IEA Lecture on Prison Reform

On stage at 9am tomorrow advocating a new approach to prisons. After all with a 65%+ fail rate and a cost of £50,000 per prisoner a year you would expect change and rehabilitation. Einstein was right -
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
We need to take a different approach to how we treat prisoners in prison focusing less on warehousing and more on literacy, stopping drug use and the teaching of skills. Only then will we be able to mentor these men and women back into work and a normal life.
Surely the key is - what are the results of incarceration? Does it stop offending on release? At present the answer is no.
Prison numbers go up and up
1945- 10,000
1993- 43,000
2013- 86,000
The solution is not longer sentences but a better sentence. I believe the payment by results model as practised in the privatised prisons like Doncaster and Peterborough are the way ahead. They incentivise the teams of officers, governor, and prison staff to help change prisoners behaviour. The approach is very different to a traditional state prison.

"Every society gets the criminal it deserves.
Every community decides upon the the kind of law enforcement, justice, prison and rehabilitation it deserves."
Robert Kennedy, with a little help from GO

IEA Conference this weekend - speaking on prison reform and regional banking

I have plans to speak at the IEA's summer conference this weekend
I shall be talking on the issue of prison reform, plans for prisons that both pay by the results - ie reduction of reoffending and better rehab, and the ideas for both community and private prisons in the brave new world where the state does not know best. Victorian prisons with no emphasis on changing the prisoner as opposed to warehousing them are not the way forward. We want innovative ideas, officers directly involved in the change mentality, proper mentoring and a different attitude seen at places like HMP Doncaster and Peterborough.
If academies and foundation hospitals can transform their sector why not prisons? This is building on the work of the book I published last year, Doing Time:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doing-Time-Prisons-21st-Century/dp/1909099031
I shall also be leading an evening seminar on community banks and the localisation of banking services in an increasingly globalised world.
Both ideas are for me key policy changes and I have high hopes for community banking to address local lending issues, particularly in relation to fuel poverty and oil buying.
I will also be going to listen and debate with professors and various leading thinkers from around Europe who will be debating and discussing multiple issues including education reform, improvement in health services, and a discussion on nationalised or privately run train services.
The IEA are a really good and interesting think tank which challenges governments both here in the UK and abroad: http://www.iea.org.uk/ and worth checking out.