What’s up with prisoner recategorisation?
Posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 by Home Office WatchCategory: Prison
With prisons bursting at the seams, and prisoners spending nights in poilce or court cells, it’s no surprise people have been wondering if the government is desperate enough to put higher risk prisoners in low security prisons.
They can, however, only put prisoners in the right category of prison, or higher - so a Category A prisoner cannot be put into a Category D (or Open) prison. Only if a prisoner has been recategorised can he (or she) be moved. So the question is really whether the government has been tweaking the categorisation rules to make it easier to downgrade people, and make space in High Security prisons.
The Home Office now says categorically it has done nothing of the sort and Prison Service Order 0900 which governs categorisation is still in force, and hasn’t been changed in the last two years. So why does the Prison Officers Association disagree? They issued a press release in January claiming:
The POA have exposed the scam of continually changing the allocation criteria to shoe horn prisoners into open conditions to crisis manage an ever increasing population.
The prison service, have disposed of their Prison Service Order 0900 outlining specifically the criteria for categorisation and allocation in favour of a more easily changed IT based process.
More investigation needed, it seems.
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March 7th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Surely the problem with our prisons is not so much that dangerous prisoners are in too low a category prison but rather that many people are in prison for minor, non-violent offences who would be better dealt with by community service. It is counterproductive to lock up mothers of young children,and young people who might be better in restorative justice programmes. Many other prisoners should be receiving treatment for mental illness and some of these should be in long term secure nonpunitive institutions. It is a pity if Liberal Democrats have to appear to pander to the vindictive element in society.
March 10th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
If there really is a “scam” going on that’s serious, but a very small amount of anecdotal experience I have of this tends towards prison officers not being fond of Open Prisons / Category D regimes, and generally against anything that they perceive requires less intensive prison officer involvement (perhaps against anything they think will lead to fewer prison officers being needed?).
Presumably the POA must have some basis for these remarks?