Related to the previous post,
One of the things simply not communicated is what the Tory cuts mean on the ground. In prisons, it means stuff like losing so many staff in the last 4 years that they can't operate properly or safely:
http://prisonuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-grayling-deckchairs-on-moj-titanic.html
Prisons, however, I do know a thing or two about - probably a great deal more than Mr Grayling does. As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, there is an ever-increasing mountain - perhaps more appropriately in this case, an iceberg - of evidence that the prison system is coming close to collapse due to overcrowding, under-staffing and radical budget cuts.
...
Due to what amounts to an information blackout from inside prisons, the media appears oblivious to what is really going on. For example, has it made the news that there was an ‘incident’ at HMP Lincoln on 9 August when a group of prisoners on the exercise yard refused to return to their cells in protest because staff shortages were impacting so severely on the daily regime? No? That’s because it didn’t turn violent and no-one - thankfully - was injured. This time.
In fact, as the Howard League for Penal Reform highlighted last month, the number of officers at Lincoln has been cut by 37 percent since September 2010, when there were 207 on the staff. By 2013, that number had fallen to just 130. In reality this means that almost everything and anything is liable to cancelled without notice: education, work, exercise, legal visits, weekly visits to the prison library (that was another big fib, wasn’t it Mr Grayling), showers, access to payphones to call home. It’s hardly surprising that ‘incidents’ are occurring across the prison estate as nicks grind slowly to a halt and tensions rise to boiling point.
...
The impact will be felt by every con on every wing. Applications (apps) will go unanswered. Well-behaved inmates who have applied for promotion to Enhanced level within the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) system will hear nothing for months, thus undermining morale and the whole internal structure for rewarding those who obey the rules with small, but significant privileges. Lose the cooperation of the well-behaved majority and it is but a short step to a potential loss of control of a wing or of an entire prison.
Serious accusations. ANd of course it is just a blog on the internet, but frankly I believe them more than I believe the government or the media these days.
http://prisonuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-grayling-deckchairs-on-moj-titanic.html
Prisons, however, I do know a thing or two about - probably a great deal more than Mr Grayling does. As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, there is an ever-increasing mountain - perhaps more appropriately in this case, an iceberg - of evidence that the prison system is coming close to collapse due to overcrowding, under-staffing and radical budget cuts.
...
Due to what amounts to an information blackout from inside prisons, the media appears oblivious to what is really going on. For example, has it made the news that there was an ‘incident’ at HMP Lincoln on 9 August when a group of prisoners on the exercise yard refused to return to their cells in protest because staff shortages were impacting so severely on the daily regime? No? That’s because it didn’t turn violent and no-one - thankfully - was injured. This time.
In fact, as the Howard League for Penal Reform highlighted last month, the number of officers at Lincoln has been cut by 37 percent since September 2010, when there were 207 on the staff. By 2013, that number had fallen to just 130. In reality this means that almost everything and anything is liable to cancelled without notice: education, work, exercise, legal visits, weekly visits to the prison library (that was another big fib, wasn’t it Mr Grayling), showers, access to payphones to call home. It’s hardly surprising that ‘incidents’ are occurring across the prison estate as nicks grind slowly to a halt and tensions rise to boiling point.
...
The impact will be felt by every con on every wing. Applications (apps) will go unanswered. Well-behaved inmates who have applied for promotion to Enhanced level within the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) system will hear nothing for months, thus undermining morale and the whole internal structure for rewarding those who obey the rules with small, but significant privileges. Lose the cooperation of the well-behaved majority and it is but a short step to a potential loss of control of a wing or of an entire prison.
Serious accusations. ANd of course it is just a blog on the internet, but frankly I believe them more than I believe the government or the media these days.