Chaos in prisons – but the minister goes part time
For a little while yesterday, Andrew Selous' biography on the Ministry of Justice's website mentioned the fact he was unpaid. And then, as a handful of home correspondents on Twitter noticed, it disappeared.
Since then, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed to the Howard League that he is in fact unpaid. Selous will only be paid for his role as assistant whip. So the role of managing Britain's prison estate is not just a part time one – one which was only filled as something of an afterthought. It is also the lesser of the part time roles. It's not much more substantial than a hobby.
Filling the role of prisons minister in the reshuffle was a shambles from the start. It was clear everyone felt it was a hot potato. The estate is full, cash is being haemorrhaged stuffing extra prisoners into private prisons against contract, and the total number of prison officers has fallen by 30% over the past three years. A draconian new 'right-wing' regime is imposing ever-harsher penalties on inmates, including a humiliating programme of de-personalisation and solitary confinement. Many experts privately warn they are expecting riots over the summer, especially if there are prolonged heatwaves.
Since November last year, when the draconian new rules were introduced, the number of suicides in jail has doubled compared to the same period a year ago. There were 42 suicides in the first half of this year, compared to 30 the year before.
"Deaths have risen sharply in recent months," Nigel Newcomen, the prisons and probation ombudsman, said recently. "It is too early to be sure why this rise is occurring, but the personal crisis and utter despair of those involved is readily apparent, as is the state's evident inability to deliver its duty of care to some of the most vulnerable in custody."
There's significant increase in male self-harm, which has risen annually by 3,000 since the coalition came to power in 2010. Last year, there were 23,183 self-harm incidents in prison. Murder rates are also increasing, with four alleged homicides in 2013 – the highest number since 1998.
As the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales, Nick Hardwick, told Newsnight: "If you look since the beginning of the year, our inspection findings have dropped significantly. We are seeing a lot more prisons that are not meeting acceptable standards across a range of things we look at. And I go to most of these inspections and I see with my own eyes a deterioration.
He went on to describe "people being held in deplorable conditions who are suicidal, they don't have anything to do and they don't have anyone to talk to". He added: "We need to look at what's under our noses and sort that."
We are witnessing a self-inflicted prison crisis, the result of an overuse of incarceration, cuts to funding, free-market experiments, macho-posturing and a refusal to look at the evidence of what actually reduces reoffending.
But far from doing anything about it, the government appears to be losing interest. The prison minister job was an afterthought. Now it is filled – part time and unpaid – by a man with no track record on prison issues.
This is not the way you'd treat a matter of priority. There's only one logical conclusion: the prison system is in crisis and the coalition doesn't care.
