It's time Catholics got involved with prison reform

A JOURNALIST rang me up recently to ask me "will the prisons soon get back on to an even keel?" He was referring to the industrial action, widespread, though unofficial, by prison officers.
I told him that the Home Secretary's appointment of a committee of inquiry would probably suspend the short-term crisis (which seems to have happened). But the underlying long-term crisis would assuredly grow worse steadily unless a new approach altogether were adopted.
Penal treatment is usually discussed from the point of view of prisoners. Penal reformers want it to be much more humane and sensible. Hard-liners want it to be still more unpleasant and prolonged.
The authorities flit between the two, at times seeming to appreciate the case for reform but fearful of the public backlash. No one until now has said much publicly about the prison officers. It has taken their industrial action to bring them late in the day into the centre of the argument.
The immediate crisis is due to two things — overcrowding and underpayment. The prison officers rightly complain that the present gross overcrowding does serious damage to the possibility of good relations with prisoners. They insist just as rightly that on any reasonable comparison (with the police, for example) they are seriously underpaid.
The inevitable result is low morale and a very poor level of recruiting. Again the prisoners suffer. It is at last beginning to be realised that the interests of the staffs, the prisoners and the general public are in harmony, not in conflict.
But even if overcrowding and underpayment were disposed of a deeper question confronts us. What are to be the status and role of the prison officer in the future? One thing at least is certain; he will not be satisfied with the status and role of the past.
When, in 1955, I opened the first debate on prisons in the House of Lords I demanded that prison officers should be transformed from turnkeys to social workers.
The prison officers' evidence to the recent Parliamentary Committee on Expenditure laid heavy stress on the need for more involvement in welfare work and for more consultation generally. Without those changes there will be little prospect of securing enough recruits of good quality or exercising the kind of influence on prisoners which are the declared aims of the system.
To work out plans of this kind will take time, certainly more than a few months, but the prison officers cannot be expected to wait long for a settlement of their pay claim. An interim report from the new Government Committee is the only possible solution, but even before the cornmittee starts work it may be necessary to say or do something to relieve the anxieties of the prison officers.
The proper treatment of the prison officers is by no means the only complex and controversial issue for the new committee to pronounce on. The Home Secretary has recently acknowledged that during the last 25 years we have devoted in sufficient resources to the prison service. It seems clear that more -I hope much more — will be allotted to them in future.
But how are these extra resources to be deployed? I was horrified to hear the Home Office Minister in the House of Lords announcing a large new building programme. Penal reformers are virtually unanimous in demanding that any increased funds should be used for alternatives to prison; that is for work for the community under supervision outside prison.
It costs approximately ten times as much to punish a man in prison as to make use of his services outside in a much more constructive fashion. The committee could do an invaluable job here in sorting out the issues.
In the last resort, of course, it is Ministers who must make the crucial decision. They have hitherto shown themselves acutely sensitive to so-called public opinion as interpreted by the popular Sunday newspapers. But public opinion, of course, means US, which is where the ordinary citizen comes in.
A large number of people are in prison who should never have been sent there. Thousands more are sent to prison in England for longer periods than in nearly all civilised countries. But in any future under discussion I recognise that thousands of our fellowcitizens are going to be found in prison.
Can I sum up the improvements in prison life that Catholics, and for that matter all Christians, should press for? The chaplains deserve an article to themselves. I would like to see them have much more influence than at present, but this must be done without tying them still more closely to the Establishment so that prisoners think of them as being "on the other side".
The problem is, admittedly, delicate. I have already touched on the far-reaching benefits to prisoners which would accrue from a new constructive role for the prison officers.
I would go on to say that there is no sphere of life which would benefit more than prisons from much more open government. The present restriction on communications with the outer world "letters, visits and within the prison complaints, etc" are a hundred years out-of-date.
The life of prison is not made up entirely of stupid restrictions.
Much good, idealistic work is done by dedicated governors and prison staff in conjunction with prisoners. But the whole atmosphere is poisoned by a thousand petty and senseless regulations.
A well-wisher tried to send Mr John Stonehouse a copy of Bun yan's "Pilgrim's Progress". The book was stopped on the grounds that the sender did not know Mr Stonehouse personally. It took nearly two years to secure permission at the highest level.
Not long ago I was visiting a young former IRA prisoner who has publicly repudiated violence. The visit was delayed because a dog was not availble to assist two officers escort this rather frail young man from one block to another. And so on and so forth, ad nauseam.
This kind of nonsense can be laughed at outside prison. But inside the farce is not as noticeable as the inhumanity.
Prisons should be made far more accessible to the Press and to the general public. There might be some disposition at first to claim that in certain prisons the prisoners had too good a time. But the broad truth, which is just the opposite, would not take long to sink in.
And the truth, if it did not immediately set the prisoners free, could not fail to improve their condition markedly. But none of this will happen without a new dimension of leadership from the top.
The prison governors have recently described the present lack of leadership as "deplorable", but one must diagnose the difficulty before dealing with it. At present the Home Secretary is far too busy to provide the required leadership (this has been true of all Home Secretaries since the war).
The assistant Ministers in the Home Office never carry enough guns. In the event penal policy is really decided on and carried out by officials. And it is simply not in their role to bring about creative changes.
In the House of Lords recently I suggested the appointment of a designated Minister of Cabinet rank for penal matters, with the Home Secretary retaining the ultimate responsibility. It is not the only possible solution, but after many years' brooding on the issue I am sure that it is the best one.
Sometimes, as in last week's Catholic Herald, I have been described as a champion of penal reform. Sometimes as a prisoner's friend. Both titles are honourable.
Politicians do not find them helpful to fame and fortune. They're not identical though they are complementary. As prisoner's friends, Catholics, clergy and laymen, have no reason to be ashamed of their record.
Cardinal Flume spent most of last Christmas Day unpublicised in Wormwood Scrubs. The interest of Archbishop Worlock and Bishop Harris is well known. And there are many other examples. Michael Gregory, among laymen, has been outstanding for many years.
But on penal reform the Catholic performance has hitherto been feeble. Better late than never, and I am delighted to hear that the Social Welfare Commission has set up a working party to look at penal reform.
Meanwhile the Government Committee of Inquiry forces the issue. Great decisions in the penal field must be taken in the near future. May Catholics gird their loins and, for the first time, play a part which is worthy of our religion.