CR5 Issue 147 August 2017

Treasurer Andrew Carver proposed the Society’s
July debate, ‘Prisoners and the unemployed
should undertake useful community
employment.’ He started by reminding the floor
that community sentences are an alternative
to custodial ones for crimes such as damaging
property, minor theft, assault, benefit fraud.
Prisoners given a community sentence must
complete specified work – e.g., litter clearance,
graffiti removal, redecorating public buildings
– as ‘community payback’, acknowledging their
debt to society and connecting offenders with
victims. A range of one-to-one or group training
programmes focus on anger management,
substance and alcohol abuse, domestic violence
and sex offences. Community work is unpaid
and is not an easy option, involving between 40
and 300 hours, with embargos on certain social
activities, a curfew, an electronic tag and other
restrictions.
How does community payback benefit society?
In London, over 1 million hours are completed
every year at a cost of £2,800 per person per
year; our high prison population costs £36,250
per person per annum.
Moreover, a 36% reoffence rate with
community sentencing compares very well
with a 60% reconviction rate within 12 months,
for custodial convictions. Nearly half (47%) of
prisoners have no qualifications and 42% have
been expelled from school. Of the 68% who were
unemployed before conviction, 65% are
reconvicted within 1 year of release.
Andrew outlined the highly successful, local
“Clink’ project, where prisoners receive
comprehensive training in the catering and
horticultural industries, allowing them access to
viable employment on release. Andrew then
discussed the unemployed. He said that 18 - 21
year olds who have not found a job nor training
placement in the past 6 months should not
receive job seekers’ allowance, unless they
agree to start an apprenticeship or community
work; community work should consist of at
least 30 hours per week, rewarded with a youth
allowance, (from Day 1 of their benefits’ claim)
and 10 hours’ job searching per week. In an aim
to reduce welfare dependency and benefit fraud,
the Government is planning to make community
work compulsory for the long-term unemployed,
freezing the allowance for non-compliance.
Andrew said that the unemployed should give
something back to the taxpaying public, by
undertaking important community work. They
should help themselves by experiencing the
workplace again, and thus becoming a more
attractive proposition for potential employers.
Opposer Richard Mascall opened with the
memoirs of former Chief Inspector of Prisons,
David Ramsbotham. He quoted the case of
‘John’, a 27-year old ‘revolving door’ offender,
with serious family, mental health and
educational problems. It is difficult to help the
many prisoners like John to stay out of prison.
But the 56% of prisoners who do not re-offend
have three important advantages: a home,
stable relationships, and a job. So why did
Michael Howard close the last hostels attached
to inner-city prisons, when many newly-released
prisoners have nowhere to go? What about
jobs? Companies like Accenture and Ricoh have
signed up to a ‘Ban the Box’ scheme, which
removes the ‘previous conviction’ tick box on
job application forms. However, how does
prison equip inmates for work? Prison inspectors
reported that work experience for prisoners
(e.g., sweeping floors) is ‘mundane, repetitive
and unrelated to resettlement objectives’. The
best alternatives are Resettlement Prisons and
Release on Temporary Licence (RoTL), offering
prisoners outside employment before release;
although 99.92% of RoTLs were successful, just
1 in 4 Resettlement Prisons offered useful RoTLs.
Poor funding means that, of more than 5,000
prisoners released every year, only 335 have
RoTL experience and nearly one third of adult
male prisons had inadequate training facilities.
Richard then discussed the employment of the
unemployed. Both the Mandatory Work Activity
and the Work Programme and Community
Work Placements cost money and did not work.
With an unemployment rate of under 5% (1.5
million, with 0.9 million simply between jobs),
do we need costly and ineffective support? Only
368,000 people claim Job Seekers’ Allowance for
more than 12 months; why give them unskilled
labour instead of training and education?
Forcing people to work would cost money for
supervision and administration. The type of work
offered would be that undertaken by minimum
wage earners, who would then lose their jobs.
Unscrupulous employers would benefit from a
cheap workforce. Richard concluded that paid
work for prisoners is useful, but we need to
spend more on RoTLs and training, rather than
‘community work’ of doubtful value. In 2014/15,
welfare spending was £2388 million, with
unemployment benefit about 1% of that.
Scrapping unemployment benefit would save
just 32p for every £1,000 of tax. Making the
unemployed work is costly and of little value to
them or to society.
The motion was won by 9 votes to 1, although
some members, agreeing with the principle of
the debate, favoured the opposer’s doubt about
the practicalities of it.
The Society’s topical debate will take place at the
Old Coulsdon Centre on September, at 8 p.m.;
subject and speakers will be decided on during
our August recess.
All visitors welcome; for further details, contact
Angela Applin on 020 8668 8558.
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