Prisons: OPCAT

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, that goes slightly wider than this Question. Rather than trying to busk it, I will make sure that I get the correct information and write to my colleague.

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the bodies in this mechanism is the Care Quality Commission and that last year it inspected 1,700 wards in hospitals where people are detained under the Mental Health Act? It was very concerned about children and adolescents being held in mixed wards because that threatened their privacy, their dignity and their safety. Do the Government have any plans to respond to that concern as a matter of urgency?

[Lord McNally]

Yes, my Lords. This is being kept under particular review since how young people with mental health conditions are being kept is of concern. As far as possible, the issues identified will be addressed.

Young People: Custody

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

That is a little wide of the mark, but I am very happy to say that we will return to this matter on Monday next, when I am sure that that question will be in the noble Lord’s opening speech. He can look forward to my response on what the Government’s policy will be.

[Baroness Stern]

Could I ask the Minister, in order to put this matter beyond doubt, whether the technique of inflicting pain on young people to make them comply, by hitting them on their nose, has now been banned, and whether the techniques of bending back the thumb and hitting them in the ribs is still being used or whether those have also now been stopped?

[Lord McNally]

The nose technique has certainly been banned. My knowledge of the other two pain techniques that she mentioned is not as in-depth. However, I must emphasise that the whole thrust of advice and development, not only under this Government but over the past two or three years, has been, as I said in my opening remarks, to make sure that there is good training and consistency of staff attitudes in this matter. It is a difficult matter and I understand the concern, but it is a concern that I have detected in the staff and administration of the secure estate as well as around this House. The big problem, as successive Ministers have found, is that we also have a duty of care to staff and other inmates, as well as the desire to secure a safe and secure estate. Dealing with some of the most difficult and complex young people is very difficult, but reliance on administering pain is a very last resort in very difficult circumstances.

Prisons

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for arranging this debate. I declare an interest as an honorary research fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College, London. I, too, welcome the recent statement by the Secretary of State for Justice about a new start in penal policy. I noted the view that emerged from his speech about the value of looking at evidence, and evidence will be the subject of my brief remarks this afternoon.

In his recent speech, the Secretary of State for Justice noted the difference in prison population between what it is today and what it was when he was last in that position. He may also have noted that when he was last responsible for prisons, there was in his department a high-level research unit, the Home Office Research Unit, which was the envy of the world and whose products were read all around the world. I very much hope that the Government will restart putting such high-level and objective work into the public domain. Research and evidence are a good basis for a new policy. I want to look at three areas where evidence might be helpful, although I entirely accept that, in the end, there are political considerations. However, evidence is a helpful start.

First, it is said by some that crime has gone down but that there are more prisoners, so the first must have been caused by the second. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has said, it is hard to find the evidence to sustain that proposition or to square it, for example, with what happened in New York where, between 1993 and 2001, violent crime decreased by 64 per cent, while the prison population dropped by 25 per cent.

Secondly, we know from a mountain of research, particularly a study carried out by Edinburgh University over many years, studying hundreds of children and young people, that putting children and young teenagers into prison is one of the worst decisions we can make if we are aiming at a safer society. That should only be done in the most extreme circumstances.

Thirdly, I suggest that the Minister asks the researchers at the Ministry of Justice to produce a paper showing what makes people turn away from crime and change their whole way of life. I think that such research would show that it is relationships with people who are not involved in crime, it is having bonds linking them to law-abiding society, and it is helping them to change their image of themselves. A policy based a little more on evidence than on what we have seen in the past 10 years would undoubtedly produce better results and a safer society. Does the Minister have any view on the report in the press this morning that Tim Godwin, the new deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has called for money to be taken from prisons and to be given to community-based schemes for offenders?

Prostitution

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, any commitments on ring-fencing are made at one’s peril, but I am aware that the three issues that come up time and again in any study of this problem are drug dependency, homelessness and unemployment. Any programme that will help women out of prostitution must address those issues. The briefing that I have received tells me that the work of faith groups in helping in these matters and helping women caught up in prostitution into rehabilitation has been very significant.

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his post. I am sure he accepts that street prostitution is very dangerous and that not all street prostitutes could work from premises, even if they were legal. Is the Minister aware of projects in place to help prostitutes to be safer and to work with the police to take to court those who rape and assault street prostitutes? There are two of these projects, one in Bristol and one in Liverpool. Will he find out about them, perhaps invite those who run them to come and see him, and then take a view on whether it would not be worth increasing the number of such projects?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I could not agree more. Both those projects were referred to in my briefing and I am aware that the department is in discussion with those local authorities. There is a strong sign that local authorities, the police and the courts are talking to each other and co-operating; there is also a lot of first-impression evidence that where that co-operation takes place women are able to get out of prostitution. What is more, on the other side—I think this was in the 2009 Act as well—we are going to go against the perpetrators, not only those who buy sex but those, particularly in organised crime, who make vast profits from it.