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'It sent me back to square one': Short sentences create endless cycle of jail time, inmates tell LBC
18 February 2025, 08:11 | Updated: 18 February 2025, 08:13
Short sentences and recall periods are keeping offenders in a longer cycle of going to jail, LBC has heard, as we went behind bars at one of England’s prisons.
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“It just sent me back to square one,” Emma told us at HMP New Hall in Wakefield, as she described being recalled to her cell for just 28 days, right as she was starting to get her life back on track.
“The last time I got out, in the first two days I ended up stupidly relapsing and I did one shop theft that was worth about £13,” she said.
“After that, I sorted myself out, I got off drugs. I was doing well in the house for eight weeks and then they recalled me for the one shop theft.
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“It means I've lost my house. I've lost my benefits. My drug worker. I've got to start everything from the beginning again. It’s the cycle that keeps bringing you back to the beginning.”
Outside of the cells, New Hall Prison feels like a health centre, with specialist wings for drug and alcohol recovery, mental health support and new mums to stay with their babies.
But Emma says endless short sentences don’t give offenders like her a chance to engage with rehabilitation.
“I think a sentence lower than three months is pointless. We're coming in for what? To waste your money. You can’t even get a job if you're in for less than six weeks,” she says.
“We’re having a pre-release meeting in week one.”
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Four in ten of the inmates at New Hall are either on remand or a sentence of less than 12 months.
Kelly is also back behind bars for a short term after being recalled for a ‘technicality’.
She said in her 23 years of being in and out of prison, it was her one longer sentence that saw her make the most progress.
“My last one was three years and I think it helped me because it gave me time to sort a house before I was out,” she said.
“But my tag box wasn’t working while I was on house curfew, it wasn’t picking me up when I was downstairs, so they recalled me."
In the first report from the sentencing review, which was ordered by the government after prisons reached the brink of collapse, the panel says the number of inmates on recall in England and Wales has skyrocketed from fewer than 100 in 1993 to almost 13,000 at the end of last year.
The rise is being put down to changes in legislation around mandatory community supervision for shorter sentences and a heightened risk aversion among probation officers, following high profile cases like the murder of Zara Aleena by a man who was out on licence.
Former justice secretary David Gauke, who’s chairing the review, told LBC he’s “concerned” by the way the recall system is operating.
“Some of them are recalled because of what could be described as technical breaches that aren’t necessarily their fault - their tagging equipment not working, or there being an error on the records for a postcode.
“Those issues do need to be looked at but also there are people who have been recalled because okay, maybe they have committed a minor offence but that has often been as a consequence of them not getting the support that they need.
“We need to make sure that when people leave prison, they’re not in a position where they’re very very likely to commit another crime.”
The review is looking at whether punishment and rehabilitation, including on drugs, can be better delivered through community sentences, rather than behind bars.
Kelly told LBC she managed to stay clean for a much longer spell of time when she was previously handed a Drug Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) sentence, where she had to regularly check in with a judge, while staying out of prison.
“They get to know you that way and if you slip up, they know why you’ve done it. They understand it’s part of your recovery.”
All of the prisoners we spoke to said drugs played a major role in the life of crime that they have found themselves stuck in.
While prison bosses insist the vast majority of women being released from the jail are set up with accommodation, the prisoners we met said time and time again, they’ve been left with nowhere to stay, restarting the process of them back taking drugs and being recalled for another 28 days.
