LIBERAL TALK

Full Version: NEC Statement - Prison unrest and penal reform
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The Liberal Party notes with alarm the latest rounds of prison rioting, this time centred on HMP The Mount, Herefordshire.


The UK prison service has struggled for some time with the conflicting demands of greater incarceration verses reduced funding. Reduced staffing numbers are widely cited as having contributed to a decline in prison supervision and discipline.

Although the government has undertaken to restore staffing levels, this will take time to come to fruition, whilst still leaving inmates and staff at risk of harm in regular outbreaks of prison violence.

The Liberal Party’s spring conference debated penal reform and found much merit in reducing incarceration rates and replacing these where possible with non-custodial community offending behavior programmes and rehabilitation services.

Greater emphasis and investment in rehabilitation would do much to reduce re-offending rates and reduce prison over-crowding in the long-term.