Rehabilitate prisoners through education — Meacher

Prisoners should be given an education and made to work on low wages, giving 90 per cent back to their victim or society, according to Oldham MP Michael Meacher.

Mr Meacher said the main effect of prison was to intensify criminality and that a better solution for many offenders would be community sentencing in local secure units.

But he insisted that violent, sexual and dangerous offenders should continue to be locked up in traditional prisons.

The Oldham West and Royton MP said: “Prison does take violent men out of circulation so as to protect the public for a time, but it is not a deterrent and it fails drastically in rehabilitation — the main effect of prison experience is to intensify criminality.

“It’s obvious that prison is not a suitable repository for most prisoners.”

He said that a better alternative for prisoners — excluding violent, sexual and dangerous offenders — was community sentencing in local secure units. People with less than a six-month sentence would be better rehabilitated if their links to the community were preserved, he argued.

Mr Meacher said those who had to be in prison to protect the public should not be consigned to “detention oblivion”.

He said: “Their smaller numbers and longer sentences make possible a much more robust programme of rehabilitation. That should include individual and group therapy, having to face and listen to the victim — if the victim wishes it — getting basic or higher education, learning a trade, and having to work for a low wage where 90 per cent is then transferred to pay back the victim, his or her family, and society.”

Mr Meacher spoke out after Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said sending offenders to jail often proved to be a costly and ineffectual approach that failed to turn criminals into law-abiding citizens.

Mr Clarke called for “intelligent sentencing” with a greater focus on rehabilitation and said locking people up for the sake of it was a waste of public funds.