You may think one of Her Majesty's Prisons an appropriate
place for me, but I recently made my first prison visit (honest)
when going to Wormwood Scrubs to understand better how IT could
support the new National Offender Management Service
(NOMS).
It was, of course, pretty grim mentally, but relatively well
maintained physically. I was allowed to wander among the inmates
and they were happy to talk.
Virtually every cell is shared, with a high turnover of cellmates.
Over 70% of the inmates have a drug-related problem on entry to the
prison, and consequently there is a very busy medical centre. Rules
are necessarily strict and we visited an eerily silent
privilege-free area for those who break them or who are especially
dangerous.
The Governor and his team were, frankly, remarkable. For example, a
male nurse we met had gone to extraordinary lengths to create an
area of calm for inmates with anger management problems to "chill
out" in before doing themselves or others damage.
So what did I conclude from an IT perspective? First, technology
was of limited security use beyond CCTV, but it was
administratively crucial, given the maximum capacity to which the
prison operates and the high turnover of inmates. But the greatest
benefit will come from "joining up" offender management solutions
which lead to re-integration into the community.
EDS has built an excellent system for offender profiling and
planning. The Offender Assessment System, known as OASys, is being
deployed between the Prison and Probation services.
Fundamentally a risk and needs assessment tool, OASys collects and
analyses information to gauge the likelihood of an offender being
reconvicted and the risk of harm he presents. If an offender's
assessment identifies any risk factors, OASys will proactively
trigger the appropriate action with a practitioner. This technology
will, in turn, reduce reconviction rates, and ultimately risk to
the public.
OASys will support the implementation of the NOMS. This has moved
NOMS to demand more extensive internet access, linkage to other
agencies' systems, such as housing, employment, social services,
and so on.
The prison will need the new NHS systems too, as the prison health
services will be NHS - rather than NOMS - provided in future. Also
the St Mungo's volunteers, who help with resettlement into society
and drug addiction, are only able to get access to prison systems
from within the prison walls, such systems not accessible by
"intermediaries" from outside.
This visit was obviously a life experience for me, but it also
brought home the importance of the work we are doing to define an
IT strategy for government. When we talk about "citizen-centred"
government, we don't just mean convenient and easy to use consumer
services over the web.
We also mean joined-up solutions to deliver citizen-centred social
outcomes which benefit us individually and collectively. NOMS is
one such example in what can only be termed real life.