On 11 June the government announced that parts of the probation service which had been privately managed for the past six years would be brought back under state control. This privatisation was yet another failure presided over by the Right Honourable Christopher Grayling, widely known as ‘Failing Grayling’ – a label which became even more appropriate a month later, when Grayling failed to be voted chair of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, despite this committee having a majority of Conservative MPs and Grayling being backed by the prime minister. DAVID WAIN reports.
Grayling has been MP for Epsom and Ewell since 2001. He was Justice Minister 2012-2015, and Transport Minister 2016-2019. As Transport Secretary, he oversaw a £30bn overspend on the HS2 project, and will forever be remembered for giving a £13.8m contract for ferry services in case of cross-channel transportation delays caused by a no-deal Brexit to a company without any actual ships.
However, make no mistake, Grayling is not just a buffoon, and is ideologically driven by a neo-liberal agenda. His concept of prison and probation ‘reform’ was one of increased repression. On his watch, legal aid was removed for prisoners seeking advice prior to disciplinary hearings conducted by prison governors, on the basis that (unlike hearings conducted by outside adjudicators) these could not result in an increased sentence. His rationale was that solitary confinement in the segregation unit was not a serious enough outcome.
Grayling also altered the ‘Incentives and Earned Privileges’ scheme by introducing a new ‘Entry Level’ for new prisoners, so they had to wear prison clothing and not their own. He reduced the number of inmates on ‘Enhanced Level’ and increased the number suffering on ‘Basic Level’, despite evidence this results in greater suicide attempts and self-harm. Entry Level was done away with in 2019.
Most infamously, Grayling banned prisoners’ from receiving books in the post. This decision was so obviously unjust that in 2014 a judge ruled it illegal. Even after the ruling, prison staff continued to try to enforce it, not having been updated on the change, and at least one prisoner sent a book by a pen-pal had to explain to the prison officers that books were allowed again before being allowed to have it.
A new law making possession of a mobile phone by a prisoner a criminal offence subject to up to two years’ imprisonment was also introduced by Grayling. This was despite it being clear that most prisoners with illicit mobile phones use them to contact their families, due to the lack of availability, patchy reliability and cost of the prison phones. Unlike the probation privatisation, Entry Level and book ban, this law is still in force.
Grayling also insisted that all prisoners should be compelled to do prison labour, despite the lack of adequate resources for this to actually happen, and was responsible for the introduction of several new sentencing schemes which replaced automatic early release with the need for a parole hearing prior to release being agreed.
If the point of a prison sentence is rehabilitation and family reconciliation but there is no incentive to undertake rehabilitation and prison wages are so low that prisoners cannot afford to buy even small essentials, the system breaks down and it causes unrest, such as the disturbances which swept through the system in 2016 – the legacy of Grayling’s time in charge. Wages for prison work were very low already, but Grayling had them lowered further, meaning that parents in prison struggled even to send their children Christmas or birthday cards.
Grayling led the privatisation of the Probation Service, with so-called Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) competing for contracts to supervise released prisoners and run rehabilitation services. However, due to the serious failings of the private sector, which was using low-paid and inexperienced staff to support and monitor ex-offenders, the people who were supposed to be supervised had no support, while the wider public was left without the reassurance of protection from crime. The second of these resulted in the increasing unpopularity of the CRCs, culminating in the eventual overturning of the privatisation scheme. Another fail for Grayling.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 277 August/September 2020
