UK: government to enshrine ministerial duty to rehabilitate prisoners into law for the first time

Liz Truss says she wants the prison population to go down but ‘for the right reasons’.
The Government will for the first time enshrine into law an explicit duty for the Justice Secretary to ensure that prisons are places of rehabilitation rather than just punishment.

In a speech on Monday Liz Truss, the incumbent Justice Secretary, will say she wants the ballooning prison population to go down – but “for the right reasons”.

In the address at the Centre for Social Justice think-tank, she will also accuse Labour of being “reckless” and is expected to take care to distance herself from the opposition on details, despite the speech suggesting a new consensus between the main parties that the prison population should come down.

The Secretary of State will admit that sometimes interventions against problems ranging from drug addiction to mental health issues “don’t work as well as they should” and that the prison service must get better at rehabilitating offenders.

“Early intervention is not a ‘nice to have’ added extra to the justice system, it is vital if we are ever to break the cycle of crime, punishment and more crime,” she will say.

Ms Truss is expected to tell her audience that the coming Prisons and Courts Bill, due to be published this month, “will for the first time enshrine in law that reforming offenders is a key purpose of prison and that the Secretary of State has a responsibility for delivering it”.

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