Published: 02/09/2009 00:00 -
Updated: 09/09/2009 13:44
Sudbury prison has featured in these pages many times in recent years usually as a result of inmates absconding.
But staff at Sudbury say a more assertive approach to prosecuting those prisoners who go missing from the open prison has seen the number of absconders plummet dramatically.
Advertiser reporter TIM FLETCHER and photographer MARK DUDLEY visited the prison to see at first hand its progressive approach towards criminal justice.
Sudbury prison is — as I am told on more than one occasion during our visit — not a holiday camp, but on first impressions it does bear more than a passing resemblance.
With its rows of prefabricated huts revealing the site’s origins as a US Air Force hospital during World War Two and immaculately-tended gardens, it appears to be more Pontins than Parkhurst.
“We have always taken a pride in our surroundings here and we always keep the prison and its grounds neat and tidy,” says Jane Bucknall, the prison’s head of performance.
“It gives the prisoners employment — many of them work in the garden — and also gives them pride in where they live so that hopefully they will take some responsibility for their environment.”
As an open prison, you won’t find high walls, barbed wire and searchlights here and the prisoners’ rooms (they’re not referred to as ‘cells’) don’t even have bars.
“Being an open prison means there is no physical barrier keeping the prisoners in, but it also means there is a more open regime than in highersecurity prisons,” says Jane.
“They get themselves up in the morning, get themselves off to breakfast and to their workplace and come back for lunch they have to manage their own time.”
Sudbury is a category D prison, for ‘low-risk’ offenders, but its inmates number those convicted of all kinds of crimes except for sexual offences including the most serious offences, such as murder.
However, the prisoners who come to Sudbury are those nearing the end of their sentence, having served a stretch at a higher security prison, and having been subject to rigorous monitoring before being sent to the open prison.
“You don’t walk around in fear because you know that the prisoners have been thoroughly risk-assessed,” says Jane.
“If they were not ready to come to an open prison, they wouldn’t be here. They are deemed to be a low risk to the staff, the local community and each other.”
The 500 or so prisoners spend their days working, either inside the prison itself where they can do educational courses or work in the prison workshop or garden or outside the prison gates on work placement schemes.
The emphasis is on preparing them for life on the outside world, according to Jane.
“We try and set them up so that on their day of discharge they have got a job and somewhere to live,” she says.
“We also help them with things most people take for granted, like registering with a GP or setting up a bank account. We are trying to ensure they don’t re-offend and come back to us at a later date.”
If the Sudbury regime may sound rather ‘cushy’ to those who advocate a ‘short, sharp, shock’ approach to criminal justice, governor Ken Kan who took over in 2008 after spells in charge of prisons in Suffolk and Sussex says the Sudbury regime produces individuals far better equipped to return to life on the outside to society’s benefit.
“When I joined the prison service in the 1980s the focus was just on everyday things like giving the prisoners food and a bed,” he says.
“Now we pay far more attention to addressing re-offending and helping the prisoners to meet their needs — to gain skills and find a job so that when they are released the community is safer.
“They have to abide by the rules — this isn’t a holiday camp — but my job is to know about the prisoners in my care and to do things correctly and fairly.
“Imprisonment itself is the punishment and just because a person is in prison doesn’t mean we shouldn’t treat them with the same respect with which we treat other people in the community.”
Of course, an open prison means that prisoners can if they choose simply walk out.
The Advertiser recently reported figures showing around 900 inmates had absconded from the prison during the period 1995 to 2008, with six serious offenders including two murderers still at large.
I wanted to ask the governor about what the prison was doing to reduce the number of absconders but he was unable to discuss the matter the Ministry of Justice has issued instructions to governors not to talk to the media on the issue.
However, Derbyshire Police prison intelligence officer Rob Boyser, who works in the prison and in the nearby closed women’s prison HMP Foston Hall, tells me a rigorous campaign of pursuing and prosecuting absconders, and highlighting the success of such efforts to prisoners, has produced a dramatic fall in absconders in recent years.
“In 2006, we had 86 absconders, in 2007 that was down to 54 and in 2008 we had just 20,” he says.
“This year, there have been 19 absconders so far a slight increase but out of around 1,000 prisoners who pass through the doors each year it’s still a very small proportion.
“We started actively pursuing prosecutions and we would make sure the prisoners know about successful prosecutions by putting up notices and newspaper articles about them around the prison.
“It brings home the message that people who abscond are being prosecuted and are having extra time added onto their sentence.
“To you and me it’s fairly obvious, but to have it re-iterated sends home a strong message to them.
Everybody who is here is here because they have been sentenced by the courts, and if they don’t complete their sentence there are consequences.”
The governor says he can understand the concerns of those living near the prison, and the wider area, when serious offenders particularly murderers — abscond, but claims the risk to the community is not as great as people fear.
“I’ve got life prisoners here who have murdered people but they pose less risk than people living outside because I know them and I know they’re unlikely to offend,” he says. “If you stay in a hotel, for example, you don’t know who might be staying in the next room.”
As he shows me around the prison, Ken is greeted by the inmates, some of whom are returning from a day’s work on the outside.
“The prisoners always say ‘hello’ to me,” he says.
“It’s a sign of a healthy prison when prisoners will stop and talk to you.” We stop off in one of the accommodation blocks, where the holiday camp ambience is soon dispelled.
The prisoners’ rooms generally shared between two inmates, with the odd single room are basic and cramped, with barely room to stand between the beds.
In rooms brightened up with photographs and magazine cuttings, prisoners are allowed a television, which they rent from the prison for £1 a week out of their £10 a week prison wages.
The rest, they spend on luxuries such as cigarettes and sweets from a weekly ‘canteen’.
Senior officer Dave Powell says the Sudbury regime compares favourably with that in other, higher security, prisons he has worked in, with manifest benefits for the inmates, and for society.
“Here, the prisoners have the chance to get back out into society — to do simple things like going to the shops — in a graduated and supervised way, so that when they are released they have some knowledge of what they’re going into,” he says.
“I have worked in category C prisons where a prisoner being discharged is just given his £46 and pushed outside the gate. One prisoner was still standing there three hours later — he had no idea what to do or where to go.”
Tensions between prisoners and prison officers are by no means absent one prisoner we speak to complains that a female officer opens and looks through the hatch on the door to his room without knocking, sometimes while he is naked after returning from the showers, which he says is an invasion of his privacy.
However, the relationship is far healthier, with more mutual respect, than in closed prisons, according to another inmate — currently nearing the end of an eight-year stretch.
“We’re not exactly kissing cousins,” says the prisoner, who we’re not allowed to name. “Some of the officers are more approachable than others, but in a closed prison none of them are approachable.
“The academic and rehabilitation side here is very good, I’ve passed four or five courses since I’ve been here which I would never have had the time or money to do before.
“I’m now a qualified gym instructor, which will hopefully help me to get a job when I get out. I’m reading books about it now whereas before all I would ever read would be Nuts or Loaded.”
The prisoner says the prison’s offender management programme addressing inmates’ offending behaviour has been of particular benefit, and says his future looks brighter as a result of his time at Sudbury.
“The crime I committed was financially motivated but I’ve learned to think differently now,” he says. “I also had issues with violence but here, I’ve been helped to address those issues.
“I would never admit I had a problem before, but it brings it out of you and makes you talk about it. It’s very beneficial.
“It’s a lot better here than the closed prisons I’ve been in before — if you put people in cages, they’re going to act like animals.”