TV judge Rob Rinder has hit out at the UK prison system and claimed criminals are “more dangerous” after release.
The 46-year-old recently presented Channel 4 series Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History, which looked at the “balance between rehabilitation and punishment”, and he said the UK has “not delivered rehabilitation” or “justice”.
He said British jails should follow the Norwegian system, which “seeks to understand how someone has ended up committing an offence” and aims to “help them change their behaviour”, rather than focusing on “punishment”.
Rinder told the Radio Times: “Prison is a subject most people have an opinion about, but not many of us have been inside one. Unlike education or health, there isn’t a wide experience of the system and its purpose.
“For those who have never been inside a prison, its purpose is punishment, removing individuals from society to a place that should be nasty and brutish, to reflect the feelings of the victims or their families.
“But in my experience as a criminal barrister, those people who do visit prisons, from lawyers or probation officers to volunteers, come away with a different view, regardless of their personal politics.
“What victims and their families say that they chiefly want is for their experience never to happen to another person.
“But today offenders are often being released back into our communities more dangerous than when they were sentenced, and likely to reoffend.”
He said that, as the Government plans to release thousands of inmates early in order to ease pressure on the prison service, it is “time to think about what purpose we want our prisons to serve”.
The Judge Rinder star also welcomed the appointment of Timpson boss James Timpson as prisons minister, with more than 10% of employees at the key-cutting and shoe repair chain being former prisoners.
Rinder added: “In the long term, the most effective way to reduce overcrowding is to reduce reoffending.
“Timpson has shown that, if you give someone a job with responsibility and a purpose, and if you deal with their problems, such as addiction, that can inspire a functioning member of our community – someone who doesn’t want to go back to jail.”
The full interview with Rinder can be found in the next issue of the Radio Times, which will be published on Saturday August 3.
– Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History can be streamed on My4.
