Prison service still failing, admits Clarke

Charles Clarke has admitted that a "great deal" remains to be done to ensure prisoners leaving jail enter the normal working population.

Clarke told MPs on Tuesday that September had seen a significant increase in the prisoner population and that the prison service was "very close" to full capacity.

The current prisoner population is 77,774 - less than 500 short of the 78,200 places available throughout the country.

Pledging to reduce the number of prisoners jailed on remand and for short sentences, Clarke said he wanted to develop a "more focused" regime which included rehabilitative community sentencing for low level offenders and tougher jail sentences for the worst criminals.

Admitting that the prison service is still failing prisoners, the home secretary conceded that more had to be done increase the number of ex-offenders who go on to secure a job once back in society.

Levels of re-offending remain unacceptably high, the minister told the home affairs select committee.

Employers

Clarke said changes to the benefits system would be required and added that an "alliance of employers" willing to work with ex-offenders is currently being built.

Creating job opportunities for prisoners would be a measure by which Clarke said he was willing to be judged.

"I have argued for five different forms of partnerships with prisons and the outside world which will lead to a massive number of jobs," he said.

Clarke said the government had put in place "a series of patchy improvements to the offender management system" but would have to do more in future.

He added that the practice of moving prisoners around meant that it was difficult to put in place a programme of work training and rehabilitation.

The home secretary told the committee of MPs said he was a "long way away" from meeting the end goal, but insisted it would be achievable.

"We need to do a great deal more and that will take some time to put into effect," he added.

During his appearance in front of MPs, he proposed developing a more localised penal system in order to reduce offending through the development of "a closer relationship with their local community".

Under close questioning Clarke said it would take "four or five years" before a demonstrable reduction in re-offending was to be recorded.

And he added that part of the solution would include increasing capacity through a mixed economy of public, private and charitable forms of detention and rehabilitation.