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‘SUPPLY DRUGS TO PRISONERS’
Prison reflects a crisis in society and over the last five
years the situation has got worse. We don’t control the
supply of illicit drugs – they’re in the hands of
criminals. The only regulation is violence and coercion;
there’s no legitimacy to it. So if we want to address
this we need to take the supply away from criminals.
Why don’t we, as a pilot, supply drugs to prisoners
who need them and see what happens? We have to
make a start somewhere.
Eoin McLennan-Murray, retired governor of
Coldingley Prison
‘TAKE DRUGS OUT OF CRIME’
Organised crime groups in prison are the same groups
outside, so debts can be enforced outside. People
build up debts that can be collected in horrific ways,
such as from their families. This sort of subversion
shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and the only way is
to take drugs out of organised crime.
Less than 0.2 per cent of the population are
committing 50 per cent of acquisitive crime. The
reoffending rate for heroin users is 90 per cent. If the
supply was taken away from organised crime, through
prescribed heroin, you could cut crime overnight
.
Neil Woods, former undercover drugs detective sergeant
‘NO LARGE PRISONS’
Let’s not follow the US system – large prisons are the
foundation for organised crime and gangs. Small
prisons done well can deter crime. Rehabilitation
should not be about cramming people together in an
impoverished environment.
David Skarbek, senior lecturer, King’s College London
‘REFORM SENTENCING’
The best way is to create healthy prison regimes. Drug
reform and prison reform are only possible with
sentencing reform – more people are going to prison
for more things and for longer.
Andrew Nelson, director of campaigns at The Howard
League for Penal Reform
‘DON’T IMPRISON FOR POSSESSION’
Let’s send fewer people to prison. People who’d never
taken drugs start in prison – it has a toxic effect. Last
year 7,000 people were sent to immediate custody for
drug offences. Most were not big businessmen who
make money out of drugs – these people are the
minnows at the bottom of the chain.
We’re in a mad situation – imprisoning anyone for
possession can only make them worse.
Penelope Gibbs, director of Transform Justice
‘TACKLE ESCALATING PROBLEM’
New psychoactive Substances (NPS) have changed
everything – I saw the first consignments arrive. Now
there are lots more prisoners using and running up
more debts.
There won’t be any change until it’s treated as a
medical and social challenge. Relying on prosecutions
isn’t going to work – the problem is escalating. We
need to decriminalise personal possession and treat
people as needing a psychological, medical and
personal approach.
Alex Cavendish, former prisoner and reform campaigner
VolteFace is a policy innovation hub that
explores alternatives to current public
policies relating to drugs,
What next for prison reform?
first person
The recent Prisons Bill promised the biggest shake-up of prisons since the Victorian era
(
DDN
, June, page 5). At a VolteFace event in London, journalist
Philippa Budgen
asked
panelists: ‘How can we have meaningful prison reform with drug policies that aren’t
working? What would be your messages for justice secretary Michael Gove?’
THE PRINCIPAL EFFECT OF DRUG LAWS
is
to inflate the salaries of the nastiest
barons and gangsters on earth, funding
organised crime and corruption, and
fuelling the self-immolation of whole
nations, fromMexico to Albania and
Afghanistan… But if enough people
keep making forceful arguments based
on the available evidence, the heresy of
reformed drug laws will graduate
not just to common sense but
prevailing wisdom soon enough.
Independent
editorial, 16 June
IT MAY BE POLITIC
not to rush
discussion of full legalisation but
that should still be the ultimate
goal. In the long term it is not
tenable to decriminalise
possession of a substance
while preserving the profit
motive of the criminal gangs that
supply it.
Times
editorial, 16 June
IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE
that elements of
the criminal underworld will shift
their attention to other illegal
activities once the narcotics gold mine
is closed off to them, but legalisation
would also free up enormous police
resources to detect real crime. In any
case, it is not the responsibility of
government to provide lucrative
openings for organised criminals.
Christopher Snowdon,
Telegraph
, 16 June
THE PRO-DRUG LOBBY
likes to quote
Portugal at us not because it wants
Britain to copy what Portugal has
done but because it counts on us not
knowing what actually happens to
drug users in Portugal and hopes that,
like the
Times
headline did on
Thursday, we will confuse the words
‘decriminalised’ with ‘made legal’.
Ross Clark,
Spectator
, 18 June
IS ADDICTION A DISEASE?
Most people
think so. The idea has become
entrenched in our news media, our
treatment facilities, our courts and in
the hearts and minds of addicts
themselves… If it is, then we might
expect it to have a specific cause or
set of causes, an agreed-on repertoire
of treatment strategies, and a likely
time course. We might wonder how
the disease of addiction could be
overcome as a result of willpower,
changing perspectives, changing
environments, mindfulness or
emotional growth. There is evidence
that each of these factors can be
crucial in beating addiction, yet none
of them is likely to work on cancer,
pneumonia, diabetes or malaria.
Marc Lewis,
Guardian
, 7 June
MORAL PANICS ARE NOT ALL BAD
.
Money will follow them. Show me a
moral panic and I’ll show you wads of
cash. It happened with HIV and it
happens with some illegal drugs.
People get scared – maybe too scared –
but things get done. It’s just a matter
of whether the right things get done.
Brigid Delaney,
Guardian
, 14 June
The news, and the skews, in the national media
MEDIA SAVVY
20 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| July/August 2016
