Captive audience

Millionaire novelist and disgraced politician Jeffrey Archer has written about his harrowing prison experience. Now he has set out a three-point plan to reform the penal system, reports Jason Hadden

The annals of English history include a number of great prison reformers, such as Elizabeth Fry, John Howard and Jeremy Bentham.


Another public figure now seeks to have his say on conditions in our prisons. Step forward Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare – known to the masses as the author and jailed politician, Jeffrey Archer.


Lord Archer’s plush penthouse suite has a panoramic view of central London and of the Thames, a far cry from his days in Belmarsh prison, south-east London, where his opulence consisted of little more than a ‘cell [which] measured five paces by three… [with] a single bed with a rock-hard mattress… a steel wash-basin and open lavatory that had no lid and no flush’.


In 2001, the millionaire novelist was jailed for four years after being found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice. Lord Archer faced the dishonesty charges arising from his successful 1987 libel action, in which he won £500,000 damages from the Daily Star over allegations that he slept with a prostitute. He was accused of asking his former friend Ted Francis to provide him with a false alibi for a night relating to the libel case, and of producing fake diary entries to back up his story.


Lord Archer spent the first 22 days of his sentence in Belmarsh, the double A category high-security prison which houses some of Britain’s most violent criminals. From there, he was moved to HMP Wayland, a category C establishment in Norfolk, where he remained for 67 days. He was then transferred to North Sea Camp open prison. Following stays at Lincoln prison and Hollesley Bay prison in Suffolk, he was released on parole in July 2003 after two years’ incarceration.


The experience left Lord Archer, a former Conservative MP, with firm views on the desperate need for reform of our prison system. ‘I believe that there are three changes that the home secretary could put in place at little extra cost that would be of great benefit to the public,’ he asserts.


‘Firstly, payment to inmates for all jobs throughout the Prison Service should be universal and standardised, including payment to those who opt to do education,’ he says. Some 60% of people going into prison are illiterate, he adds. ‘If you go into prison, then you are offered a job after three weeks, when they have decided whether you are sensible and stable. If you get a job, you get £12.50 a week. If you [choose] education, you get £8 a week and in some prisons £6.50. This is lunacy.’


He presses home the point: ‘First offenders coming into prison who cannot read and write should be paid the full amount per week to go into education, and we should send them out of prison able to read and write. They will never go into education while they can get £12.50 peeling spuds and £6.50 going to education… if the home secretary cannot see that, then he is nuts.’


Lord Archer leans forward and pushes ahead with his next proposal. ‘The second one is that during a trial, defendants should be categorised A, B, C or D. This would allow first offenders with no history of drugs or violence to be sent directly to an open prison, where they would be less likely to come into contact with professional criminals, violent thugs and drug addicts.’


Warming to the topic, he explains: ‘Let us say you are 23 and not very bright, [although] you can just read and write. But you are not violent; you have done shoplifting or something. You go to Belmarsh for three weeks while they decide where to send you. I think that you should be categorised during the trial, so that immediately you go out, you go straight to an open prison. So you do not mix with murderers, drug dealers or [people convicted of] violent behaviour. So you do not join the school of crime. You have a chance if you are in open prison.’


It is clear that Belmarsh left a lasting impression on Lord Archer. In his controversial book, A Prison Diary, he referred to Belmarsh as ‘Hell’ – a place where on his first night he contemplated suicide.


Police have criticised his idea on the basis that such an early categorisation might send the wrong message, and could be hinting at the defendant’s guilt. Lord Archer’s riposte? ‘Balls, absolutely rubbish. Categorise them, every single person that goes in, automatically. Stop them going to Belmarsh. Stop them going to these evil places so that when they get out, they have a chance.


‘At 63 [years old], I can handle being on a wing with 21 murderers, but there was a kid of 19 who was on the floor below, who was in for shoplifting.’ Lord Archer becomes so impassioned that he almost shakes. ‘This same young man will be spending at least a fortnight with murderers, rapists, burglars and drug addicts… are these the best tutors he can learn from?’


Lord Archer continues with his third key measure: ‘The punishment for smoking marijuana in prison should not be the same as for those prisoners who take heroin. This would stop a number of social marijuana smokers turning to heroin.’ The reason that prisoners appear to turn from marijuana to heroin, he says, is that marijuana remains in the bloodstream for 28 days, while heroin can be flushed out in 24 hours by drinking pints of water.


‘There is a small percentage of people – and I have no desire to exaggerate – who have turned from marijuana to crack-cocaine and heroin because they do not want their sentence added to, or do not want punishments because they can wash it out of their system in 24 hours. That is nuts and should be dealt with. Plain bonkers and the home secretary should realise this.’


Lord Archer admits that his idea could cause difficulties for a government that does not want to be seen to condone the use of drugs in prisons. ‘Yes it could, but for all people to go on heroin and crack-cocaine is the other end of that, and that is not an answer.’


He adds: ‘I am not suggesting that any of the three [proposals] are easy. I am suggesting that they should be dealt with.’


There are, however, topics that Lord Archer prefers not to deal with. While he is happy to talk at length on the subject of prison reform, the Conservative party and cricket, he deflects questions on other topics – such as his own trial, being labelled a liar, how he is perceived by the public, whether he feels contrition for his actions – with a resolute ‘no comment’. He says: ‘Not interested. Not interested. I am a writer and that is my life.’


But Lord Archer is much more than just a writer. Perhaps it will be on the subject of penal reforms that he will find a degree of redemption for such a roller coaster of a life. ‘If these three recommendations were to be taken up, I would feel that my two years in prison were not entirely without purpose.’ He says. Maybe Lord Archer is reinventing himself after all.