ICPR submits evidence from its prison labour research to the Justice Committee

We have again drawn on our international prisons research to inform an important inquiry seeking to raise standards in our prison system. ‘Rehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending’ is the first Justice Committee inquiry of the current parliament.

Our submission draws on extensive research conducted by the project team at ICPR (Ben Jarman, Helen Fair and Catherine Heard), as part of our ongoing project, Unlocking Potential: towards effective, sustainable, and ethical provision of work opportunities for prisoners and prison leavers.

The evidence submitted synthesises available data on working prisoners, and then presents selected findings from our recent field research at three English prisons. We found that prisoners value the chance to work, but see room for improvement in how it is provided and organised – for example, work should align more closely to job opportunities in the free market, and prisons should provide a wider range of qualifications and skills. There was also frustration at wasted opportunities, with workshop space being used as storage space because of staff shortages, and prisoners not working due to a lack of contracts with outside businesses.

Our evidence draws attention to serious shortcomings in government data on the work provided to prisoners, making it impossible to track progress in meeting the policy commitments of recent years to increase provision and improve prisoners’ chances on release.

We also call for a higher minimum wage for prisoners who work – the current rate of £4 a week is less than half the minimum hourly wage payable to free workers and hasn’t gone up since 2002 – unlike the price of goods for sale in prisons. The message this sends hardly supports the stated policy aims of building self-esteem, inculcating a work ethic, encouraging prisoners to support their families and save for their release.

Our concluding remarks make it clear that no progress can be made in this area unless the government takes the necessary measures to reduce the overall size of the prison population.

Read our submission to the Justice Committee

Read our 9 January submission to the government’s Independent Sentencing Review