Twickenham MP Goes to Prison

11.25.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 5th Mar 2007

Vincent Cable MP visited London's Young Offenders Institute today, in Feltham, to meet staff and prisoners. Several years ago Vincent Cable played a key role in exposing the overcrowding, lack of education facilities and incidence of attempted suicide at the prison through debates and questions in Parliament. He is now revisiting Feltham to look at the improvements which have taken place. He said: "When I first visited Feltham almost a decade ago it was little more than a university of crime. Seriously disturbed and violent young men were locked up in overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day with others who were mentally ill or unconvicted remand prisoners or petty offenders. Suicide and bullying was rife. A large percentage of the young men were functionally illiterate and had little prospect of going straight once they left prison.

"Today, there are still some serious problems but the 16 to 18 year olds have better facilities and less overcrowding; there is a functioning mental health system; and there is at least some education going on to help equip the prisoners for left after prison. But it still remains the case that a majority will re-offend and there is still the same mixture of dangerous and violent young criminals who ought to be locked up and large numbers who should never be in prison and should be dealt with in other ways."