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charityprison.org - Charities have no place running prisons 1

Fundraising | Suzie Who | 10 Feb 2010

Back from several years out of circulation and it looks like the sector has gone crazy in my absence. Charities running prisons? Thank god that the Charity Commission is stepping in as this is utter madness.

I have had the dubious privilege of visiting a few prisons in some of the less developed parts of the world. OMG.

Carefree as I normally am, even I found it impossible to sleep after visiting a women's prison in the Caribbean and seeing 14 women - aged from 13 (yes, 13) to 60 housed in a cell that would comfortably have housed 4. When I arrived the women were crowding the corridor, not to greet me but because the temperatures were so high that day that, had they remained in their cells they were likely to have died from heat exhaustion. It was not as if the infirmery could cope with anyone who got sick. When I visited an 8 month pregnant women was lying on the concrete floor under one of the two beds (both of which were occupied) to try and reduce her blood pressure. I won't even mention the toilet block.
 
Anyway, I digress but my point is that this was a prison where a charity was involved.

They recognised that there was little that they could do to reduce overcrowding but were working with the women to educate them about their rights and to try and get them access to their children and some legal support.

Raising funds for this essential work is already hard enough, particuarly in the UK where many dorothy donors already feel that those who have been imprisoned for their crimes should be costing the tax-payer less than they are.

It is clear that the essential support charities provide to prisoners will not be included in the standard government contracts for which they will have to compete against profit making companies. This being the case, confusing donors further about what exactly the role that charities play is can not be helpful to anyone. Let's hope the Charity Commission help sort this mess out.

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