PRT is the key charity if you want a more humane and more effective penal system.
PRT leads the way in advice and information, education, research and campaigns.
PRT is completely independent of Government and relies entirely on voluntary donations and subscriptions.
Advice, information, research and campaigns
The Prison Reform Trust offers advice and information to thousands of people every year: prisoners, their families, prison and probation staff, the legal profession, students, academics and interested members of the public.
With the Prison Service we produce a unique series of Prisoners' Information Books, which go to every prisoner.
Our quarterly magazine, Prison Report, is the most challenging and influential voice on prison issues.
Our annual lecture and conference series attract high profile speakers and large audiences.
The Prison Reform Trust carries out research on all aspects of prison. Recent studies include: the Woolf Report: ten years on, the Human Rights Act, mental health in prisons, volunteering and active citizenship in prisons, prisoner votes, women prisoners, prison privatisation, and suicide prevention.
Our record of success is second to none. Many of our campaigns have achieved real change in individual prisons, and in the policies and practices of the Prison Service as a whole.
Prisons are the most shaming of all our public institutions. The United Kingdom imprisons more of its people than virtually any other country in Western Europe - in conditions which are frequently an affront to civilized values, and at great cost to the taxpayer. Yet the vast majority of our prisoners do not present a serious threat to life or limb. Their crimes are such that they can be more humanely economically and effectively dealt with in the community.
At first sight, our enthusiasm for imprisonment is surprising. Prison has a poor track record. It is hard to show any relationship between a society's rate of incarceration and its rate of crime. Prison keeps some offenders off the streets, but it seems neither to deter nor reform. Judged simply on its effectiveness, prison has been repeatedly condemned as a blunt instrument.
Our work has very wide implications for the rest of society. Prisoners do not remain in prison forever. Only a tiny handful will never be released. Those who are released should be encouraged to lead law abiding lives and be fully integrated back into the community. If they are very 'damaged' and disillusioned by their detention it will not be an easy transition back to 'normal' life. Prison is not always the most appropriate punishment but when it is, we must ensure that it is a just and effective punishment and that prisoners are encouraged and helped in their efforts not to return.
Here are some more reasons:
Every prisoner costs about £25,000 a year to keep in custody. A night in a police cell costs more than a night in London's Dorchester Hotel.
Prison is ineffective at reducing crime. Half of all prisoners (and nearly two thirds of young prisoners) reoffend within two years.
One fifth of all prisoners have not been convicted of any offence. Yet 40 per cent of these are not judged to need a prison sentence when they come to court.
Only one in three prisoners is in gaol because of an offence involving violence, sex or drugs. Many of the remainder have committed only minor, property offences.
Up to a third of prisoners have some identifiable psychiatric disorder.
Many prisons are overcrowded.
Remand prisoners, who have not been found guilty of any crime, suffer the worst conditions and regimes.
People who should be cared for by the mental health system wrongly end up in prison.
On average, one prisoner commits suicide every four to five days.
Many prisoners have time on their hands. There is insufficient work and education and not enough is done to stop them returning to crime.
Three-quarters of young offenders discharged from prison are reconvicted after two years.
Community penalties cost less than prison and can work better.
