Sir David Ramsbotham, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, gave a lecture at Southwark Cathedral on Monday 16 July, with the title What price imprisonment? He started by saying that, surprisingly, we don't know the cost of our prisons, but it clearly is not only financial. "But whatever the cost, the country can't afford not to pay the price, both financial and social." It does the country no good to have a system of negative punishment which marginalizes a large percentage of the population and leads to re-offending, he said. The budget varies enormously across the country. For example, the allowance for education per young offender is under £500 in one prison and over £2000 in another.

The main point Sir David stressed is that having people locked up for most of 24 hours with nothing to do is wasting the country's money. Prisons should be in a sense like hospitals - for effective treatment. They should be designed and run with the purpose of making sure prisoners do not re-offend. He re-stated from one of his official reports his succinct expression of what he sees as the aim: "A full, purposeful and active day for every prisoner in every prison."

Sir David, who is to retire at the end of July, was speaking to an audience of judges, senior lawyers and representatives of the prison and probation services, including chaplains. There was also a range of people from the voluntary sectors, working with and for prisoners and prison reform. Sir David warmly affirmed the value of the voluntary sector's contribution.

"We suffer from lack of a clear strategy for prisons," he said. "There have been good developments, but they have been piecemeal, following disasters and the subsequent inquiries." But he discovered that there was in fact a report produced in 1991, agreed by all parties, which was described as 'a blueprint for prison development', with a substantial list of recommendations. There has been progress on some of them, he said, but many of them would serve today as valid points for action. No-one had costed this report, however. Sir David said he had been saying to the politicians, "Why not dust down and make good use of what you've agreed on?"

One of the recommendations was for each region to have a sufficient range of facilities to keep all prisoners in reasonable reach of their own families and communities. He strongly supported this - "It stops the nonsense of living hundreds of miles from home, and saves the vast expense of assisted visiting costs." In turn this leads to less strain and less chance of family breakdown, so that the offender has a stable relationship to return to, rather than being released into a vacuum and a strong probability of re-offending.

Regional placing also gives prisoners the opportunity of making links with their community and strengthening the likelihood of returning to a productive and more socially acceptable life.

Ends.

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