大象传媒

Good morning.

Every December I remember my first Christmas as a history teacher, many years ago. Time spent supervising the kids as they made pomanders, sticking cloves into oranges (and each other), an historically tenuous aid to learning with vague references to the Victorians.

There was a boy I remember more than any other. Teachers all know this boy, because there鈥檚 at least one of him in every class. A boy with a face like a cherub and a cheeky mouth. A boy who always answered back. A boy who never missed a day of school because he had nowhere else to be. School was the only place where he was ever noticed. I can still recall him telling me, with a shrug, that he didn鈥檛 know where he鈥檇 be spending Christmas because both his parents were in prison and his uncle didn鈥檛 want him. A boy who drove me mad, and also broke my heart.

鈥淎re there no prisons?鈥� Charles Dickens鈥檚 protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, famously asked in response to a request from charity fundraisers about what to do to help the poor. Today, we鈥檙e still asking the same question, and the answer is: not enough. The government has announced plans to open 14,000 more prison places by 2031, but despite this, they could still be full within the next few years. Our prisons are overcrowded and as justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has said, people are coming out of prison 鈥渂etter criminals than they were when they went in.鈥� Scrooge is the perfect embodiment for the opinion that prison is the only solution. That he equates poverty with prison is also telling. 鈥淎re there no prisons?" is a simplistic, unfeeling response to a wider social issue.

Having faith in a God who values human beings equally, even those who鈥檝e done terrible things, whilst also believing deeply in justice, is something which personally challenges me daily. In a system under huge stress, maybe there are better ways for this to be worked out.

Perhaps places like the Oasis Restore Academy, Britain鈥檚 first secure school for young offenders, which emphasises education and therapy rather than punishment and retribution. A place which seeks to ask, 鈥淲hat has happened to you?鈥� rather than just 鈥淲hat have you done wrong?鈥� This question matters.
A boy once said to me, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have an orange Miss, so I nicked a tsunami from the cafeteria.鈥� He grinned at me from the back of the class and held up a satsuma, and we all laughed. He was a boy who was eventually permanently excluded from school and ended up in a young offender鈥檚 institution and then prison. Are there no prisons? Scrooge asks. When I hear that, I think about a boy.

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