Criminal Justice System: Veterans

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered veterans in the criminal justice system.

It is good to be holding this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank you for the support I know you will give me throughout the debate. On several occasions, I have had the opportunity here in Westminster Hall to highlight the amazing, innovative work with offenders at Her Majesty’s prison Parc in my constituency. The Parc Supporting Families initiative has changed lives. It has brought a focus on being alcohol and drug free and on the impact on families, friends and communities. It has built relationships with families and taught prisoners parenting skills. It includes substance misuse programmes, prisoners reading with their children and making visits more family friendly, as well as building links between the schools of prisoners’ children and the prisoners, so that the children are largely protected from the impact of their parents’ sentences.

Many of the ideas successfully launched at Parc were picked up by the Farmer report and have been applied elsewhere. This new holistic approach to offending, which places increasing responsibility on the offender to address their behaviour while professional staff support and enable change, has had a radical impact on offending. Parc has built on that and in 2015 opened the first ever ex-military offenders unit, Endeavour. I visited just before the recess and promised the staff and prisoners I met that I would seek a Westminster Hall debate to emphasise the impact of the work they are doing on themselves and the wider community.

I commend the work of the staff at the unit. They go beyond just going in to do their job. It is their whole focus, knowing the change that they can bring across Wales. I also emphasise the eagerness I felt from the veterans and their willingness to tackle the issues that had led to their offences, and I pay tribute to the wide range of partner agencies involved. The work has had a huge impact on the lives and futures of the 270 men who have passed through the unit since it was opened. I urge the Minister or someone from the Ministry of Justice to visit and see the work, and the leadership that the unit has from Janet Wallsgrove, the director of Parc, and Corin Morgan-Armstrong, the inspirational head of family intervention, custody and community—does that not just say exactly what prisons should be about?

We have to recognise the task the staff, the volunteers and the inmates at Parc are trying to do. They are tackling years of failure—failure of families and of the state, particularly the education system and the way in which, in this country, we do not teach emotional and relationship education. They are tackling quite a high degree of failure from the Ministry of Defence to address not only the problems that military personnel bring with them into the military, but the negative experiences that they may have had while serving that leave them ill-equipped to deal with life back in the civilian world. Those problems are then left for the criminal justice system to deal with. Quite honestly, society has for far too long dealt with those problems by locking them and the people away.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and pay tribute to her considerable experience in this area. Does she not think this is part of a wider problem in terms of society supporting, or rather not supporting, our military veterans? That is why it is vital that there is a question on this subject in the next census.

[Mrs Moon]

It is absolutely vital that we know how many veterans we have and where they are, but many veterans do not want to self-identify. There is a question of shame and not wanting to be identified, so there would have to be some nuancing around that whole question.

We are failing people who have served their country and that cannot be acceptable to anyone. Let us be clear: not every service leaver is likely to end up in prison, in the same way that not every service leaver will end up with mental health problems—I am deeply concerned that that image is being allowed to grow. For many, the transition to civilian life, while challenging, is successful. The MOD has improved its programmes, although it still lacks anything more than a one-size-fits-all approach.

A recent report from the Forces in Mind Trust and King’s College London looked at data held by liaison and diversion services, and shows that we do not even really know how many offenders have served in the armed forces. I have seen figures for the last five years that vary from 2% to 9%. That has to change; we need better, more effective statistics, so that we know the problem we are dealing with.

Military life provides structure and comradeship, which many may have lacked in their lives before they joined the services. That comradeship and structure might not equip people with the education, skills and coping mechanisms that they need for transitioning into civilian life. Some may not have the emotional skills to cope with relationship issues or their change of status. Emotional issues had played a part in almost all of the cases of men that I spoke to, but all also talked of the trauma of going from hero to zero. One minute they are heroes, respected by family and community, and the next minute, they are nothing and nobody. For many of them, that trauma led in some part to their offending, which exacerbated the feeling of zero-ness, because they were totally rejected by family and community after offending.

Like many MPs, I have dealt with numerous cases of veterans who have hit hard times. In the majority of cases, it was not the veteran who approached me—it was their family and friends. Ex-service personnel are not good at asking for help. They are used to being problem solvers—indeed, that is what they are taught to be—but many also need training in seeking and accepting help. One of the men had been offered help and had turned it down because it was not exactly what he was looking for and he did not want to compromise. He made his life harder as a result.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The hon. Lady has mentioned HMP Parc and the excellent work done there. I have also visited the prison. Would it not be a proposal to have armed services support officers in every prison and every probation area?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Moon]

Certainly, the military covenant has meant that individuals with an armed forces focus are spreading out across services. Among the prison service, there is definitely a wider acceptance and recognition of the need to look at ex-service personnel. That awareness is growing, but we do always need to do more.

We all know about post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health problems within the military and I do not intend to go through that again. We are seeing increasing numbers. We need to examine how many of those who are in our prison system and are exhibiting signs of mental health problems and post-traumatic stress have served, and where they have served. We need to do that research as we cannot work just on the basis of “we think”.

I appreciate that the Minister is having to respond to other Department’s failures, but that goes with the job. The Forces in Mind Trust has summed the situation up well:

“more efforts could be made upstream of the”

criminal justice system,

“for example during transition out of the military, when some of the risk factors for offending behaviour may be targeted. Interventions to improve employment, housing”—

a big issue, fundamentally important—

“mental health and alcohol and substance misuse outcomes could reduce the rates of offending following transition.”

Identifying veterans in prisons is not straightforward, as I said. Since January 2015, new arrivals in prison have been asked to self-identify themselves, but that relies on people being willing to do so, and not everyone is. The feeling of letting others down is significant, and they might not want that identification. Consequently, numbers vary. Before 2015, estimates of the number of veterans in prison varied between 3% and 9% of the prison population, as I said, but now we simply do not know. Will the Minister look again at how offenders who are ex-military are identified, and work with the Ministry of Defence to improve identification?

Identifying individuals is only valid, however, if we provide the right kind of help, so that veterans are not failed again. To quote the Forces in Mind Trust report again,

“veterans have a different profile of welfare, mental health, alcohol- and substance-misuse, and general health needs than general population offenders.”

We therefore have to produce a different form of response.

Parc prison provides a good place for such work to start. In the past 18 months, 207 veterans have been identified, 153 of whom served in the Army—but there are likely to be more—19 were ex-Navy, 18 were ex-Royal Air Force and 17 would not disclose their service. Those in the group are serving sentences for a wide range of different offences but, among them, a disproportionate number have been sentenced for sex offences, 89; violence offences, 35; and drugs, or drugs and violence, offences, 24.

The role of the unit for the ex-military, as for other programmes at Parc, is to prepare prisoners to rejoin society successfully. That is what prison should be about. Considerable thought went into establishing the unit: 160 Brigade visited Parc to discuss the idea beforehand, and General Nick Carter visited and talked to the people in the unit, including the prison officers who support it, and I cannot begin to tell the House the boost that that gave to ex-service personnel.

Great efforts have been made to build partnership links with organisations appropriate to work with ex-military. There is a steering group and it provides a comprehensive programme to address everything from employment to housing. There are too many organisations to mention—although I have a list for the Minister—but they include SSAFA; the Royal British Legion, as one might expect; SToMP, or Support Transition of Military Personnel; Care after Combat; and Emmaus.

The practical aspects of civilian life are not the only ones that need to be addressed. Emphasis needs to be put on tackling relationship issues, and prisoners’ personal lack of self-respect—low self-esteem was very apparent among the ex-military personnel I spoke to, with that sense of going from hero to zero. The partner organisations carry on the work started in the unit, providing vital continuity once a veteran is released. We cannot allow that transition from prison into the civilian world to fail, because if it does it is devastating for the ex-service personnel.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend lists myriad organisations that do excellent work in support of our veterans, but availability is scattergun, and it is almost a postcode lottery for many parts of the UK. Does she agree that the unit at Parc offers a national benchmark, the basis for a national programme?

[Mrs Moon]

That is exactly why I secured the debate. Prisons other than Parc are doing such work, but I have to say—with a sense of pride—that Wales is doing the best work in the UK with offenders who are ex-military. We are leading the way. Parc is an exemplar that I hope the Minister will look at to see how we can roll it out across the UK.

Not every veteran at Parc is in the Endeavour unit— 39 ex-military sex offenders are in the vulnerable persons unit, and initially charities were reluctant to work with this group, but that has now changed, which I am pleased about—but its results are encouraging. In the unit, veterans look after each other. Interestingly, the old ethos of respect between prisoners and prison officers is back—it is like stepping back in time, say officers who served then—and there is a real sense of trust and looking out for each other. Individuals I spoke to during a visit said that they feel safe. Cells are left open, there are no thefts and there is a sense of working together to overcome problems. Comradeship is key to people feeling that they can keep working to confront some quite difficult things that have happened in their lives, and to deal with the tensions and fractures within their families.

Emmaus, for example, rehomed three ex-military offenders from the unit, with one of them gaining full-time employment as a store manager. Two veterans secured full-time employment following release from the unit, one of whom now even employs others.

All of the prisoners I spoke to were eager to re-enlist. All of them wanted to know something, and this was the big message that they wanted me to tell, although I appreciate that it is not the Minister’s responsibility: they wanted an opportunity to serve. They wanted to make good on their failures. Somehow we need to look at whether there is an opportunity, case by case, for individuals who have offended to re-enlist in the regulars or the reserves.

The MOD needs to work with the Minister to address when and where people served, and when and how they transitioned out. An awful lot of them seem to have been discharged from the military and so re-entered society with no support, so they moved into the criminal justice system, and wider society had to pick up the risks and the problems. A review of the military justice system needs to look at how we can make that process more effective.

Parc has a wraparound service, as is needed at the point of transition. Will the Minister look at what is being done at Parc? I also recommend that he looks at the excellent work at HMP Oakwood on peer-led veterans’ life skills and support training. In brief, therefore, the issues are employment and employability; housing and support; capacity to re-enlist; relationship education; transitional issues to be addressed before leaving the services; and moving from hero to zero, or self-worth and self-esteem. May we have research into whether there is any correlation between those who have suddenly moved into our criminal justice system and those who formed part of the sudden reduction in the size of our armed forces in 2010 and 2011? There are concerns that that might be part of the issue, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. There also needs to be a greater effort to tackle sexual offences in the military, and domestic violence.

The military justice system of course has a responsibility, and I appreciate that I have given the Minister a lot to think about that is not within his brief, but if we as part of wider society do not tackle the problem, we will only see it grow and continue.