Last month Gordon Brown vetoed a planned increase of a magnificent 4 pence an hour for prisoners’ pay. Obviously not to look soft on crime and the criminals Brown intervened and the increase withdrawn.
Yet support, financial help and advice for prisoners’ leaving prison is insufficient. The Citizens Advice Bureau highlighted the case of a man who had been released from prison but had not been given support in claiming benefits before release. He spent all his £46 discharge grant on necessities. When he did claim jobseekers’s allowance he was informed it would take months to process. The man felt that he had been left to beg, borrow or steal to survive.
An extra £5m has been awarded for debt and money advice work in prisons by the Financial Inclusion Fund and Legal Services Commission. The National Offenders Management Service (NOMS) has agreed to increase the discharge grant. NOMS are also proposing a rather progressive demand of revising the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act that will give protection to ex-offenders experiencing discrimination.
But the money given for extra support, help and advice to prisoners’ is a mere drop in the financial ocean when considering the money pumped into building the Titan prisons.
Talking of NOMS, this is the report on improving services for women offenders. Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State) says the framework of the report sets out how it will deliver on its commitments in response to the Corston Report. I will write more about this framework later.
Posted by harpymarx 
Walking towards Parliament Square
Posted by harpymarx 
