Are we really supposed to believe David Cameron cares about reforming prisons?

David Cameron has outlined his plans for prison reform today. But does he genuinely care about prisons or is he only concerned with shaping his own legacy? The Prime Minister labelled the number of prisoners reoffending as ‘scandalous’. He also pledged to protect the £130m prison education budget. His motives may seem worthy but it’s arguable he is merely paying lip service to an issue which has been bubbling along under his watch for years.

That much appeared to be the view of the Prison Reform Trust’s Juliet Lyon. Speaking on Today, Lyon criticised the PM for turning late to the issue.

She said:
‘It is certainly true (that things have become a scandal). Certainly things have got particularly worse over the last two or three years. And that’s because staff have been cut by a third, the budget has been slashed.’

Juliet Lyon was then asked what she made of the reforms. She said:

‘If it is genuinely part of a social legacy programme then it is welcome.’

But just how genuine the reform package is remains the big sticking point. The PM’s main problem is that his speech risks looking like a knee-jerk reaction to an issue that he has paid little attention to before. There is also a danger for Cameron that critical comparison will be drawn between these efforts to shake up prisons and his criticism of Oxford University for not accepting more black students. In an article two weeks ago, the PM slammed top universities for not doing more to encourage a greater diversity of students. He suggested that young black people were more likely to end up in prisons than go onto higher education.

For the PM to trumpet both issues seems rash, not because they aren’t worthy ones. There is little doubt that more needs to be done to help encourage more black students to go to top universities. It is also fruitless – as shown by the soaring rates of reoffending – to leave prisoners languishing in overcrowded conditions amidst soaring rates of violence. But as with his criticism of Oxford, which seemed to spring out of nowhere, so, too, his labelling of the state of prisons as ‘scandalous’ looks like a nod to legacy rather than a view based on genuine desire to reform. The Prison Officers’ Association warned in 2012 that jails were in a state of ‘crisis’. Four years on, without another election to fight, the PM says he keen to do something about it. But is it too late to take him seriously?