It's no secret that the re-offending rate in this country remains far too high and that the public find it alarming. What's less publicised is what victims think about all this. Time and again victims tell me that, yes they want those who committed a crime to be punished, but also they want them to be rehabilitated.
You don't need to have suffered from addictive illness (although it undoubtedly helps) to understand that abstinence-based recovery is the only method that really works - in the sense of bringing the individual completely face-to-face with the underlying psychological problems that cause him or her to use drugs and alcohol in the first place. Nor do you need to be an addict (although, once again, in indisputably helps), to know that the current Kafkaesque condition of our prisons is a direct result of addiction treatments that are really nothing of the sort.
The government needs to build on these achievements in privately run prisons by expanding not limiting competition. Market testing prisons would allow the best providers to take over delivery to improve quality and drive down costs. Fixed term contracts would ensure both more meaningful accountability and a more effective focus on outputs across the board.