To what extent can Grendon be considered a Maverick prison Essays

To what extent can Grendon be considered a Maverick prison Essays To what extent can Grendon be considered a Maverick prison Essay To what extent can Grendon be considered a Maverick prison Essay Ongoing debates surrounding the idea of prisons have highlighted how prisons arent working. HMP Grendon has become a landmark in British prison history as a prison that has sought alternative methods of treatment for the incapacitation of offenders. This paper will outline the methods used by Grendon in the prisons attempts to rehabilitate offenders and how those methods compare to those currently employed in regular prisons. It will finally be argued that Grendon, supported by a number of empirical findings, has taken the risks and gained the results that ensure the prisons status as a Maverick prison. HMP Grendon is a category B prison outside Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. It opened in 1963, in a period of great social change which saw homosexuality legalised, the Open University founded, an equal pay act established, and the implementation of race relations legislation (Wilson, D. , 1994). In understanding the social context of the prisons beginnings we can start to understand the theoretical underpinnings of its core aspects. With new ways of understanding the old, Grendon brought a new way of understanding how to deal with offenders into the light. The prison is divided into six wings, five of which are relatively independent therapeutic communities with 40 or so residents in each, with a smaller assessment and preparation wing for 25. Most of the prisoners are in for crimes such as armed robbery, murder and a variety of sex offences. All have sentences of more than four years and all have volunteered to go there. Often many of the members have given up the option of parole to try to sort themselves out before being released. The therapeutic communities used by Grendon incorporate four main elements that contribute to the running of the establishment which are democracy and empowerment; the prisoners have rights of power over the administration and running of the prison; They also have responsibility; the prison encourages responsibility on an individual and collective level; Support; the system employed at the prison allows for the support of offenders from a variety of staff including psychiatrists, psychologists, probation staff, as well as those there to educate the prisoners; and finally confrontation; the prisoners are force to confront their crimes and the impact they have had on any victims and the prisoners are confronted if they should play down their crimes or if they attempt to harm others in the therapeutic community. Our current prison system is based on the idea that prison works and to varying extents the models of deterrence, prevention, retribution, and rehabilitation are heavily imbedde d in the idea of incarceration. The thinking behind the deterrent/ prevention model is that prison acts as a deterrent because of its unpleasant nature. Jeremy Bentham particularly advocated this view, that punishment should be sufficiently distasteful to the offender that the discomfort experienced would outweigh the pleasure to be deprived from criminal activity (Olsen, 1999:213). According to theorists such as Bentham such punishment can work on either a general or individual level in that both the general public who may be considering a crime are deterred as well as those who experience the prison system first-hand. By deterring crime through prisons it is hoped that it will be prevented. The retributive model of punishment states that those who offend deserve to suffer and that punishment institutions should inflict the punishment they deserve, which is justified for deliberate wrong doing. It favours the philosophy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and is considered to be backward looking in that it focuses on the crime already committed by the person rather than the utilitarian focus on the future consequences of punishment seen in deterrence models. Rehabilitation aims not to punish the offender but to teach them how they can reintegrate into society to lead law abiding lives. It is hoped the prisoners problems can be identified and resolved- The objective of reform or rehabilitation is to reintegrate the offender into society after a period of punishment, and to design the content of the punishment so as to achieve this. (Hudson, B; Understanding Justice; 1996 p26) The effectiveness of rehabilitation in regular prisons has come under much scrutiny due largely to the overcrowding of the prisons At every level of the prison system, overcrowding is having an effect on the ability of prisons to deliver rehabilitative programmes. In spite of additional resources, the movement of prisoners and the gap between the number of prisoners and the spaces available are making it very difficult to provide sufficient positive activity for enough prisoners (Rehabilitation of Prisoners, first report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, 2004-05, November 2004). The amount of inmates in prisons clearly means that rehabilitation does not make up a significant part of the prison regime for prisoners. Over the years there has been much debate over which models are most effective of rehabilitation in prisons has been widely questioned; In 1974 Martinson questioned What works? and in his paper stated that our present strategies cannot overcome, or even appreciably reduce, the powerful tendencies of offenders to continue in criminal behavior (Martinson, 1974: 49), and so proclaimed the nothing works. Later however, in 1979 he stated that some treatment programs do have an appreciable effect on recidivism. (Martinson, 1979: 244) and that [s]uch startling results are found again and again in our study, for treatment programs as diverse as individual psychotherapy, group counselling, intensive supervision, and what we have called individual/help (aid, advice, counselling). (Martinson, 1979: 255). Although he did not advocate rehabilitation as a primary tool for the punishment of offenders, his view that nothing works moved to everything works a little bit and can be seen as an important time for the future of rehabilitation. The differences between HMP Grendon and other regular prisons first become apparent in the physical running of the prison. The unlocking of the prisoners at 7. 45am until 21. 00pm and the calling of the staff by their first names all symbolise a more relaxed atmosphere than that of regular prisons. All types of category B offenders are deliberately kept together and encouraged to socialise with each other which is a stark contrast to the running of standard prisons which tend to cultivate a kind of hierarchy with armed robbers and murderers at the top and sex offenders at the bottom. This hierarchy often causes numerous threats of abuse often ending in segregation. In encouraging all prisoners to take part in the system together and on an equal level there is no need for segregation. Those at Grendon have no privacy however and there are no secrets allowed within the prison which can often be difficult for the prisoners as the us and them ethos of their previous prison experience was often characterised by secrecy between the prisoners as well as between the prisoners and staff. One of the biggest distinctions that set Grendon apart from all other prisons in the UK is its democratic structure that aims to empower the prisoners in giving them a voice on matters of conduct within the establishment. Empowerment within the prison is considered important for the growth of each prisoner as an individual and each of the prisoners have a direct say in every aspect of how the prison is run. They are given the opportunity to work out for themselves what is right and wrong and have the right to vote other prisoners out of therapy should they break any of the three rules of therapy, which are; no drink; no drugs; and no violence. Those who are voted out of therapy are returned to their sending establishment. In giving the prisoners a chance to stop such behaviour, issues such as drug addiction, which is often fuelled or created, not stopped by being in prison, automatically becomes less of a problem than in other prisons. In being able to apply their own values to the world in which they are living they are given, it is hoped, a better feeling of self worth than what is given in regular prisons in that they are not told what to do, they are encouraged to decide for themselves what is right. It is hoped that the prisoners can then apply that idea to the outside world. At Grendon the barriers between staff and prisoners are broken down and very often members of staff become more like friends than prison staff and a kind of mutual respect is formed which encourages good behaviour amongst the prisoners. This is illustrated well in David Wilson and Stephen McCabes (2002) study which attempted to understand how Grendon works in the words of those undergoing therapy. One of the prisoners stated that They [the prison staff] gave me respect, and that made me have self respect. I started to see things for what they were, and when you feel good about yourself, you feel good about other people too. The distinction between regular prisons and Grendon becomes clear here; at Grendon democracy and respect go hand in hand whereas elsewhere in other prisons, neither exist. In England the prison population has risen dramatically and is at its highest ever recorded level. In February 2004 the prison population in England and Wales reached an all time record population of 74,594- an increase of 3. 6% over the year. Since 1995, over 15,200 additional prison place have been provided at a cost of more than    £2 billion and the UK has the highest imprisonment rate in the European union at 141 per 100,000 (Baker, N. , 2004). With the prison population growing so rapidly and prisons costing so much it is evident that the current solutions to crime are not working. Of particular concern is the fact that recidivism rates for those coming out of prison show that 45% of men re-offend within two years, 38% of women, 72% of young males and 51% of young females re-offend within two years of their release. (Prisons). This evidence unmistakably indicates that traditional punishment does not work. Research carried out by the Home Office has found strong links between time spent at Grendon and low rates of recidivism. There findings found that; Lower rates of reconviction were found for prisoners who went to Grendon than for prisoners selected for Grendon but who did not go; Time spent at Grendon was strongly related to reconviction reconviction rates were lower for prisoners who stayed for longer periods; Prisoners who stayed 18 months at Grendon exhibited reductions in reconviction rate of around one-fifth to one-quarter; Both mode of release from Grendon (i. e. transfer back to the prison system or release into the community) and length of stay at Grendon had an impact on reconviction rates, but of the two, length of stay seemed considerably more important (Marshall, P. , 1997). This work supported the results found by Cullen in his 1994 study that found that time in therapy at Grendon was significantly related to rates of reconviction with 18 months being a threshold for the greatest improvement, with those who left therapy before 18 months having reconviction rates twice that of those who completed 18 months or more. (Wilson and McCabe, 2002). Research findings such as these suggest a contrast in the success rate of Grendon and other prisons in terms of recidivism and indicate wholly that Grendons achievements have far outdone those of the prison system and Grendon appears to be working. As well as recidivism, the fact that those who go to Grendon (arguably) come out better people and can actively participate and contribute to society also must be taken into consideration. Whilst those who have served in regular prisons are constantly churned in and out of prisons having reproduced the same morals and values that got them there in the first place, Grendon is able to aid the prisoners in developing values and morals compatible with leading non criminal lifestyles. This means that not only does the prisoner not (it is hoped) commit crimes but he is also able to make a positive contribution to society. The major differences that can be seen between Grendon and regular prisons is of course the fact that they are a rehabilitative establishment rather than purely a punishment establishment. This has meant that the focus has been on teaching prisoners the effects of their crimes and to understand why and how they came to do the things that they have done and why they should not continue doing them. While regular prisons continue to make bad people worse Grendon has been able to work with the prisoners instead of against them and so allowing the prisoners to see how the process can be mutually beneficial to both the prisoners and the staff, as well as the outside world. The democratic nature of the way the prison is run empowers the prisons but at the same time, with democracy comes responsibility and being responsible for ones own actions is one of the first steps to being able to shrug off a criminal lifestyle. With Grendon being based on communalism the prisoners are able to learn how to become one of the working components that make up a community and this in turn enables the prisoner to feel that they have a worthwhile contribution to make to the outside world. Though criticism does exist about Grendon, particularly from prisoners in other establishments who see it as the soft option, it has in fact been found (Wilson and McCabe, 2002) that once the prisoners are there they find the methods employed by Grendon as tougher than any other bird they have had to do. Often, being forced to face the crimes that they have committed or having to face personal issues from their past can be much tougher than having to sit in a cell for 23 hours a day. HMP Grendon has undoubtedly shown itself to be standing apart from other prisons in the United Kingdom. In terms of its structure, what it aims to achieve and how those achievements are realised, it has contradicted the deterrence, prevention and retribution models that our current prison system is so heavily based on. It has shown that rehabilitation works and the rates of recidivism at Grendon, compared to those of regular prisons, reflect that.