The rehabilitative prison: What does ‘good’ look like?

In anticipation of the forthcoming draft Prison Reform Bill, this discussion paper explores what ‘good’ might look like in a rehabilitative prison. What would characterise a different prison regime ‘conducive to rehabilitation’? What might ‘good’ look like in a newly designed prison? What could ‘good’ – or perhaps ‘good enough’ start to look like across the rest of the prison estate? The paper additionally considers the position of voluntary sector organisations within a reformed
system and asks questions about how a refreshed prison strategy might more routinely capitalise on their distinctive roles in supporting desistance.

The aim of the paper is to promote a constructive dialogue with government, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the voluntary sector and others about how all partners can work collaboratively to
achieve prison reform focused on rehabilitation. To this end, the paper is structured around a discussion of the proposed prison reforms, insofar as these are currently known. It first explores the potential for local areas to reduce the current pressures on the prison system through their own commissioning of alternative provision, before considering how a reformed prison system focused on rehabilitation might be constructed around the learning from desistance research.