THERE seems to be much more interest in prisons among the public, press and politicians since our last conference a year ago — and that can only be a good thing.

For far too long, the reality of living and working behind bars has been hidden by the high walls and huge gates my members pass through every day to keep their communities safe.

Out of sight, out of mind, so the saying goes. But the pandemic threw a spotlight on the state of our jails and gave people a taste of life under lockdown.

While once we could rely only on the Morning Star to report fairly on the unique challenges and risks faced by prison staff, now we see a whole range of media willing to give a voice to the “forgotten service,” as many of my members see themselves.

Politicians, too, are speaking up more. As the Tories trash their reputation as the “party of law and order” — exposing themselves as one of crime and chaos instead — Labour and the other opposition parties have tried to fill the vacuum.

Keir Starmer even used a recent session of Prime Minister’s Questions to highlight a horrendous and cowardly attack on a prison officer and the shameful suspended sentence the guilty prisoner received.

Many of my members will be surprised that the attacker was charged at all, with the Crown Prosecution Service often deciding that such prosecutions are “not in the public interest.”

Prisons are in a state of emergency and the Prison Officers Association (POA) again calls for a Royal Commission on prisons and the wider criminal justice system.

Such a public inquiry has been POA policy since 2016 and indeed pledged in the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto.

Our criminal justice system is broken, from a decade of court closures causing unbearable backlogs to a failed privatisation experiment destroying a once world-class probation service.

But it is in our prisons where savage budget cuts and government negligence and neglect have caused the most damage and created the most danger — both to those inside them and to society at large.

Prisons have become academies of crime, with a toxic cocktail of squalid overcrowding, soaring violence and desperation among prisoners, cared for by increasingly inexperienced staff being left to their own devices without adequate training.

All too often, our newer staff become demoralised and leave the service as quickly as they had joined — no reflection on those staff, many of whom are POA members, but a sad indictment of the employer and government officials not protecting their interests from day one.

Since 2010, over 100,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience have been lost — that’s 100,000 years of jail craft flushed away with no justification other than to save money and cheapen the terms and conditions of new entrants, who then can’t rely on this vital experience to assist them in their early years.

We need to ask fundamental questions such as what is the point of prisons — to punish or to rehabilitate?

Most prisoners are eventually released — what kind of condition do we want them to leave in?

Do we want them leaving prison more criminalised and traumatised than when they arrived — and see wider society then pay the price?

Because if not, the government needs to give back the money it took from the prison service in the name of austerity and fix the crisis this created.

When questioned on the delay to their promised public inquiry, ministers blame Covid and imply it’s now unnecessary because of the great improvements they claim to be making.

But this is nonsense — the pandemic has made a Royal Commission more important than ever, as prisons are still reeling from restricted regimes and violence is still rising, despite all the empty promises made in the government’s impotent strategy papers.

Of course, the POA would want the critical role played by prison staff to be at the heart of this investigation, but it is important that all voices are heard for the commission to paint a full picture.

Prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims, charities, campaigners and the general public — as well as MOJ and HMPPS officials and the numerous corporate bodies currently profiting from incarceration — should all be invited to give evidence and help shape the future of a fairer and fully functioning justice system.

This is too important for political posturing — justice is foundational to a civilised society and simply cannot be delivered on the cheap.

Yet governments treat this vital public service like a second-class citizen — never protected from austerity cuts, bloated with over-promoted managers and suffering from a higher turnover of secretaries of state than staff on the front line!

You can’t fix society until you fix society’s prisons. And the most effective way to do that is through a full public inquiry with maximum statutory powers.

As a bare minimum, we need a properly funded prison system that encourages recruitment and retention of front-line staff.

We need a just pension age for prison officers given the physicality of the job and the violence my members face daily, because 68 is simply too late.

We need pay that addresses the cost-of-living crisis and a government that will right the wrongs of the last 30 years of restricting my members’ basic rights by being banned from taking any form of industrial action.

If the Scottish government can restore the right to strike for POA members without the sky falling in, then the same can and should be achieved in the rest of Britain.

I applaud the Scottish government for restoring this fundamental human right. The Westminster government have much to learn from an administration in Scotland that listened to the POA and delivered.

And we need a new deal for working people that includes sectoral collective bargaining, so workers can’t be pitted against each other in a race to the bottom for pay, terms and conditions.

With one voice, the POA calls for a fresh look at our prison estate. We’re willing to play our part to build a better prison service — we just need a government brave enough to do the same.

Together, guided by a Royal Commission, we can have a criminal justice system and prison service to be proud of again — one that protects victims of crime and the general public but at the same time recognises the professionalism of the role that prison officers and Operational Support Grades play in the outstanding work they do on behalf of society, and rewarding them through decent pay, terms and conditions.