The outrage over Venables having re-offended with allegedly a serious sexual offence has very unhelpfully distracted from the need for fundamental prison reform and a much more determined drive for rehabilitation as the underlying goal of the prison system.   This requires a systematic change in direction away from current policy:

• the prison population at over 82,000 (a far higher % per 100,000 population than in any other EU country, and second only to the US) is bulging at the seams and needs to be drastically reduced.   Prison detention should be limited to violent and dangerous offenders (murder, rape, GBH, manslaughter, etc.).   The majority of men in prison have either mental health problems, drug or alcohol problems, no educational or skill qualifications, or persistently commit minor offences; they should be transferred to secure units outside in the community.   Of the 8,000 women in prison, the vast majority should also be subject to rigorous rehabilitation in secure units in their community.
• these secure units would be patrolled by wardens and subject to continuous CCTV surveillance.   The lesser offenders held there would be given compulsory courses on anger control, money management, parenting, and taught necessary education and skills they lack.   Companies should be encourages to trained those detained and to guarantee them jobs after release.
• both those held in prison and those in secure units outside should be required to do unpaid work to make some repayment to the community they have harmed.
• they should also receive counselling and therapy as appropriate, whether on an individual or group basis, and that should include a requirement that the victim(s) of the crime should be enabled to confront the offender in a supervised session, if they wish this, to try to get the offender to understand the damage and hurt he has caused, as first step to developing genuine remorse.

Rehabilitation will never be 100% successful, but a regime of this very different kind would unquestionably reduce the recidivist rate substantially, and therefore dramatically reduce costs to the public purse in the medium term.

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