People are sentenced to imprisonment as punishment in itself, not for additional punishment. While being deprived of their basic right to liberty, prisoners retain other human rights, with the exception of those which are restricted by the very fact of being in prison. Prison reform is necessary to ensure that this principle is upheld and that the human rights of prisoners protected. This in turn improves prisoners’ prospects of rehabilitation and their social reintegration upon release.
Human rights-based arguments are the premise on which many UN standards and norms have been developed, and are often central to arguments about the need for prison and penal reform. However, rights-based arguments are not always sufficient to encourage prison reform programs in countries with scarce human and financial resources. There are, however, other powerful arguments such as the detrimental impact of ill-managed imprisonment on many categories of offenders, their families and communities as well as the significant socio-economic costs that result from an overreliance on imprisonment.
Imprisonment disproportionately affects people living in poverty – and it affects not only the individual who is imprisoned, but their family and wider community too.
When an income-generating member of the family is imprisoned, the rest of the family must deal with the associated emotional impact and stigma, the loss of their income and possibly new expenses that must be met, such as the costs for a lawyer, transport for prison visits and so on. The impact can be especially severe in developing countries where the State may not provide financial assistance to those living in poverty, and where it is not unusual for one breadwinner to financially support an extended family network..
The impact of imprisonment does not end with a prisoner’s release, as they often have no prospects for employment and are subject to socio-economic exclusion. This severe stigma makes prisoners vulnerable to an endless cycle of poverty, further marginalization, re-offending and re-imprisonment.
Imprisonment therefore contributes to the impoverishment of the prisoner, their families and even future generations. This in turn harms the wider community, creating future victims and hampering future economic performance.
Prison and penal reform helps to reduce imprisonment to a measure of last resort and to promote community-based measures, thereby also reducing prison overcrowding and improving prison conditions. Anchoring rehabilitation and social reintegration as a key feature of offender management benefits benefits not only those who have come in conflict with the law, but also their families and the wider community.
Remember that the vast majority of prisoners will eventually return to society.
Prisoners are likely to have existing health problems on entry to prison, as they are predominantly from poorly educated and socio-economically deprived sectors of the general population, with compromised access to adequate health services.
In addition, being imprisoned may have very serious health implications, in particular in prisons which are overcrowded, where nutrition is poor, sanitation inadequate and access to fresh air and exercise often unavailable. Mental health disorders, HIV infection, tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, sexually transmitted diseases, skin diseases, malaria, malnutrition, diarrhoea and injuries, including self-harm, are the main causes of morbidity and mortality in prison, with prevalance being tyically much higher that in the outside community.
The notion that “Prison health is public health” illustrates that prisons are not isolated from wider society. The high turn-over of prisoners and prison staff, together with the fact that the vast majority of prisoners will eventually be released means that health conditions in prisons unavoidably have an impact on community health..
Adequate healthcare for those in prisons is therefore essential to protect and improve prisoners’ health while at the same time contributing to healthy communities.
Incarceration has severe knock-on social effects on families and the community. Social cohesion is based on long-term relationships, and the disruption associated with imprisonment of a person negatively impacts bonds between spouses, between a parent and their child, and even between family members who are not imprisoned. This disruption reshapesfamily and community structures across generations. Mass imprisonment has the potential to produce long-term and deep social transformations that affect entire communities, often linked with a disproportionate on marginalized groups
Prison reform is essential to support prisoners to maintain constructive bonds with the outside world, thereby reducing disruption and supporting social reintegration prospects and mitigating, as much as possible, the negative impact on the prisoner’s family . In parallel, wider penal reform efforts aim to reduce the scope of incarceration, including by treating offenders in the community as much as possible, thereby protecting communities from the serious and long-lasting impact of of mass incarceration.
Imprisoning a person is expensive. The costs of the upkeep of a prisoner are generally significantly higher than what is spent if a person was to be sentenced for a non-custodial measure, such as probation or community service. But the costs do not end there. When considering the costs of incarceration at large, account needs to be also taken of indirect costs, such as those relating to social, economic and health aspects. These are difficult to measure, but are immense and long-term.
Prison and penal reform that is grounded on evidence-based approaches to the management of offenders and that exploits the full potential of alternatives to imprisonment can save governments vast amounts of money and allows to re-direct such resources towards social, treatment and other services benefitting the community at large.
