Help prisoners improve themselves and think differently about life - will prepare them for freedom, writes Andy Coulson

15 July 2024, 21:26 | Updated: 16 July 2024, 10:03

By Andy Coulson

There isn’t really anything to debate about whether our prisons are overcrowded. It’s one of the few things on which all politicians agree.

What really matters is what happens inside prison. Why is there such a high recidivism rate? Why isn’t rehab working?

The fact is a staggering 55% of adults who serve custodial sentences of less than a year reoffend. Reducing the time spent in custody for thousands of prisoners from 50-40% is a sensible short-term measure that won’t move the dial at all on this big issue.

I got a good look at this challenge when I served, ten years ago, two months in HMP Belmarsh and another three at HMP Hollesley Bay, a resettlement prison in Suffolk. The two experiences could not have been more different.

At Hollesley Bay I worked as an education assistant, helping inmates prepare for release with Dragon’s Den presentations, providing help with their CVs and in mock job interviews. It was interesting and rewarding work.

But in Belmarsh I spent most days locked ‘behind the door’ – on many occasions for 22 hours or more. A government-imposed book ban meant that the novels and biographies friends sent me were confiscated from the post room.

Belmarsh was overcrowded in the summer of 2014, but nothing as compared to now. This means that security is the only priority for a stressed, demoralised staff. Almost all rehab programmes – the stuff that might actually steer an inmate towards a new skill or way of thinking – are broken.

However, the Ministry of Justice has alighted on one smart initiative. Realising that the overcrowding means more time in the cell, they have created Launchpad. This system allows prisoners to access positive content via their in-cell screen (in the newer prisons) or via a laptop.

The motive is to provide inspiration not entertainment. To steer inmates away from daytime TV on the battered portable sets most inmates pay to rent in their cell, and towards something that might be of use as they sit thinking about their futures.

I am delighted that my podcast Crisis What Crisis is now available to inmates on Launchpad. In a new partnership with the Ministry of Justice the 100 or so episodes we have recorded are free to listen to for inmates across a number of prisons. It will roll out across the whole prison estate over time.

My pod – along with a lot of other positive content – will, I hope, provide some useful lessons on how to survive, and move forward positively and productively, after crisis comes. Even if that crisis caused others harm and was self-inflicted.

I hope that by listening to my guests’ stories of failure, resilience and positivity, including those of some fellow prisoners, they will think a little harder about their futures.

Wherever you stand on the prison population debate, there is agreement from most (it’ll never be all) that those behind bars should be encouraged to improve themselves and, in doing so, increase their chances of not reoffending.

Reducing the number of inmates in prison is necessary to ease the overcrowding crisis. Helping prisoners to think differently about life when they’re serving time is how we’ll reduce the number who, all too often, end up back inside themselves.

Andy Coulson is the former Downing Street Director of Communications, Founder of strategic advisers Coulson Partners and host of the podcast Crisis What Crisis, available on the Global platform.