A NEW report on prisons and society was commended in the House of Lords by the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, last week.
Bishop Treweek, the Church of England’s Bishop for Prisons, had given evidence to the committee responsible for the report, Better Prisons: Less crime. She would, she said, “continue to bang the drum for reform. Better prisons will play a vital role, but they are not the end point or the complete answer to reducing reoffending.”
She gave a warning: “Rehabilitation implies that people were once at an acceptable place in life to which they can be rehabilitated, whereas, for the majority of people in prison, this was never true in the first place.”
The Bishop spoke of her contribution to the Sentencing Bill (News, 21 November 2025) and “the breadth of support for my amendment on the purpose of prisons. This emerged from some work with a number of people across the criminal-justice sector, as part of a round table which I have been convening in Westminster. . . [But] we need this legislative definition of the purpose of imprisonment. Would the Minister agree to meet with me to discuss introducing such a definition?”
Recruitment and culture were another issue, she said. “I continue to be astounded that prison governors are unable to appoint their own staff. This is out of sync with most of the public sector.”
She was concerned that “the recent policing White Paper . . . shockingly, in 103 pages . . . does not mention prison once. Where is the joined-up thinking?
“This leads me finally back to culture. Good leadership within a prison builds culture and hope. If we want safer communities, we must create safer, more humane prisons. The culture inside the prison will translate to the culture outside the prison.”
The debate was introduced by Lord Foster of Bath, who chairs the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. He quoted from the report: “The prison system is ‘operating either in or at the verge of crisis most of the time’, it is ‘disheartening and saddening’, and worrying to the extreme,” he said.
He hoped that “in time” the Justice department would put “its energies into ensuring the wide-scale provision of measures to reduce reoffending. Only then can we truly have better prisons and less crime.”
Baroness Prashar, who was a member of the Select Committee responsible for the report, reiterated: “Our prisons are in a state of crisis, and there is urgent need for a strategic and focused reform of the system if we want to reduce reoffending and protect the public.”
A former chair of the Parole Board of England and Wales, she was keen to see a reduction in the prison population — “essential” — and a clearer purpose for prisons, including better educational opportunities “for prisoners to learn skills which equip them to lead a purposeful life when released”.
The Revd Lord Griffiths of Burry Port sounded an institutional note. “Why, when I was working 30 years ago as the President of the Methodist Church in Britain, did I choose prisons to be one of my key subjects?” He lamented a lack of progress. “It is the same stuff, for staff, governors, conditions within prison, pay, and pensions. . . Here we are, 30 years later, debating the selfsame issues.”
