Really good post - I just have one question about the point above.
If you go to prison, are bored senseless each day, stuck in a small cell for most of it, and find conditions pretty horrid - surely this would make someone not want to go back there as opposed to making them more likely to reoffend?
You'd think so, but the reoffending rate doesn't back up the theory. For some, of course, it will act as a deterrent, for the many it won't.
Let's walk through a hypothetical. Adam gets sentenced to a 6 year determinate sentence. After 3 years he will qualify for automatic release at the halfway point, and will be subject to the rest of his sentence under supervision in the community.
Adam's been banged up 23.5 hours a day, for three years, with restrictions on family visits, phone calls, minimal shower and exercise time. He was unlucky in that the majority of his sentence fell during the 3 years of strict COVID lockdown principles in prison. He's not undertaken any rehabilitative work in custody.
He's single, his family are distant or unequipped to be able to help him. When he's released, he'll be given a bed in a hostel, whilst on the list for local housing support.
The hostel / assisted supported living accomodation claim his rent from housing benefit, they pay the local housing authority rate for rent. They don't cover Adam's service charges of £60 per week, he'll have to pay that out of his Universal Credit.
He opens his claim, but it will take 5 weeks to process. He takes out an advance, which he'll have to pay back via deductions to his award every month, so that he can pay for his first month of services charges and get by. He'll have to get a phone, credit, clothes and pay for food and drink with the rest.
The supported living accomodation Adam is living in, is full of other people who have been released from custody, or are homeless. Illegal substances and alcohol are rife, their lives are depressing and they need to get by somehow.
Adam needs a job, but plenty of companies will not hire anyone with a criminal conviction. There are a few who ban the box, and actively work with offenders, but not with those of his criminal conviction type. Some see his address as the hostel and won't employ him, that place is trouble and full of ruffians.
Adam has no money. No support network. Probation are stretched and although they check in with him once a week, they can't point him in the direction of a job or speed up his housing application.
If Adam's lucky enough to get a job, whilst he's in the hostel, he'll be liable for the full rent and service charges for his cell like room; £800 or so in total per month. If he's working part time, or on a zero hours contract, this will get him into a cycle of debt with his housing provider.
Adam's a single man, of working age. He doesn't qualify as desperately in need on the housing register, his banding is middling at best. He's unlikely to ever get housing support from the local provider, in the form of his own home.
Adam's stuck for the foreseeable, waiting for Godot and something to happen. There are plenty of ways he could be recalled. He could be under the influence, he could start a fight / be in an argument with another problematic resident, he could go into petty theft to get by, he could break his licence conditions.
Anecdote and hypotheticals are not the plural of data, but this one is backed by the governments own statistics. By the time you're in the system this deep, of course, it's too late and many (as you've said) will see prison as a reprieve from the life which awaits them outside.
