Kerre Woodham: The prison problem

The Howard League for Penal Reform has a novel approach to solving the prison overcrowding problem and it's called "setting free the bears". Those crims who have nearly completed their sentences, and who were not convicted of the serious assault-type crimes, would be released to make room for the Class of 2005.

The reason it's a problem is that there are more prisoners than there are prison beds, and that puts enormous strain on our prisons and our prison officers. Consequently, remand prisoners are being held in police cells and holding pens within the country's courtrooms.

Peter Williams, the president of the Howard League, says this is simply unacceptable and remand prisoners are being kept in inhumane conditions that you wouldn't put animals in. So, he says, set free those prisoners who do not pose a threat to the community, or put them in motels to finish off their sentences. Not surprisingly, a howl of outrage greeted this proposal. The reason the prisons are so full at the moment is that the nation demanded longer prison terms and tighter bail and parole conditions, and the Government, with a gun to its head, responded with the appropriate legislation.

Passing laws is easy; building extra prisons and treatment centres to house the crims is not. So the laws have been passed, and they're being acted upon, without the final step in the equation having been completed.

And Peter Williams' idea of setting free prisoners also lacks follow through. It's already acknowledged that the support structure for prisoners on release is woefully inadequate. That, in part, is why our recidivism rate is around 80 per cent within the first two years of release.

So putting more prisoners out on the streets without the care and attention they need to help them assimilate into society is as shortsighted as locking 'em up and throwing away the key without anywhere to lock 'em.

I agree that it's appalling that people are locked in police cells for weeks at a time but my sympathies are probably slightly more skewed towards the cops who have to look after these people.

Peter Williams does rather bang away about the fact that it could a member of our own family who is locked away in these dreadful conditions but, really, how many people do you know who have committed the sort of crime that would see them on remand?

Oh I know there are dodgy types in among the middle classes. The case of the Dio girl turned gangster's moll is one that nice Eastern suburbs mothers will use as a cautionary tale for their golden girls for years to come, but, quite frankly, I know very few people who have been in prison and very few who I believe will end up there.

On the other hand, I know plenty of people who have been burgled and some who've been assaulted, so people are more likely to be sympathetic to the victims of crime than they are to perpetrators.

Don't get me wrong - it's appalling that people who have yet to be convicted of a crime are locked away in conditions that are substandard. But the public wanted to see crims given tougher punishments immediately, and they would not have brooked a government that had said, "yes, OK, but you'll have to wait five years".

So we have a problem and despite Peter Williams' best intentions, his suggested solution would only add to the problem.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY