Introduction to Prisons

Hi Hive!
Today I would like you to present one of articles I prepared about prisons.
It's only a brief one explaining what is going within prisons, how it works and who is there 😊

For a start I would like to present you with the basic functions of prisons :
1. Custodial- to supervise and control activities of inmates. Rehabilitation for offenders, and generally to keep an eye on them, while enforcing the rules.
2.Deterrence - to discourage inmates from doing more bad and making them fear consequences for their actions. Stops them from reoffending or that's what they hope for.
3.Symbolic - especially back in Victorian era, HMP Leeds was perfectly visible from the churche on the hill. Making it kinda related to 'you won't go to church, do good, you gonna end up there, you heathen'. Bad people go to prisons, that was the agenda.
4.Punitivie - Makes an example. Gives the punishment.
5.Coercive - controlled by the staff and rules within prison.
6.It segregates the unproductive and the disruptive from the rest of the society.
Traditionally back in the days people didn't go to prisons for a punishment, it was their place of waiting for punishment likr hanging, torture or other amazing stuff Victorian era had to offer.

We have a few types of prisons :
1. Open prisons- absolutely minimum security. Allowed to even work or go visit people. It's mostly for white collar offences.
2.Local prisons - In my case HMP Leeds is a local prison. Where many people come and go. It's a temporary prison or short stay prison. Generally not for overly serious offences. It's common that people make a pit stop at Leeds Prison before they receive their full sentence.
3.Training prisons - When an offender is not fully ready to move to open prison on the end of their sentence as a result of good behaviour they end up in training prisons. They security is much lower.
4.Dispersal Prisons - High security prisons with long sentences.
5.Young offenders Institutions - For the age between 14 and 18. Equivalent of prisons for young people who need to study and rehabilitate.
6.Women's prison - Due to low amount of female offenders we only divide prisons into open and closed prisons.

Security Categories

A - Prisoners whose escepe would be highly dangerous to the public or the police or the security of the state, no matter how unlikely that escape might be, and for whom the aim must be to make escape impossible.
B - Prisoners for whom the very highest conditions of security are not necessary, but for whom escape must be made very difficult.
C - Prisoners who cannot be trusted in open conditions, but who do not have the resources and will yo make a determined escape attempt
D - Prisoners who can be reasonably trusted in open conditions.

Prison population, who are the prisoners and what's the deal.

Prisoners are more likely than the general population :

• Observed violence in the home as a child (41% comparing to 14% with General Public)
• Have a background in care (44% comparing to <1 GP)
• To have left school with no qualifications (47%/15% GP)
• To be unemployed (68% prior 4 weeks to custody /7.7% GP. 13% of prisoners never had a job/ 3.9% GP)
• To have self-inflicted death (6x times more than general public, however the calculations are approximate due to lack of informations)
• To have been permanently excluded from school (42%/8% GP)
• To have symptoms of psychosis (16%/4% GP)
• Have ever used Class A drug (64%/3% GP)
• 30% of children in the Youth Justice System have identified as SEN. 38% of boys screened on admission to custody have numeracy skills of a seven year old. 31% had the same level of literacy and 88 % of boys and 74% of girls had been excluded from school at some point prior to arrest.
• 72% of women in prisons are for non violent offence
• 71% of women in custody report they have a mental health problem
• 46% of women prisoners have attempted suicide.
• 53% of women have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• Women accounted for 47% of all incidents of self harm in 2012 despite representing only 4% of prison population.
• Women released from prison are 36 times more likely to take their own life than GP.

In UK we have an average sentence length of 13 months.
However, we have only 60 prisoners serving life.

So that would be my little introduction to Prisons.
On my next post I would like to explain more about prison crisis and Woolf Report.
I wanna tackle the issue of overcrowding and some general aspects of what happens to people after they get released from prison.
Also something fascinating as revolting door.
But that will come 😊