Speaker Dr Alan Webster

Fri, Feb 22nd 2019 at 12:55 pm - 2:00 pm

Topic:- Not a Laughing Matter


Rotary club of Stirling meeting of 22nd February 2019.


President Sandy Farquharson welcomed members to our Friday meeting.
Sandy intimated an important change in our arrangements, the club assembly will now be on 20th June not 23rd May, with the presidential handover on 28th June. The AM/AM golf will take place at Stirling golf club on 24th May.

Our speaker was Dr Alan Webster whose varied career has taken him from the ministry via a degree in business, to prison governor and eventually into the civil service. His talk was entitled "prison is no laughing matter." Surprisingly before 1800 there were no organised prisons in the UK, and it was not until 1790 that what constituted a crime was defined.
Following the Peel act a court structure was established to process these newly defined crimes. Initially, and until relatively recently, the sole purpose of incarceration was punishment, but prison is expensive with each cell place now costing £37,000 per year. Of the 8000 prisoners in Scotland Alan estimates that about 1000 are dangerous requiring removal from society, so what is the purpose for the rest other 7000 currently in jail. At one time Barlinnie was known as "the big sleep" as there was nothing else for the inmates to do, but increasingly the aim is to provide some structure, improve their prospects on discharge, cut down recidivism, and make prisons safer for prisoners and equally important for staff. For example, the provision of a TV occupies the prisoner's time and may cut the need for as many officers on duty. Prison is an exercise in power, between the staff and the inmates, and between competing groups of inmates, and when this
balance breaks down disturbances may occur.   Rather than isolating prisoners, ongoing contact with their families, will it is hoped, lead to a more productive discharge and reintegration into society. At the end of the day Alan could not find much objective evidence for this, but the problem remains costing £300 million a year, just for the prison service without taking into account the cost to families and society in general.

Next week we hope to have feedback from some of the charities we have recently helped to fund. Visitor's host Malcolm Cordwell-Smith.

Ian Richardson

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