"We need to have a frank debate about the cost of rising prison population", says chief prison inspector Nick Hardwick

Over the past year Nick Hardwick, who reports directly to Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, has been searingly vocal in highlighting deteriorating conditions inside Britain's prisons.

Appointed in July 2010, he previously chaired the Independent Police Complaints Commission and worked in the voluntary sector for a number of years with young offenders, the homeless and refugees.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Epsom Guardian, which has reported extensively on concerns regarding the prison service - mainly relating to Banstead's High Down prison near to where Mr Hardwick grew up - he urged the Government to stop trying to dictate everything from Whitehall and give governors back more power over their own prisons.

He said the value of prison officers having time to mentor inmates should not be under-estimated, and that a discussion needed to be had as to whether the cost of "locking up so many people" was really achieving what society wanted.

Mr Hardwick said: "There needs to be, as with other public services, a proper public debate about the cost of locking up so many people.

"How does that fit within the list of national priorities when money is tight and is that money well-spent?

"Does it get the results we want in terms of cutting offending and rehabilitation?

"I would want to have a discussion about how much that all costs and not assume that somehow the Prison Service can keep expanding."

"How are we going to pay for it and how much do we want to pay for it?"

Upon his appointment, Justice Secretary Mr Grayling said he did not intend to cut the number of prison places, but would be cutting the cost of prison - a "getting more for less" philosophy he aimed to bring to his new department, along with a "rehabilitation revolution" within the criminal justice system.

Last June, many already-full prisons across the country were told to increase their operational capacity to take in more offenders.

At the time, Mr Grayling said he was making "no apology that we are sending more criminals to prison" because "that's what the public want".

But Mr Hardwick told the Epsom Guardian that the rapidly growing prison population - which now stands at 85,000 - was putting huge pressure on the system.

He said: "Quite apart from what it does to the individuals who are in prison, it's a legitimate question to ask - how are we going to pay for it and how much do we want to pay for it?"

He added: "Over the last year or so the prison system has been under a great deal of pressure and standards have slipped."

Mr Hardwick said the rising prison population, policy changes and staffing cuts had together debilitated the Prison Service.

He said there were periods last year when the system was operating at near full capacity, resulting in some severe overcrowding.

He said staffing pressures were created by an overall reduction in prison officers as well as "the process of managing the changes that have been taking place".

Particularly in London and the south east, he said prisons had found it difficult to recruit and replace staff who left as part of the Government's reforms because of an upturn in the employment market providing "other, better-paid options".

"It has meant real pressures and some establishments haven't been able to cope and that is reflected in increasing levels of violence, particularly in adult male prisons, and increasing levels of suicides in prison," Mr Hardwick said.

"It's not only down to that, there are other factors as well, but I don't think you can deny those pressures have been a significant part of the problem."

Mr Hardwick has been highly critical of the increase in prison suicides - 82 in 2014, the highest figure in seven years, according to the latest figures from the Howard League for Penal Reform.

He said in the case of vulnerable or alienated prisoners, "the pressure the system is under limits the capacity to manage these people and that’s been a factor in the increases".

Justice Secretary and Epsom and Ewell MP Chris Grayling 

"They have lost a disproportionate amount of mature, experienced staff"

The Chief Inspector of Prisons said things had started to improve over the past few months, although this improvement had been "patchy".

"New accommodation has come on stream, prisons have had some success in recruiting staff and the process of change has stabilised a bit," he explained.

"But that's very inconsistent. We're still finding places which are of real concern. You're beginning to see an upturn but it's by no means secure."

"[The Government] got caught by surprise," he added.

"The population rose higher than they expected and more staff left than they expected and they got some of their sums wrong. And so now they've had to play catch-up."

Mr Hardwick questioned whether too many seasoned prison officers had been made redundant - leaving the service weakened because of the lack of experience on top of all the other pressures.

He said: "A few people have come back, but on the whole they are recruiting new staff.

"So the issue is they have lost a disproportionate amount of mature, experienced staff and replaced them with younger, less experienced staff.

"Some of the older staff did need to go, like any organisation some fresh blood is a good thing. But you can have too much of it. You need to get the balance right."

He said the security of a prison depended on the relationships between officers and prisoners and the authority required to deal with inmates took time to develop.

Mr Hardwick said: "Like in a school, experienced staff who have some natural authority, that’s what makes things work. And if you lose that, it's not something someone new who isn't used to that environment, early in their career, is going to be easily able to do.

"But as time goes on those inexperienced staff become the experienced staff of the future."

"It's not the case that Whitehall knows best"

Mr Hardwick believes society wants offenders to leave prison less likely to offend and "common sense" factors such as helping them to get a job, a home, and addressing their attitudes must start the moment they enter the prison gates, along with having good role models while inside.

He asked: "Do prison officers present a good example of how they behave and how they deal with their aggravations? If you're behaving badly, does that get challenged? Are you helped to maintain links with your family?

"It's not just you go on a course and learn how to be a good boy. It's about the school analogy - it's not just what you're taught in the classroom, it's about the ethos of the school.

"Is the ethos of a prison about stopping you getting into trouble?"

Mr Grayling's reforms aim to make time in jail more meaningful by making prisoners engage with the system. Tightening up of prison regimes have included the axeing of 'free association' hours and the introduction of an Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme.

Mr Hardwick said he did not disagree, but "trying to specify in detail how that will work in a common system in every prison from the centre" did not work.

"What might work in High Down, which is a local prison with a very rapid turnover, will be very different from a prison with longer-term prisoners who have been there 30 years," Mr Hardwick said.

"How you're going to motivate a young man of 21 to behave properly is not the same as how you're going to motivate a guy halfway through a 25-year sentence.

"It's about outcomes not processes.

"I don’t disagree with the principle of what is trying to be achieved, but, as with lots of things, I don't think it's the case that Whitehall knows best."

"Make sure the size of the prison population is matched by the resources to pay for it"

Last year, many worried relatives of High Down's inmates contacted this newspaper to report their concerns about prisoners staying locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day due to staff shortages.

Mr Hardwick said in some local prisons with "operational pressures" inmates are regularly doing 22 hours behind bars.

"Whatever else rehabilitates prisoners and gets them to stop offending, lying on your bunk watching day-time TV doesn't work," he said.

"And if you've got someone who is vulnerable, really down, what do you need to fix that? You need someone to talk to and something to do. So that must add to the stress and the risks involved."

But with decreasing resources, what is the solution?

He said: "The solution is to make sure the size of your prison population is matched by the resources you've got to pay for it.

"That doesn't mean keeping them in some sort of luxury but it does mean having enough staff to make sure they can get to activities and be busy and purposeful and occupied for most of the day.

"And that the environment they're in doesn’t say to them 'you're worthless', but says they can make something of themselves."

He added: "You go to some places where, despite all the pressures, they are delivering that or very close to that. This is do-able. But it's hard."

Mr Hardwick does not believe prison officers have the time to motivate prisoners into behaving better, working harder - "one of the real problems in our prisons".

"There's a real danger that you think the only things that are of value are those which can be measured," he said.

"If a prisoner goes off to their English class and that's something they find difficult and someone says 'that's a real start, well done' - all of that kind of personal contact is really important."

High Down prison in Banstead 

"I'm not interested in the political rhetoric"

When asked the three things he would do to the Prison Service if he became Justice Secretary tomorrow, Mr Hardwick said: "The Justice Secretary should listen to what we say but at the end of day, Chris Grayling is elected and I am not. So it should be him and not me who decides what happens and that's right and proper."

But the Chief Inspector of Prisons went on to say that if he was told what he wanted done could be implemented, he would look at the cost of the prison service, as well as giving greater accountability to prison governors and examine the training prison officers receive.

He said: "I would be clear with governors about what was expected of them with the resources they've got but then give them the levers.

"At the moment, there is a real risk of fragmentation so healthcare in a prison is run by the health service, learning is run by a local college, resettlement services are now run by the new Community Rehabilitation Companies.

"There is a real risk individual governors don't have enough real control over what's happening.

"We also need to recognise the complexity of the task prison officers have and have a very fundamental look at their training. It's a few weeks here, in Sweden it's three years.

"We need to make sure these people have the skills and status they need to do this job properly."

Asked whether the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) had undermined its integrity by repeatedly dismissing concerns about conditions inside the country's prisons he said "they can say what they like".

He is most concerned about the feedback he receives from those running the prisons - who have said he is right in his analysis of what has been happening.

Mr Hardwick said: "In a sense, the focus of our work and our audience and who is responding to what we say is actually not great, huge policy issues for the MoJ.

"It's about what's happening at a local level. Does it make a difference on the ground?

"I'm not really interested in the political rhetoric."

Mr Hardwick said he did not know specific details about the recent court case reported exclusively by the Epsom Guardian which saw 11 High Down inmates stand trial for prison mutiny, during which its governor, Ian Bickers, took to the witness stand and explained the effects on the prison of the Government's reforms.

But he added: "On the whole, there is a consensus about what’s happening and a pretty consistent view about what needs to be done about it."

"You can have a proper debate about how it should all work"

While "the state of prisons isn't going to be the issue that decides the next general election", Mr Hardwick believes there has been a longstanding tradition of concern about the penal system.

"Look at what Winston Churchill had to say about prisons, for instance, where he talked about the need for rehabilitation and it is very inspiring.

"This was the only country in the world to have a prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, on one of its bank notes," he said.

"By the nature of it, what happens behind prison walls is out of sight, in a way that's not the case with other public services. So there is a thing of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

"There are lots of perfectly legitimate, different views about what should happen in prison. You can have a proper debate about how it should all work."

And if Dostoevsky was right, that "the degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"?

Mr Hardwick said: "If prisons are a reflection of a society, I think if people saw that reflection clearly, they would be pretty uncomfortable with what it showed."