The National Probation Service was established in 1907 with the motto “advise, assist, befriend”. This was intensive and highly skilled work. Maybe the Tory government, in the shape of Chris Grayling, found this a little too touchy-feely, as in 2014 all the skills, experience, institutional memory and expertise was swept away as the service was privatised (The Guardian view on probation: the service has not recovered from a privatisation disaster, 16 October). This was done despite the warnings of all 34 probation boards – yet another story of experts being ignored.
The renationalising of the service, underfunded and overstretched as it is, has not replaced all that was lost, and while short jail sentences are not only ineffective but counterproductive, there is no capacity in the system to give out more community sentencing (Thousands of prisoners in England and Wales to be released up to 18 days early, 16 October). What is needed is a full workforce plan across the Ministry of Justice, with sufficient funding for training and equipping staff with the skills to rehabilitate offenders, and with the time and space to do so. There is no quick, easy or cheap solution to the mess made by this government.
Pam Walker
Former probation board member
• There is a fundamental problem with the prison strategy (Sewage in rivers, crumbling schools – what next? No room in prisons for rapists and burglars, 13 October). It’s not that there are too few places in prison, but that too many people are jailed in the first place.
Many prisoners have mental health issues or learning difficulties, or have suffered abuse or been in care, and their crimes are not a serious menace to society. Locking them away from their families and friends, without education or rehabilitation, only increases their criminality. If the general public realised that a year in prison costs about as much as a year at Eton, they might be less vindictive.
A fundamental rethink of sentencing policy and of the aims of imprisonment – to rehabilitate, not just to take away freedom – is essential. But what chance is there that the government, or even the opposition, having the courage?
Sheila Cross
Newby Wiske, North Yorkshire
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