Prisongate by Sir David Ramsbotham is published on October 6 by Simon and Schuster
Buy it here

I have worked with the Prison Service conducting a national satisfaction survey among security staff. My solution to the problems outlined in your book would be to automate the whole paper process for the Prison Service. This would increase space and productivity and reduce bureaucracy. I would like to pursue this with the responsible parties in the Prison Service. How should I proceed? Parimal Patel, Wembley

I agree with you. I have always thought that the most sensible procedure for the Prison Service to adopt would be to number all items of information that a prison is required to hold and exchange, ensuring that any entry made automatically updates what is there already. Then, at say 0001 hours, this would automatically be transmitted to a data centre or exchange, handled as required, and thus available to anyone who wanted to use it as they arrived at their desks. I thought that this was what they intended to do in their programme called QUANTUM, but it does not yet seem to have happened.

I think that you might write to the Director General of the Prison Service, telling him of your solution and offering to demonstrate it to the people responsible for automating procedures.

Congratulations on continuing to highlight the state of our prisons. Do you have any opinion on the way in which prisons treat gay men and women in prison? Do you think it's unacceptable that gay prisoners face routine victimisation and discrimination, in areas from health to visits, home leave, entitlement to early release, and access to literature? Name and address withheld

I mention in my book that I wanted to do a thematic review of how the Prison Service treated minorities in the prison population, which I was going to call "Inequalities". The five areas for examination were racism - or cultural diversity - gender - or sexuality - mental disorder, disability and old age. The Prison Service is conscious of how gay men and women are treated in prison, how they are victimised and the areas of discrimination that you list. However, other than enabling prisoners to apply to be separated from others, they have no other way of providing protection. It must be wrong for any prisoner to be denied the facilities you mention, and special arrangements must be made to enable all to have access to them. If the prevention of re-offending was made the benchmark of how successful - or otherwise - prisons were at achieving this, they would have to provide the missing facilities for all. Hence my book.

How can we improve prisoners’ literacy skills when research has shown that TV in cells means fewer prisoners visiting the library? Christopher Lamb, Durham

I am interested to hear of this research. One of the fears about the introduction of TV was that it would encourage staff to do less with and for prisoners, on the ground that they had something to watch. I believe that every prison should be judged on how many prisoners could not read when they came in, and how many could not read when they left that prison. I would like to see every prison using the programme "Toe by Toe", currently in many of them, in which prisoners teach other prisoners to read. The programme takes six months, with 30 minutes' contact between teacher and student each day. The book remains in the possession of the student so that hours locked up can be used for revision.

Today we read that that prison lunches cost 60p, as opposed to school dinners costing 31p. How realistic is it, given that prisoners already get more money for food than schoolchildren, to expect any more funding for extra vitamins, or whatever will make a real difference to prisoners’ behaviour? Matt Evans, Port Talbot

I am interested in these figures because I understand that they only refer to the dietary content. Prison food costs on average £1.37 per day, so I presume that the 60p mentioned is the mid-day meal. The reason for advocating the use of the right mix of minerals, vitamins and fatty acids is that behaviour improves, as has been proved over years. Prison costs almost £3 billion per year. If some of this was spent on reducing bad behaviour, which costs both time and money and removes the offender from access to programmes designed to prevent him or her from re-offending, it would save money. I would like to see the same mix adopted in school meals as well, which would undoubtedly have an effect on schoolchildren's well-being, now and in the future, and their behaviour.

I read Jeffrey Archer’s book on his prison term in which he portrays the British prison system as something archaic, antiquated and prehistoric. He felt as if he was living in the rule of some pasha in 17th century. Do you feel his opinion holds some water? Dinyar Jalnawalla, Pune, India

It is certainly archaic, antiquated and prehistoric. Neither he or I lived under a 17th century pasha, so I am not qualified to compare the two. I would like to think that it was under the rule of a 21st century pasha, who understood that everyone involved was a fellow human being, and treated them accordingly.