Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood has expressed her concern at the amount of time Welsh prisoners are spending locked in their cells.
A Freedom of Information request found that the average number of hours that prisoners are allowed out of confinement has fallen for the last five years running.
On average, prisoners in Welsh jails were allowed out for nearly ten-and-a-half hours every day in 2004/05. This dropped to 9.35 hours in 2008/09. Usk/Prescoed has shown the most marked decrease with inmates allowed out for 11.69 hours in 2008/09, compared to 13.86 hours a day the previous year.
The privately-run Parc Prison near Bridgend also saw a significant drop with prisoners spending, on average, an hour less out of their cells in 2008/09 when compared to three years previous.
The news comes a few months after research by Ms Wood’s office discovered that spending on education in Welsh prisons declined by seven per cent over 12 months.
Leanne Wood, who represents the South Wales Central region, said: “These figures are a concern because it seems that prisoners in Wales are, on average, spending more and more time locked in their cells.
“Being sent to prison should not just be about punishment. Rehabilitation must be crucial component of a sentence custodial if anything is to be done to break the cycle of offending among some of the more persistent criminals.
“Public spending cuts that are planned will undoubtedly mean that fewer rehabilitation programmes will be run, resulting in more people remaining at risk of further offending when released.”
In her policy paper ‘Making Communities Safer’ from 2008, Ms Wood wrote: “We recognise that prison will be an inevitable outcome for some offenders.
“Prisoners should be entitled to a basic minimum standard of health, education, rehabilitation and resettlement services while serving their sentences and on release.
“Each prisoner should have an individual offending behaviour reduction plan aimed at avoiding future incarceration.”
In the paper, Ms Wood also called for powers to deal with police, prisons, probation, the courts and sentencing to be devolved to the Welsh Assembly, adding: “Under these circumstances, a Plaid Cymru government would pursue an alternative criminal justice strategy, focussing on tackling the causes of crime, reducing fear of crime and thereby making our communities safer.”
