't tell us you was going there. It's very strict probation. Yeah.
And the probation crisis now, because you're moving the prison crisis into probation crisis. You've now suddenly got huge numbers of early released prisoners that are going to be on the caseloads of probation who are completely stretched as well.
I think that's sort of what we really want to get to the heart of in this episode is like, how do you decouple the politicking from like, actually, what is the issues and how can we make them better? So I've got a quote here from the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor. He welcomed the early release scheme in his annual report that was released this week.
But he also said they are not in themselves a solution to decades of underinvestment and inertia in a vital public protection service. So his report draws on 72 reports also covering prisons, young offenders institutions, court custody and immigration detention centres. I'm going to play you a clip actually. So here he is speaking to BBC Breakfast.
Far too many people are spending their time locked in their cells, not doing anything productive during their prison sentence. Many of them, sadly, are taking drugs, partly because they're bored, partly because they already have drug habits. And what that means is people are coming out from prison without having reduced the risk of reoffending. And that has to be a concern for us.
David, what do you make of that? Do you agree with that assessment? And just generally, what are your thoughts on the state of prisons as they are now?
Yeah, the state of prisons is obviously a shambles. I agree with what you're saying. I feel like if you want to deal with the crisis that's going on, you need to put more into rehabilitation rather than just locking people up and kind of what they're doing.
And me and Pia were speaking about this earlier, that if you look at places like Norway, Holland and these places that put a lot into rehabilitation, the re-offending rate is the least in Europe. But then if you look at England, I think we have the highest like re-offending rates. We have the highest like
lifers and stuff like that in this country like we love to lock people up and if you look at like America they love to do it as well and they're such a bigger country and they give big sentences out like more than your lifetime they'll give out them sentences but that hasn't stopped the offending or the re-offending but then if you look at countries where it's working I feel like we should follow those countries rather than following America or do you know what I mean or like the old way of doing things I think that that's
Such an interesting point. And it brings me actually back to something that you said when we last spoke, Pia, that I would say haunts me on a daily basis. And it was a conversation specifically about the prisons. But the question you're posing, David, is why can't we have an evidence-based policy around this? And Pia, last time you were on the show, you said part of the problem is we can't...
in your time in government, the question was often asked, what will the Daily Mail think about this? And does this, do these policies pass the Daily Mail test? And I have to tell you that I think about that every day. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. No, no, because I think whenever I look at, when we look across the various different problems that we're facing as a society,
It does seem to me to be the key question. How much of a sense of that in responding to what David is saying, which is such a reasonable question, why are we not following more successful programs of education and what works? Is it as simple as it does not pass the Daily Mail test?
It's partly that and it's a big part. And I think, so we visited Holland a few months ago, a group of us, and we were looking at what they had done. They have successfully managed to reduce their prison population to such a point that they're having to, they've got empty prisons.
Wow.
And one of the things that they said is that, and they've got a right-wing government recently appointed, so they were concerned about what the implications of that would be. They said, but the way that the relationship between the politicians and the civil servants work is that the politicians don't interfere with civil service duties. They respect their neutrality and their independence. Right.
and they don't tell them what they need to do. Whereas here, you've got a lot of political interference. And that then starts, you know, the tail wags the dog. And then when you play into it, the populism factor or the Daily Mail test, The driving force for why politicians might interfere in civil service business is because of how it might appear to voters.
A fear that sections of the press will become inflamed or upset.
Yes, and the impact that will have on their future careers. So it's using the wrong optics, but that certainly seems to play a part.
One of the things you mentioned earlier, you talked about like, you know, in America, they give these really long sentences, you know, longer than a lifetime. Where our sentences are going up, getting longer. I think there's a public perception that that must put people off committing crimes.
No. So my answer to that is like, you have different types of people, but the person that's most prone to going to prison, like, you know, someone that doesn't really like authority, they, while they're younger, they don't respond well to punishment, if that makes sense. Like, you know, as a child, I used to get slapped or whatever. And I never ever responded well to that.
I didn't stop doing what I was doing because I would get a slap kind of thing. I just tried to be smart. And some people do get that smack and then they're just like, oh, I don't want to get smacked again. But I think a lot of the people that are prone to go in prison, more troubled kids, they don't respond well to punishment.
Furthermore, like they'll be sat in prison and they'll be getting even more angry at society, even more like, you know, and they're making more links. It's like university or crime prison. So they're coming out even worse. Yeah, I reckon.
In terms of, I mean, if we look at this current situation that we're in, prisons are, you know, overfilled. There's been a lot of talk about the last government stalled prison building programme and they built an extra 6,000 prison places after promising 20,000.
There's huge numbers of court backlogs as well, which is obviously not helping the situation because, again, whenever we start to talk about one problem, we realise it's interconnected to five other things. And the...
The sort of defunding of the court system and the various funding issues we've got there is creating another separate backlog, which means the number of people awaiting trial in jail has also skyrocketed. It doesn't feel like prison building is the issue here.
It feels like building more prisons and creating more prison space is not actually dealing with the sort of ceaseless demand we seem to have. Yeah.
It's just giving you more time, I guess. If you built another prison, it'll give you just enough time until that gets filled up. Yeah.
It does. And it's hugely expensive to build more prisons. I think at the rate of the prison population, the way it's going, I think that some clever statistician has worked out, you've got to build a new prison every two and a half years, which you can't do, which is crazy. And I think that at the moment, the position that they found themselves in, you know, you've You've got experience.
I have experience of being in Victorian prisons. I mean, they're awful. They're crumbling and they are disgusting. And the squalor that Charlie Taylor talks about is true. So you do need to build new prisons, but it needs to be new prisons to close the old ones. And that makes sense. Or re-roll some of the prisons.
You know, the women population, you know, reducing the women's population significantly. 60% of women are in there for non-violent offences. Decriminalise some of that. Give them the early intervention that they need to address those issues and re-roll some of the women's prisons. So they are much more creative ways of... getting you the capacity that you need without the expense.
And I think that the taxpayers need to kind of start asking those searching questions. How much is this costing them for something that's not effective?
Because I think it's also worth saying, and forgive me if this is a bit obvious, but when you hear the prisons are full, you might think there's more crime, but there isn't.
Correct.
There's less crime. I've got a note here that a report for the Howard League for Penal Reform pointed out that the prison population in 1991 was about 40,000. That's less than half of today's number. So what's going on? There's less crime, but more prison. I mean...
what's the reason what's going on there is you've got like there's something called IPP this was a a law that was made and then the person that made the law is now like campaigning against it oh wow David Blunkett yeah and it got It got stopped. I don't know the word for it, but it got stopped in 2012. But the people that was originally sentenced on IPP are still in.
Do you know what it stands for, IPP? Imprisonment for Public Protection.
I remember this from the new Labour government.
And it was like, basically, there's people that I know that, you know, are in for stealing like a pedal bike. Yeah. But they've been in for 16 years because they haven't been able to get their parole.
A lot of them don't get parole on their first time, you know, and then because you don't have a release date, what people are not realising, these prisoners that don't have a release date, they're stressed so they end up on drugs in prison or they might hold phones or, do you know what I'm saying?
And then these prisoners that are on long licence, because IPPs are life licence, so these prisoners that
are there for a long time are just trapped in a cycle because they're getting in trouble in prison, not getting their parole, and then it just happens over and over again, you know, and I feel like there's less crime, like you said, but there's prisoners still doing their sentence when they should have been out a long time ago, you know, especially IPPs.
You're saying that longer sentencing in some ways instead of being a deterrent, is actually something that... It's clogging up. It's clogging up the system.
So sentence inflation, some of it is because of perception of showing overtly that you're tough on crime. So when I started in the prison service 25 years ago, an average life sentence tariff would be something like 12 years. So even if you got a life sentence, it'd be 12 years tariff and then you'd be eligible for parole. It's now... pushing 20 years.
And in that 20 years, as you say, David, is that unless you're doing something meaningful, purposeful, that's helping you feel hope and working towards all of those issues that might've got you into prison in the first place, the prison sentence itself becomes a source of deteriorating your wellbeing and your mental health.
So with the IPP sentence, it's described as one of the biggest stains on the justice system. And people who are part of there have developed really poor mental health as a result of that. It's tantamount to torture.
A lot of people that haven't been in the system or don't understand it, they think like criminals are just monsters and they're just bad people. But a lot of the time when you're actually in there, you're like, oh, well, his mum and dad were both like drug users and he didn't really have a right upbringing. He didn't or she didn't know how to navigate through life.
And, you know, these people need intervention. And, you know, we should look at the circumstances or what led up to this. You know, in my podcast, I always ask, like, what led up to the crime?
it's good to look at what were the factors that led up to you going to prison if you can change that then you probably won't be going to prison anymore you know yeah 100% and so the presumption against short sentences is a is a really effective way of of reshaping the criminal justice system because also if you pair that up if you say well we won't send you to prison and
But we'll give you a non-custodial sentence. We'll make it a suspended sentence. So there is a bit of deterrence there. We'll put in a treatment order. So if it's about drugs, we'll get you some drug intervention, treatment, et cetera, et cetera. Evidence shows that they're much more effective in reducing reoffending.
That's a good shot because let's say it was going to be like a five-year sentence. If it was five years suspended, then while you're outside, you know one mistake, I'm in jail for five years. Do you know what I mean? Rather than just, let's just put them in there. If you feel like there's something you can do to kind of help this person, put them on a, was it DRR?
I think that's what it's called, isn't it? Yeah, put them on a DRR, like a drug rehabilitation thing and then get them to kind of change before they...
slip up again and go away you know i feel like there should be more a lot more intervention yeah 100 but also there needs to be a bit more tolerance as well these some some individuals it takes more than one go for it to be successful so you know you you might get all of those things and you mess up but you know that happens in life you know you don't just kind of go that's it that's it you only get one chance at it so there has to be some tolerance of of risk as well
This is exactly the place we want to leave this conversation, I think. This is the place that we want to get to, which is making actual recommendations for evidence-based changes that could improve and actually get better outcomes in terms of stopping re-offending.
If we can get some of these people straight into work with earning money and, you know...
that could that could be good because i never i was going in prison for about 10 years in total and i never really thought i didn't think i wasn't qualified so i never got university qualifications or anything like that so i thought i'm just it's going to be so hard to get a job and then when i came out i couldn't even do like a cscs course which is like the most basic easiest thing to do they didn't let me do it because of my crime so yeah i guess
A lot of people don't realise that, you know, there's jobs you can do and this will take you away from having to make money in other ways. Because obviously poverty breeds crime, you know. So I feel like if you just kind of helped in that department and made them feel like somebody responsible, then that's the person they're going to be.
But that's what Timpson... Yeah, exactly.
Sorry, go, Coco.
No, I'm just curious, you know, about... So, you know, the prison's minister, James Timpson, there was a lot of hope around his appointment because his company did employ ex-offenders and was essentially providing a model for a better way to rehabilitate prisoners. I did have some questions about it, though.
I've recently discovered that, like, as part of the scheme, he wouldn't take anyone under 25. And I just wanted to, A, get your thoughts on that.
I have immediate thoughts. I don't know if you want to start. So my immediate thoughts was, like I said, I've spent like 10 years of my life in prison and it wasn't until I came out when I was 30. So it wasn't until I was a lot older and I think men develop their frontal brain later.
I didn't even realise that that was an involuntary response of agreement from me.
I didn't even realise I didn't even realise how much I agreed with that honestly every time my 21 year old mates yes I have them are like oh I'm going on some dates I'm like oh I'm dating some children that must be hard for you
anyway please go on this is it like I I never had consequential thinking and stuff I used to think I knew about the consequences but I really didn't like now I've come out I'm a father of two now you know I'm I'm going forward in my life and now I think about sometimes I walk past I walk past like you know, the places where I've committed crimes. And I'm just like, I can't believe I did that.
I was like a different person. Do you know what I mean? But it's because I hadn't developed that if I do this, I'm going to lose so much of my life. And then when I came out this time, my license was going to run out when I was 35. So I was like, I've been going to prison all my 20s. I've never had a 20th birthday, you know? And I was like,
if I don't change this now, I'm going to be an old man coming out at 35 with nothing, no kids, nothing. And I was just in a cycle of going back to prison until I caught quite a big sentence. And then while I was sitting down, I then was able to realise there's consequences to this stuff.
And well, one of the biggest things that reduces a factor in desistance is just simply maturity. So as you get older, you do that a lot more. You think about consequences a lot more.
A lot more, yeah. I'll be honest, when I heard that the Timpson model, which I thought was brilliant, excluded men under 25, I just thought, well, what will happen to them? What will we do with them? Have you got any solutions for younger men?
Lock all men up until they turn 30.
All men. Not just people going to bed. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's, you know, when I've worked in prisons that have younger people in there, I think that they're much more excited by interesting education schemes, interesting training schemes that, you know, that stimulate them rather than necessarily a job that, you know, they might not be ready for.
And I think Timson's got a, I mean, he's a savvy businessman amongst other things, and he wants a model that will succeed. And you used to work with James Simpson, didn't you? Yes, he was the chair of the Prison Reform Trust just before he became minister. So putting the age limit there is probably quite sensible.
He wants people to come in when they're ready and they're able to do the job well so that they succeed at it rather than fail at it.
But would that pass the Daily Mail test? Because I recall reading in the Daily Mail test some outrage about women prisoners who would be released for a day to go and work in McDonald's. Fair enough, they want to earn some money, they want to get some skills, get some job experience for when they come out. The Daily Mail seemed to be livid about this.
The idea you'd be served your Big Mac by someone who was an offender seemed to really upset them. Do you really think it could happen?
Listen, if you're eating a Big Mac, you've got bigger problems. Your digestive system is not going to be affected by who hands you that Big Mac.
Well, I mean, I think that we know we need to change the narrative on the Daily Mail test. You know, why aren't people saying, does this pass the Guardian test? You know, why don't we want to live in a world that does that?
You're not going to McDonald's at all. Soz.
Is this an opportunity, given that the prisons are... I mean, I hate the cycle that we seem to be in in so many different facets of our lives where we have to let things get to a crisis point before we actually have a proper conversation about how we need to change things.
But given we are, regardless of what newspaper you read or who you voted for, everybody looks at this and goes, we've got a crisis here. Is this now genuinely an opportunity for us to have a proper grown-up conversation about prison?
I think it's the best time. You've got new Labour government in, they've got a massive majority. Keir has said, you know, he's willing to go there with those unpopular decisions. And I want to know who he'd be unpopular towards. Is he kind of pandering to the right or the left? But... Do it. You know, this is the time to have courage. And it is. We were talking about it last time we were here.
It's the worst kept secret that these are the things that that, you know, make rehabilitation better and stop kind of make safer communities. And if people are not swayed by the conditions in prisons argument, I think the bigger, more compelling argument is the economic argument. It costs so much to put someone in prison for something to not work.
So if you look at the concept of justice reinvestment, you know, you're spending billions in the criminal justice industry. Take a portion of that and invest it in early intervention, the kinds of things that David was talking about. And you'll see that not only do you have safer communities, you have smaller sized prisons.
And then when you have smaller sized prisons with people who genuinely do need to be there, you can resource them to have the interventions they need. So that people, when they come out at the other end, you can have people who are better citizens and will create fewer victims. And I know that some of this sounds very sort of naive, but you have to start somewhere. And I think you're right.
I think it's the absolute perfect timing. And you've got Timpson as a prison minister. It signals something, doesn't it? It's signaling something that we're wanting to make bold decisions. So let's bring it on.
Thank you both so much for being here. This sort of conversation is exactly why we think this podcast exists. I think it's really interesting because when you propose these kind of liberal prison reforms, you are deemed naive and out of touch.
And actually, what you two are both saying is reversing that and saying, actually, if you're not making evidence-based comments about incarceration, actually, you are the ones that are being naive.
Obviously, if you want to know more in depth about prisons... Go and check out my documentary on Channel 4, Secrets of UK Prisons, Untold Secrets of UK Prisons. Check it out.
Look forward to it. Absolutely.
Thank you, Dave Navarro. I just had to plug myself in quickly.
No, good. Well, you did it for me because I was going to do it.
Yeah, we were supposed to do it. I think it means more coming from you.
Yeah, for sure. And thank you, Peter Sinnott as well. You're very welcome. Please look out for the Prison Reform Trust and the work you're doing.
Thank you very much.
Great.
Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.
OK, so it's that time again, Tory leadership. Since we spoke to you last, we've had two eliminations. The best known but least popular candidate, Priti Patel, was eliminated last Wednesday. And the least known and least likely candidate, Mel Stride, was knocked out on Tuesday afternoon.
Somehow, Robert Jenrick has pulled ahead of the pack, presumably taking on the majority of Patel's votes, while Kemi Badenoch is close behind with Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverley bringing up the rear.
And the briefing against each other has begun. So Stephen Swinford of The Times writes that supporters of Badenoch claimed at the weekend that she was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign designed to push her out of the leadership contest.
They suggested that some right-wing MPs who want to see Jenrick elected had lent their votes to Cleverley in the first round of voting in a bid to undermine Badenoch. This was emphatically rejected by the Jenrick camp, who said that the claims were, and we quote, pathetic and desperate.
I'm sorry, I know it's my job, technically, in my capacity as host of this podcast, but fucking hell, I've not been paying any attention to this.
What is it about it that makes you zone out so strongly and quickly? I think it's just the sort of...
mental pressure of having thought about the Conservative Party intensely. I think I'm just sort of, I don't know, I think I'd just like to sort of have a holiday from them as an organisation. Also, Robert Jenrick does sort of look like someone typed Tory man into chat GPT. Like, he does look like an AI-generated Conservative.
Have you not found that he's looking a little American at the moment?
What do you mean?
Well, he seems to be releasing all these photos with these signs of people holding up signs behind him, like Jenrick for leader or whatever. Right, okay, yeah. It's all quite, well, it sounds American.
I know, but I think it's a dangerous game to play personality politics when you have no personality.
Also, it's hard to shake the, well, this is pointless feeling because we know what the Conservatives are like. If you become leader, I give you 18 months before someone stabs you straight in the back and then they spin you around and straight in the heart. That's how it works. I mean, look, on the bright side, you will get a bit of a Tory break now because...
I mean, they've sort of said everything they need to say. The next we'll hear from them is at the party conference. That's where the leaders will sequentially give speeches to Conservative Party members. I'm sure we'll cover that. But until then, you can have a little rest, have a little sit down.
Yes, and a more potentially more consequential leadership contest is going on in America. Last night, as we record on the Wednesday, the first presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took place. And if you're interested, there's some fantastic analysis and reaction to the debate on our sister show.
Much more qualified older sister who definitely knows how to wash her hair better than we do. Pod Save America. There's an episode there right now that explores what this debate might mean for the rest of the US election campaign.
And while we're on the subject from Russian prisoner exchanges to US presidential nominee Kamala Harris's foreign policy to international elections, it can be hard to keep up on all the news happening everywhere around the world.
So, introducing Crooked's new social media channel, where we put real news back in your feed, so doom scrolling just got a little bit healthier.
Check out at Real Crooked News on Instagram, Threads or X, formerly Twitter, for 100% correct news and analysis.
Now, last week, we updated you all on the results of the Grenfell inquiry. Please do go back and check it out if you haven't already. But to keep it brief, it found that decades of failure and systematic dishonesty were the root causes of the disaster. Never one to avoid a chance at airbrushing his legacy, the former PM, Lord David Cameron, took to X writing...
The report is clear that fire safety and building safety regulations were explicitly excluded from the coalition government's greatly needed red tape reviews, given the importance we place on safety and build quality. Indeed, the coalition and post-2015 government took steps to increase fire safety regulation.
I have to say, reading this made me physically sick. I thought it was an absolute disgrace that Cameron deliberately misinterpreted the content of the report as a way of exonerating him and his legacy. I think...
It's really important that when we write the history of the last 14 years, David Cameron's failure as Prime Minister is placed on the same pedestal as people like Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, whose failures were... you know, were shrouded in, I would say greater theatricality. So they received more focus in some ways. Cameron is the architect of so many problems in this country.
And he is the author of so much human misery that has been vested on this country in the last 14 years. And in terms of his, um, involvement or his culpability in Grenfell. There's no point in me saying something that Peter Apps has already said, because Peter Apps, former guest on the show and author of Show Me the Bodies, how we let Grenfell happen.
He went, took to ex formerly Twitter and said, what we just read from David Cameron, and this is a direct quote from Peter, is demonstrably and very clearly total bullshit. The report quite firmly found the opposite.
Sadly, Lord Cameron is not the only former PM to be saying some really just awful egregious things on this. Tony Blair, who we've previously referred to on this show as being in his second villain era, was also out and about.
However good your system is and however well-intentioned it is and however hard people work, they're going to make mistakes. And it's important you hold people accountable for those mistakes, of course. But I don't think you're ever going to get a situation where, you know, decisions are perfectly taken in perfect circumstances and there aren't accidents or tragedies that occur.
It's just important every time they do occur to try and learn the lessons of them.
I mean, that is total horseshit in regards to the conversation around Grenfell. The inquiry and all of the journalism that's been done into this has found that the whole point here is that no lessons were learned. There were so many warnings that were ignored and...
Blair's analysis here is completely at odds with the findings of the inquiry and the journalism that has been done around this subject. Although I suppose if there's one thing Tony Blair is an expert in, it's coming off badly in a fucking public inquiry.
And finally, this weekend, I had a joyous Saturday reading an excerpt from Diane Abbott's memoir, A Woman Like Me, published in The Guardian, which explores her life story, including her relationship with the independent MP and former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, the book sounds amazing. I've just bought a copy. It has not yet arrived.
I'm really excited to read about this iconic politician, but I am going to spoil a little bit. I just want to read you some of the quotes about her relationship with Jeremy Corbyn. As I say, please do read it in full. I was gripped from the first word. And it says, around that time, I began to realise that realistically, ours was not a match made in heaven. We were two different, Abbott writes.
Once, after I lamented our lack of social activity as a couple, he pondered it for a few days and told me we were going out. Feeling excited, I dressed up nicely and we bundled into the car. I had no idea where we were going. Perhaps a nice wine bar? It turned out Jeremy's idea of a social outing was to drive me to Highgate Cemetery and proudly show me the tomb of Karl Marx.
Wow. That is... That is... That is beyond parody.
Look, I'm not... It's not about the choice of date for me. Literally this year on Valentine's, I went to an exhibition exploring the exploitation of women's labour in the home and the main exhibit was just a woman screaming on a loop. I consider that romantic. That's my love language. Let's talk about equal distribution of household labour. So it's not a judgment on the day.
It's more the surprise element. At what point was she like, oh, this is a cemetery? You know, when I was thinking social, I was thinking, want to be around alive people? Didn't know I needed to say alive. Didn't know that was, you know, that's the bit I absolutely love.
There's a lot of left-wing plays, museum exhibits, films that you could go and see. Even within the context of a social activity event, purely dictated by your political allegiance. Visiting Marx's tomb feels even for that a bit.
Was she dressed up? Was she in stilettos? It's a beautiful scene and I'm sure the book is going to be full of great anecdotes so I'm looking forward to reading it. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. And we want to hear your thoughts. Email us at psuk at reducedlistening.co.uk or drop us a voice note on WhatsApp. Our number is 07494933444.
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We want to hear about your unpopular policies and we also want to hear about your most painfully left-wing date. Your most truly painfully left-wing date. That's what we're interested in hearing about this week. Very, very interested. Don't forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. And if you want more of us, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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