Prisoners in the East spend extra 40 thousand days behind bars
New research has shown that inmates in East Anglia were handed an extra 40,000 days in prison as punishment last year.
The Howard League for Penal Reform says the additional imprisonment, totalling almost 110 years, was imposed on prisoners for breaking the rules last year.
The number of extra days handed out in 2019 has also been broken down by individual prison:
- Bure - 293
- Highpoint - 7,405
- Hollesley Bay - 21
- Norwich - 2,147
- Warren Hill - 0
- Wayland - 3,174
The new briefing from the charity explores how the disciplinary system behind bars creates in their words a "pervasive sense of injustice, fuelling conflict and overcrowding in jails across England and Wales".
The research focusses on formal disciplinary hearings, known as adjudications, where prisoners can be given punishments including solitary confinement and additional days of imprisonment.
They say the figure show that "adjudications have been used increasingly and unnecessarily as an everyday behaviour management tool, leading to punitive and arbitrary outcomes".
The Howard League say they've seen a host of troubling cases through its own legal work, including teenagers who've been punished for attempting to harm themselves, and a young adult with learning difficulties was ordered to spend longer in prison at a hearing where he did not have legal representation.
The charity say official statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice reveal that across England and Wales the number of adjudications rose to more than 210,000 in 2019 - that's a 76% increase in eight years, despite the prison population remaining relatively consistent.
The Prison Service told us that additional days were handed out on 209 occassions between April and June this year - which was 96% lower than the same period in 2019. It follows the introduction of government measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The Howard League are calling for adjudications where additional days of imprisonment are handed out to be scrapped.
They say it would bring England and Wales into line with Scotland which abolished the practice almost 20 years ago.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “If we must have prisons, they should meet the very highest standards of justice, with disciplinary processes that are fair, discerning and proportionate.
“Rather than solving problems, however, the current system creates new ones.
"Procedurally unjust and unduly punitive, it succeeds only in driving a pervasive sense of injustice that undermines trust and engagement and leads to more conflict.
“It is time to adopt a different approach. If we look beyond punishment and install procedurally fair processes built on communication, consent and respect, we can make prisons safer and guide more people away from crime.”
A spokesperson from the Prison Service told us: "Ensuring robust punishments are available is essential to running a safe prison, so it is absolutely right that when prisoners choose to engage in serious rule-breaking they face longer behind bars.
The Prison Service added that the Government is investing £2.75 billion to transform the prison estate by creating additional places, creating modern and efficient jails which rehabilitate offenders, reducing reoffending and keeping the public safe.
They say a further £100m is going to be spent on prison security, clamping down on weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence, self-harm, and crime behind bars.