Europe Explained

 Transcription

So welcome to the latest edition of Europe, Explained, the Council of Europe's podcast on our work for human rights, democracy and justice. Today we're going to discuss the work of our Committee for the Prevention of Torture, or CPT for short, which this year is celebrating its 35th anniversary. The CPT organises visits to places of detention to find out how persons deprived of their liberty are treated. These include prisons, juvenile detention centers, police stations, holding centers for immigration detainees, psychiatric hospitals and social care homes.
 
But today, we're going to focus on several aspects of life in our prisons. And with me in the studio, I have two experts on the subject, Hugh Chetwynd, who's the executive secretary of the CPT. And Therese Rytter, the committee's second vice president. Welcome to you both. Thank you very much.
 
And the first subject we're going to discuss today is prison overcrowding, which is a theme that touches many countries in Europe. If I could start with you first, Hugh. What are the main reasons for prison overcrowding?
 
Thank you. Alan, it's not an easy question as it, uh, as you said, we've seen it, uh, touching many, many countries now, and it's rising. It's a complex issue that involves both sentencing. What are the sentencing policies in the various countries? What is the capacity of their prisons? Have they built enough prisons in order to hold the people that they need to? What are the policies they have to providing alternatives to detention so that people can be managed in the community. So we're looking at several different aspects, uh, as opposed to just one, one thing that can say are prison overcrowding is because of this. Uh, fundamentally, though, what prison overcrowding means is that the people who are put into prison, uh, are having to live in very poor conditions, which also affects staff, uh, and which means that the purpose of prison is undermined. And we'll come back to those reasons a bit later. but that's the kind of overview.
 
And today's what do you think? Uh, about what you just said. Anything to add? No, I completely agree. And I think what we see is really that overcrowding impacts negatively on all walks of prison life, access to health care, for instance, we see that prisoners do not get the opportunities to have education and work as otherwise if there would be lower levels, uh, we see contacts with families reduced, and most importantly, we also see higher levels of tension, both between prisoners and between staff and prisoners. So leading to violence and less secure prisons.
 
And I think that's, uh, it comes into that, that problem of having the overcrowding. How do you then address it? Um, and as we see, I mean, for 30 years in certain countries, we've been saying that when you have all these issues around overcrowding, you then undermine your living conditions, you undermine the ability of your prisoners to actually get out and to undertake certain activities about preparing for reintegration into society. And fundamentally you have this more tension which leads to violence, and often that violence can be towards prison staff as well as towards other prisoners. And the consequence of that can therefore be more shutting up of prisoners in their cells for longer periods. So you enter into this vicious cycle whereby the prison, the whole purpose of prison, becomes more and more undermined.
 
To me, as a layperson, they seem to be to obvious solutions. Either you send fewer people to prison or you build more prison capacity. But I'm guessing it's more complicated and more nuanced than that. Well, I think these are two of the main solutions.
 
Of course, people need to be placed in decent conditions, humane conditions, which means that in countries where you have 200 old year old prisons, you need to build new ones. But for us, it's really important to say that building prisons is not the solution. What is the solution often is to look at alternatives to imprisonment. And this is both at the pre-trial stage. So looking at whether persons really need to be placed in pre-trial. Could there be alternatives already at this stage, especially for persons who have or who have was suspected of having committed nonviolent offenses? So it may be electronic monitoring. It may be that they report to the police station, but they need not go into prison necessarily at the trial and sentencing stage. A prison sentence is not the only solution. You could also have community sentences, for instance, and at the post-trial stage as well, I mean, having served a sentence for five years, for instance, you may be eligible for early conditional release. So what we really recommend is that you look at alternatives both for the general prison population but also for particularly vulnerable groups. So these are these are two of the issues. A third issue of course, is the question of criminalization that we see that some offenses are criminalized in ways where people end up in prison for very short periods. And, and you can do nothing good. If a person goes to prison six months, it's going to lead to nothing positive. There's no possibilities of rehabilitation. So on the other hand, we may increase the risk of reoffending. So. So these are the three one of the three key solutions.
 
Given that the solutions seem to be out there and seem to be known and some countries are trying them, um, how come that, uh, other countries in Europe don't learn from the best practice countries? I think the prisons is a very political issue.
 
Uh, it is, and if we look across Europe, we will see that in certain countries the numbers of persons, not the overall numbers, but the numbers of persons per 100,000 range from 50 to 60 per 100,000 in certain Nordic countries to, uh, 250 or more or even 400 in certain other countries.
 
Um, and I think that one of the problems is the criminalization within the systems. So what you have is that they, the countries, have not invested enough in their prison system because they haven't actually, when they've adopted their prison legislation, their criminal legislation, they haven't actually looked for. What does this implicate? What does this mean for our prison system or for our criminal justice system? And often what you find is that criminal legislation is made because there's a problem comes up in society. You add in more, uh, crimes, which then require sentencing, uh, certain crimes, uh, because of the popular demand, uh, have longer sentences. And what we've seen in many countries is sentences, for example, that used to be, say, ten years are now 20 years.
 
Um, and so the threshold for people to actually be able to be eligible to go back into the community after going in is longer and longer. So on one hand, that's filling up the prisons. And then on the other hand, what we're seeing is there is this lack of investment in prisons, because prisons are actually very, very expensive, not only to build, but more importantly, to run with the amount that has to go into staffing. But also if you want the person to go into prison and come back into the community, you have to invest a certain amount to help these people, because many of the people who are in prison are persons who've come from very much broken backgrounds, from a very low socioeconomic background, where they've often been abused and traumatized in their past, which often relates to their offending, or they have substance use issues. So I think that there in those countries where we've seen movement to bring the populations down, it's often been because they've looked at their criminal legislation and said, do these people need to be in prison? Can we can other alternatives? So if somebody has a substance use problem, would it not be better and the offending is related that would it not be better to resolve that issue in the community in a treatment center and not send them to prison?
 
Um, and so I think there are good practices across Europe.
 
And I think that the those countries which are now suffering from a lot of overcrowding and where the prison systems are really under pressure and, and some of the big countries, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, for example, I think some of those countries are looking abroad. What how can we be inspired and others are feel that they have to respond to the the public outrage that they need to just build more prisons, um, and are unable to do so.
 
As an outsider, as a non-expert, I would say that for me, prisons represent two things. One is obviously punishment or retribution, but the other one is reintegration, re-education, preparing people for going back into society. Obviously, I can see that prison overcrowding would make the punishment aspect harder, but does it have any impact on the reeducation or the reoffending rate?
 
Uh, Theresa, what's the answer to that, I think. I mean, there's no scientific research, which makes a direct correlation at this point between prison overcrowding and rates of reoffending. However, I think looking out at the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, we have seen that in those countries. I mean, we should not mention any particular ones, but we see that there are certain countries where there is rampant overcrowding and their levels of reoffending are very high. So it seems that there is a direct correlation.
 
And what we also see is, as mentioned before, when you have high levels of overcrowding, it's difficult for the prison system to offer education, work, treatment programmes. So all of these things which are, as you say, the core of the rehabilitation aspect. So then being in prison becomes human warehousing and the punishment aspect is very pronounced, but the rehabilitation aspect goes into the background. And in that way this contributes to reoffending. And I think what also happens is that often in those prisons where you have enormous amounts of overcrowding. He often start to have a loss of control by the staff, and that often means that some of those persons who were committing crimes on the outside are able to then start running gangs and their own little organized crime units within the prisons, and even to manage their, their, their associates from in the prison outside. So actually, all the efforts to combat crime are being undermined because of the prisons. And we don't see it so, so overtly. But the cost of crime in society is absolutely enormous. And so if we were actually very economical and looking at the hard facts of economics, we would reduce our prison population to say who really needs to be there and the people who are there, let's put money in to ensure that when they do get out, they can really be part of the productive part of society and integrate and not and not find themselves back on the streets and into their their old ways and means. So I think that the overcrowding it it it's not the it's not the only reason for all of this, but it's a big reason that really undermines the functioning of prisons. And it should be an opportunity in some ways for governments to step back and go, what are we trying to do with our prisons? How many people do we really need to be in prison? Who needs to be in there? And then if once we've worked that out, then what kind of what's the size of our prison estate? And then how many prisons do we need? How many staff do we need? What kind of activities do we need?
 
And I think that's that's lacking, isn't it really? Um, as we move forward, um, I think, uh, we recently Theresa and I were in the United Kingdom, and we were meeting with, um, the new prisons minister there.
 
Uh, James Timpson. And I have to say that who knows what will happen, but there there is a vision. There is an idea of how do we take a system that has been broken and and its common knowledge has been broken for like ten, 12 years with violence and now with lots of overcrowding. And there's a vision of like, I think we can turn this around.
 
It's not going to take a day. It's going to take many, many years. But that's the kind of bold thinking that has to take place and has to be explained to the public as well. Why is it that you might think that persons who offend are not going into prison for long sentences, what is in their best interests and what is in the best interests of the state?
 
And I think there has to be some kind of communication, because I think that that doesn't work so well either. Yeah.
 
So maybe summing up, could I ask both of you if you're optimistic about the future direction of Europe? It's very complicated because it's 46 countries with very different economies, different political systems, etc.. But Theresa, you do you think things are going in the right way? I think what I can tell you is that what we saw during the pandemic was that levels of overcrowding went down very significantly. So I think this really comes to show that states can reduce levels of overcrowding, both at the intake and at the outtake. So it is possible. I think also what we see across Europe is a number of countries like Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain. They have actually managed to reduce the levels of the prison population really by using the whole scale of non-custodial measures. So yes, I would say that for large parts of Europe, I definitely am very positive. And I think also I think what what's also positive is that we're engaging. States are not sort of saying it's not your business. Don't look, they're really engaging with us and they're looking at what can be done. So obviously as we said, it's very political. So in that respect, I think certain countries there are they're a little bit wary sometimes to go out there. And that's also our role. Our role is to go in and really encourage them to move forward. And I think there are a couple of good models. And I think, as Theresa mentioned, one of the most interesting is Spain is a large country that brought its population down from 75,000 to 55,000. And if a country like that can do that and stabilize it now, I think that shows and sends a good message to other countries and maybe just on Spain. I think what's excellent with Spain is that they have actually gone full circle. They have decriminalized certain crimes. They have then used more less pretrial detention, more community sanctions instead of prison sanctions, and then early conditional release. So they actually using all the available instruments that you have to bring down your prison population. So this is one of the when we meet the UK and other countries, Spain is one of those countries that we would recommend that states look at more closely. So some hopeful signs for the future. Then on prisoner we are an optimistic good. And perhaps we could turn now to our second topic for discussion today, which is the situation of vulnerable persons in prison to raise. Perhaps if I could start with you on this one, what kind of persons are we talking about in this context? Right.
 
So I would say anyone who goes to prison in that context is, of course, vulnerable because you are deprived of your own liberty. You cannot decide freely what your life is going to be like. And but there are certain categories of prisoners who are particularly vulnerable. Amongst these are women, for instance, children, um, elderly persons, persons with mental health disorders, LGBTQ persons, um, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and also persons who are sentenced to long term prison or even life imprisonment. So I would say these are the main, uh, categories, foreign prisoners, of course, also. But these are the main categories of persons who are particularly vulnerable when they are behind bars.
 
And what kind of problems, for example, do women face, uh, as a group? I was just going to say, I think when we when we use these large categories of, of of vulnerabilities within these categories. It doesn't mean all of those persons are necessarily vulnerable. But what we're saying is those are groups that we try to take a particular look at. And why do we say that, for example, with women is because prisons were built by men, uh, for men. And so the needs of women were never taken into account.
 
Um, so I think that that is also been a reason why in the last few years, we've we've, thanks to Terri's, have really started to kind of focus a little bit more on, you know, what are the actual needs of women and what is their background. And I think that that's that that's our approach now with them. And I think to reconcile a bit more on that, I think, I mean, we look at women and they have very different trajectories than men. Many of the women come from disadvantaged backgrounds socioeconomically, and they're single mothers. They are sometimes primary caregivers. We see that many women also have long histories of abuse, sometimes going all the way back to childhood, but also intimate partner violence. So many of the women are victims of sexual and other forms of gender based violence. We see women having also a higher prevalence of mental health issues anxiety, for instance, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and many of these traumatic, uh, experiences date back to the to the to the violence that they have sustained. We also see women having many more drug problems. But what I also think is important to say is, and you mentioned it at the outset, a lot of the women who are in prison are in prison because of those traumatic backgrounds. So they may have been living with a violent husband for years, have sustained violence, a psychological abuse, sexual abuse. And one day, you know, they will act out and seek revenge. So they are in prison for the violence against the husband, sometimes even the fatal violence against the husband. But the great majority of the women still are women who are sentenced to short term sentences. Women who have committed nonviolent crimes such as drug crimes, for instance. Theft, fraud. So in reality, many of these women do not necessarily belong in prison.
 
And what other solutions could there be for doing more for women persons in prison? I think there have been there have been in several countries. They have undertaken studies to look at, um, how best to manage women who offend, because another issue that occurs is that only 5% of the prison population are women. So what does that mean? That tends to mean that they get concentrated in certain areas, uh, which is often very far away from their families. And we all know that for proper re insertion and reintegration back into the community, you need to have constant close family links, especially if you're, uh, the primary carer, which is often the case with many of the women. So you know, their children. So that's another what we've seen and what the studies show is that for many of these women, the best would be to have small, uh, custodial or housing type, uh, uh, facilities in the community where they can be close to where their families are so that there can be that closeness to the community and to the family for helping with their integration, and also smaller units, which can actually be, uh, geared to their needs. What are their specific needs? Um, and I think that that so what we've tried to do is advocate for this, um, for the moment, there are few countries, I think, that are really going down that line. I think, um, the I think what tends to happen is that when prisons get to a crisis state, then then countries could have got, oh my goodness, how are we going to deal with this? Um, and we've just seen now an announcement in again in the United Kingdom because they, they've, they've of the crisis of prison overcrowding. They're now looking at what is who really needs to be in prison. Um, and going back ten, 12 years to previous reports and, uh, and, um, studies which said that we should be setting up small custodial units around, around the country. And I think that that's a first step, uh, in terms of, you know, trying to get away from the big prisons and to meet the needs. And then the second is once women come into these, uh, facilities making sure that we, the staff and everybody understand what are their needs.
 
Um, and that's not always simple, uh, given the, their histories. Um, and it also means, of course, that the staff need to be properly trained, um, have a real trauma informed approach towards managing and working with these women.
 
Absolutely.
 
Another group that you mentioned to raise was a transgender or LGBTI. Um. Uh, Persons who are in prison. I imagine there are even fewer of them than there are of the 5% of women, but it tends to enter a lot into political discourse. What are the main issues with transgender persons in prison? Exactly. When we say that prisons are built by men for men managed by men as well, which obviously, um, impacts negatively on the lives of women in prison, it does so even also with LGBTQ persons and transgender persons.
 
Um, obviously what we see is that many prisons are not steered and not built to, uh, to accommodate this particular group, and many are quite, if I may say, so, rigid in terms of looking at, you know, what is the legal sex rather than what is the identifiable sex, what gender, what do they identify as? So we see sometimes that persons who identify as a woman is placed in a male prison. And obviously anyone can guess that either that person will be exposed to high levels of harassment. Sexual abuse or the person will end up seeing that that person is at such great risk that he or she will actually be locked up, because that's the best way to protect them. So what we have seen in some countries is that those persons are effectively living lives in what could be named as de facto solitary confinement. Yeah, I think I think what what we've really been, again, trying to advocate is that when persons come into a prison that they, uh, if they identify whoever or whatever they identify as their gender, that is how they should be treated. But at the same time, there should be a needs and risk assessment. So obviously there are a few very high profile cases of persons of men who had committed rape and then decide that they want to become a women. Now, we're not saying, oh, because you're now identify as a women, then you go into a women's section that has to always be a risk and needs assessment, and that is what it should be based on for those small cases that they are, but they really are very few compared to the majority of trans persons that we we meet in, in prison. And I think one of the as Theresa was saying, one of the problems is that many of these trans women, they come in, uh, to a prison and they're because the prison doesn't have a proper policy, they're often placed on so-called vulnerable units, i.e. they're usually placed with, uh, sexual offenders.
 
Um, so they're placed on a, on a unit with sexual offenders, which has nothing to do with their own needs. Uh, the staff of often don't know what to do with them, so they kind of just left there.
 
Um, so, uh, from our visits, we've actually found that it's been quite a lot of abuse of trans. There aren't particularly trans transgender women, uh, to be honest, that that's the main category. Um, and as you said, the numbers are very small, but they're very vulnerable, small group. And I think that what countries are just coming to grips now with trying to what kind of policies should we have? And this year we um, earlier this year we, the CPT, uh, published it's thinking about how, uh, transgender women in prisons should be treated at least what are the principles that we would like to see applied in all the various countries?
 
Um, and I think the first one is that self-identification that that should be taken into account for the placement. But there should always be a needs and risk assessment.
 
If we could turn now, perhaps, to the general, uh, recommendations that the CPT makes about prisons with regard to the issues we've been discussing today.
 
Um, what Terrys would you say are the main guidelines that you give to member states?
 
Um, it's a big question, but maybe in general terms, I mean, I think we have a sourcebook of 300 pages with recommendations. But if we look at the issues that we've discussed this morning, I think looking at imprisonment as a means of last resort rather than the first resort.
 
Um, I think it's not only also about the prison itself, it's also about the criminal justice system, how it works. For instance, what we see in certain countries is that the appetite to apply non-custodial measures so alternatives to detention or imprisonment is not all that great. And this may also be because of the judiciary. So they are a bit more reluctant. They're a bit more conservative. Do not wish to take the risk that if someone is placed outside, they may commit crime, and then that's going to bounce back on them.
 
Um, so one recommendation would definitely be to be more brave and to really look at what's best for society, not only to have a punitive approach, but also to look at what makes society much more safe. I think that's really one of the key recommendations to make.
 
A second recommendation is also that, you know, prison is not one size fits all. Yes, prison prisons were built for men, and they still are many places, if I may say so, gender blind and not sufficiently trauma informed. Um, but the prison system needs to cater to the populations that they accommodate. Be it women, be it foreigners, be it persons with mental health issues. Because what we see is that many of those populations suffer in prison, not just because of deprivation of liberty, but because they have traumatic issues which are not dealt with. They have drug histories which are not dealt with, they end up in prison, and their mental health state is exacerbated with self-harm, suicide. So really investing much more capital in health care, in educational programs and re socialization altogether.
 
Yes. And I think if you're able to bring the population down, but keeping the same resources, you can then put more resources into the smaller population to assist them. And I think the other consequence that we've we haven't touched on so much today, but it's around staffing.
 
Um, and that is that prisons work because you have a really good staff who are engaged, who are committed, who are well trained, and who really believe in, in trying to help the persons and support the persons who are in prison, move through the prison system and into the community. When prisons are overcrowded that that role, it becomes undermined. They don't have the time and the resources to get to know the different prisoners and then to be able to support them. So when we're talking about in countries with high levels of overcrowding, we basically have a variegated, uh, set of recommendations from the basic, uh, you know, you can't build your way out of a prison. As Teresa said, you can, you know, you should replace older prisons with newer ones. That makes sense also for environmental reasons, potentially. But you shouldn't just be trying to build more and more prisons. At the same time. You need to start looking at your sentencing laws. What are your sentencing? How many people are being sent? You need to educate your judges, uh, and to say what is best. You need to invest also in the community so that you can have more community measures and to show that they are effective, They they tend to be. The evidence is that they're more effective in reducing recidivism. But of course, they're very small at the moment. And so we so what we're trying is we need to attack it on several different levels. And it's not sufficient just to say we'll build prisons or we'll just change the criminal legislation.
 
And if I may make one final comment, and maybe going back to the UK and the Minister of Prisons, Timson, I think what is extraordinary with a person like him is that he says, and I wish more prisons ministers would say so. We will govern and we will base our policies on science, on evidence, because this is what we want. What happens in too many countries across the Council of Europe is that it's motions, values, um, you know, putting more people behind bars, which is the policy, rather than thinking what actually makes our societies more safe. So I would say an evidence based approach is also something that we would favour. And how much evidence is there that the CPT is listened to by the Member states. Uh, Hugh, maybe thank you for that. Of course, I would say that. Of course I listen to, uh, I would say that we have we have a very intense dialogue. So we do our visits, we make our recommendations, all our recommendations implemented. No, they're not. Um, but what we tend to do is when that doesn't take place, we will be going back to those countries. And we were saying, why aren't you able to do this? Why aren't you looking at these types of issues? How can we support you? Is it a technical issue? Is it something? Is it just about financing? Um, and so we try to really engage with those countries to, to, to get them to really address the, the, the crux of the matter. Um, I would say also these are longer term issues. It's not I think often countries when they're faced with the, um, uh, with, with, with overcrowding, they tend to think, oh, this, this will pass, this will pass. Our job is a preventive body. We're there to as we're linked to the European Court of Human Rights and particularly to article three of the European Convention on Human Rights. We're there to try and tell governments, if you don't make these changes, you're going to end up with lots of cases before the European Court of Human Rights. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is where governments haven't taken the necessary steps from US. Cases go to the European Court of Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights looks at the CPT reports and says, oh yes, this is appalling. What's happening here. Violation. So countries are paying a lot of money to individuals, uh, and not investing that money into the into the system. So what we're doing is not only just sort of writing reports and saying, do it. We're then going back to countries and engaging at the ministerial level, at the professional level, also with the judiciary and the parliamentarians to try to say, listen, let's attack this problem.
 
Um, and then also, which I think that's also good, is that this is a sort of a Council of Europe approach. So we also have the cooperation programmes that can come in and provide technical advice. We have the court obviously, and we have the Council of Europe Development Bank, which can provide financing to help.
 
And we're seeing them being involved in more and more countries to do so.
 
Now, I know to maybe we could conclude, um, um, now, I know that in some countries there are actually pressure groups that exist to improve prison conditions. For example, in the UK there is something called the Prison Reform Trust. But it seems to me, as a non-expert that the CPT, with its cross European pan-European experience, should have an added value. So, uh, because you've been to so many countries and countries can learn from your experience, is that something is this added value recognized by member states, uh, as opposed to the single country bodies? That is, the is the CPT listened to because of its pan-European experience, I would say absolutely. I mean, we see a number of countries that listen to us over time. We see that many of the recommendations that have been made are implemented. There are some also very long standing recommendations which are not implemented, of course, but I think they do have the value. They know that we are very impartial, that we're very professional, that we are there to engage and not to criticise. So in that sense, I think the CPT has extraordinary respect. We can end any place of detention at any time, which also shows the trust that the state actually has in us.
 
And so there's no doubt about that. I think at the same time, we come every 1 to 3 years, and we also very dependent on strong actors on the ground. So national preventive mechanisms who conduct visits to places of detention on a much more regular basis are crucial. And I think the inter linkage between the work that they do on a more regular basis and then our work where we can come in and bring in experiences from 46 member states, including many, many good practices, that's a very important, um, cocktail. One could say. Uh, yes. I think in that we're very much we complement who the actors are on the ground, whether it be in certain countries which have very many, um, sort of prison oriented, um, uh, civil society actors, uh, which you just mentioned, or in those countries were actually there's a rather weak civil society, but maybe there's an MPM. So we're very much complimentary of what exists there. But I think we bring a certain, a certain I'd say gravitas in some ways. So if we're coming in and we're making points that have been made by local organizations, it's in a way the levels being raised a little bit. Um, and I think that in that respect, we, we are listened to, uh, and were respected. Um, and we never our approach is never to go and try and name and shame a country we're not. We really are about cooperation and trying to say, let's have a dialogue. Let's try and work out these issues, because if we don't, it's the people who are in detention who are deprived, who are going to suffer. It's the people who work with them who are going to suffer. And ultimately, it's also the European Court of Human Rights that are going to have more cases before it. So, you know, it's in everyone's interest to try and regulate this problem for the better of our societies. Um, and also to not waste, I would say, taxpayers monies in that respect on, on, on, on areas which could be dealt with much more effectively, um, and humanely.
 
Okay. So thank you very much. Uh, both you and Theresa, let's hope that this issue will continue to progress in a positive direction thanks to the work of the CPT. And, uh, thank you very much. And see you again. Thank you. Thanks a lot.