Managing in the Public Sector: The Prison Service - Case Study Example

 Managing in the Public Sector: The Prison Service Introduction In society and considering the social order which is present in the UK, a person may be put into prison once the crime has been proved and that is the end of society’s concern with that individual. There are not too many who care about what will happen to that person once s/he is in the custody of the wardens and that person’s identity and life is lost to the system of corrections (Valette, 2002). However, there is still a life which goes on behind bars and an entire system which governs how that person is to be treated, what rights are given and what restrictions are placed on him/her (Duke, 2005). While a prisoner is certainly placed under boundaries of law, s/he does not stop being a human being and it must be noted that s/he has the same right to be treated humanely and with as much importance as those who are not with him/her in prison. The treatments and the rights are controlled by those who are supposed to manage Her Majesty’s prisons and even though things such as the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights have improved conditions for many prisoners, there is still a lot more which can be done (Valette, 2002). This is certainly recognised in the corporate objectives outlined by the UK Prison Service but it must also be noted that the external environment of the world at large and the UK in particular is changing rapidly and in the next ten to fifteen years significant alterations can be expected. There are political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal changes which impact the various stake holders in the prison system which include the government, inmates of the prison system, managers, policy makers and the public at large (Hill and Ham, 1997). Therefore an analysis of these factors is quite important for all students of public policy. Political Factors The prison situation and handling prisoners is seen as a responsibility of the government and there are certainly political implications in how they are handled. For example, the Economist (2006) reported that more than a thousand foreign criminals had been released from prison but had not been asked or forced to leave the country. It is certainly a political question in terms of a debt to society that foreign criminals should be treated just as local criminals are but the labour government’s home secretary Charles Clarke had to listen to calls for his resignation based on this question. The political stakeholders are the government of the day who have to come to terms on how prisoners have to be treated. They can not afford to spend more money on them without angering those who think that the same money might be better spent elsewhere (Cohen et. al., 2006). At the same time, there are those who are seeking more rights for prisoners since they deserve to be treated in a human manner (Valette, 2002). Therefore changes in the political factors will certainly affect how prisons are managed. Although the current image of prison management and prison managers are certainly more humane than they used to be (HMPS, 2004), a different government may ask them to change their approach entirely. Economic Factors The political factors are connected to the economic factors as discussed by Cohen et. al. (2006) who show that the public are more willing to spend money on the prevention of crime and keeping individuals out of the prison system rather than to have them in prison in the first place. The money which is supposed to be spent on the rehabilitation of prisoners can be better spent if it is spent on the prevention of youth offenders, reducing drugs on the street and generally ensuring that our cities remain safe. Overall, Cohen et. al. (2006) summarise that: “In our nationally representative sample, we found overwhelming public support for more money being devoted to youth prevention, drug treatment for non-violent offenders, and more police. The largest percentage of money was allocated to youth prevention programs. The typical respondent would not allocate any new money to building more prisons and would not avail of a tax rebate if the money were spent on youth prevention, drug treatment, and police (Cohen et. al., 2006, p. 332-333).” In these circumstances, it is evident that the primary stakeholder in the government’s expenditure i.e. the citizen is less likely to spend money on prisons and more likely to derive value from money which is spent on the prevention of crime (Scholes and Johnson, 2000). This also gives a human perspective on the situation as individuals are shown to be less understanding of the prison situation in economic terms. Of course it can be debated in terms of ethics of how much support and money the prisons of our country need, but in policy making terms, it is important to understand that increased spending on prisons might not be seen in a positive light by the public (Cohen et. al. 2006). Social Factors The present inmates of our system as well as those who have been behind bars for a time have to come to terms with being labelled and seen as criminals in social terms. Although one of the objectives of the prison system is to oversee the rehabilitation of former criminals who have paid off their debt to society, the system often fails to do that. In terms of public policy, it can be recommended that public education about the prison system and the idea that the sins of the past should not follow a person into the present have to be pushed across to the individuals who deal with those who have been released. This education can be given through various channels which the government has access to as a matter of course (Scholes and Johnson, 2000). This is simply an ethical call which asks people to be judged not by what they did in their past but by what they have done in the present. At the same time, offenders for violent crimes and other behaviours may find it difficult to be rehabilitated once they are put back into society which works quite differently from that within the prison walls. The stakeholders in this case are both the public at large and the former inmates themselves since they both have to come to terms with the given label and their new position in the world. Social factors are even more important when it comes to handling prisoners who are currently undergoing medical treatment or need medical assistance while they are in prison. As early as 1993, Hall (1993) had brought attention to the situation but even in recent times Hatry et. al. (2001) as well as Dale & Woods (2002) have said that prison inmates have troublesome health conditions and the services provided to them are far less than adequate. It is clear that the situation has not improved and is unlikely to improve in the future if the prison population is not given the attention it needs. In the coming years, Valette (2002) expects that prisons will have to also deal a lot more with prisoners who are suffering from AIDS or those who have HIV. This would be delicate situation to deal with since those prisoners could also be a risk to other individuals within the system. However, medical care for all individuals is an undeniable human right and if certain services are not made available to prisoners it is simply a violation of ethics. Similarly, Bayliss (2003) focuses on the social impact of education and how education will become important for rehabilitation of prisoners in the future. However, he reports that the present situation is quite bleak by saying: “In the outside community basic skills teaching is often undertaken by volunteers who give personal one-to-one tuition. Without this sensitive and empathetic approach, the teaching of basic skills in prison can be a site of humiliation and failure that merely replicates previous experience of school (Bayliss, 2003, p. 157)” Technological Factors Technology can certainly be used to solve the problem mentioned by Bayliss (2003) since computer aided learning and televised teaching programs could be used in the future to give basic skills to prison inmates. The major stakeholder here is the prison population itself since going from a life of crime to a life of being skilled labour in a certain field would certainly a useful and welcome change for them. Society would like to see public policy that helps in creating people who are working as inputs to the social system rather than those who are little more than a drain. In social terms, as crime rises in society it also affects the population levels of various prisons which in turn affects the quality of service and the ability of prison managers to handle their jobs. The prison service has no control over how many prisoners or convicted criminals are sent to it for confinement but it can use technology in effective ways to contain and manage prison populations. New technologies such as biometrics and advanced security systems can often replace the need to have more guards and with effective technological systems prisoners can be controlled in a more organised and humane fashion than they are handled in present times. There is certainly a trade-off in such situations because biometric systems, technological tools and even control systems are not cheap and may require heavy investments to be made in their development, production as well as final installation in our prisons. However, considering that the view taken here is for the long term outlook of the prison service, it seems very logical to take technological advances as one of the means by which prisons as well as prisoners can be managed. Legal Factors Finally, the legal factors which influence the UK prison system and the changes in laws which control the management of Her Majesty’s prisons are also likely to change over the coming years (Scholes and Johnson, 2000). While it is likely that prisoners are to get more rights and will possibly have a better future than their past, it is also likely that a new class of prisoner will be created. Terrorism and terrorist activities around the world have made sure that terror suspects and those who have been convicted of terrorist activities are often treated far differently by society than others. Religious biases might also influence this treatment as shown by Beckford (2005) who suggests that laws should be made to prevent this discrimination. The prison service itself is sensitive to legal issues and has said that it is likely that these issues will affect the delivery of prison services. HMPS reports that: “Despite complex forecasting and modelling techniques, it remains difficult to predict the future prison population accurately. The numbers sentenced or remanded into custody are influenced by changes in the law, the number of prosecutions and by sentencing practice and all of these in turn can be responsive to public opinion on significant crimes (HMPS, 2004, p. 7).” However, since it is difficult to predict what changes will be made in the laws depending on how government policy or the demands of the people change, there is no real way in which prisons can be prepared for changes which arrive a decade or more from now at the present moment (Hill and Ham, 1997). It seems that try as they may, the prison service has to continually battle the daemons of the past before it can go on to fight its present dragons. Policy making is not slow because decisions are difficult to make, it is slow because the decisions are important enough to require careful evaluation before one course of action can be selected as the best (Scholes and Johnson, 2000). Conclusion Given the present research and the issues which are faced by the prison system today, it is likely that some of the problems will continue to remain a part of the system until they are resolved by laws which focus on eradicating those problems. However, the process of implementing those laws and removing the issues faced by the prisoners requires real money which the government does not have. In the final analysis, while the government should make policies and laws which help in the management of the prison system, an ounce of cure which causes less people to engage in activities that lead to prison is a far better alternative than a pound of cure which seeks to rehabilitate the current inmates. Word Count: 2,203 Works Cited Bayliss, P. 2003, Learning behind bars: time to liberate prison education, Studies in the Education of Adults, 35(2), p. 157-172. Beckford, J. 2005, Muslims in the Prisons of Britain and France, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 13(3), p. 287-297. Cohen, M. et. al. 2006. Prevention, Crime Control or Cash? Public Preferences Towards Criminal Justice Spending Priorities, Justice Quarterly, 23(3), p. 317-335. Dale, C & Woods, P. 2002. Caring for prisoners, Nursing Management – UK, 9(6), p. 16-22. Duke, K. 2005, Déjà vu? Opportunities and obstacles in developing alcohol policy in English prisons, Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 12(5), p. 417-430. Economist. 2006. Labour's Black April, Economist, 379(8475), p. 12-13 Hall, P. 1993. Medicine and UK prisons, Lancet, 342(8862), p. 43-44. Hatry, M. et. al. 2001. HM prison healthcare needs assessment. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 12(3), p. 639-645. Hill, M and Ham, C. 1997, The Policy Process in the Modern State, Prentice Hall. HMPS (Her Majesty’s Prison Service), 2004. Corporate Plan. [Online] Available at: http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/abouttheservice/ Scholes, K and Johnson, G. 2000. Exploring Public Sector Strategy. FT Management. Valette, D. 2002, Aids Behind Bars: Prisoners' Rights Guillotined, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 41(2), p. 107-123. Read More