Pressures that led to New Year riot

When I was in charge of Ford open prison in the mid-90s, the weaknesses which have now led to a riot were already evident (Report, 3 January). Open prisons have a respectable role in the process of returning to freedom prisoners who have served a considerable time and they perform this role with consistent success. However, they are also used to accommodate short-term prisoners, provided they have not (yet) shown a propensity for violence, sexual offences or escaping. Given chronic prison overcrowding, it is easy to understand the temptation to send to open conditions short-term prisoners whose suitability is doubtful.

The answer is to deal first with overcrowding so open prisons can be reserved for those (broadly, selected lifers and other long-sentence prisoners approaching release), from whom good behaviour can be expected, and for whom a period in open conditions is beneficial. This could have been done after the 1990 Strangeways riot, when there was a sharp fall in the prison population, but "tough" talking came back into fashion with Kenneth Clarke then Michael Howard as home secretary, and the chance was lost.

You can't solve overcrowding by building prisons. Nor at present can you afford to build and operate them. The answer is to reduce the length of sentences, and in 1995 I described in the Prison Service Journal how this might be done. Unfortunately, even since his recent trip down the road to Damascus, Kenneth Clarke shows no sign of grasping this.

David Godfrey

Paignton, Devon

• Prisons minister Crispin Blunt calls for the Ford rioters to be brought to justice and promises police and prison service inquiries. Both are clearly necessary and yet one simple fact remains that does not require inquiry or investigation: 496 prisoners were left under the charge of two prison officers and four support staff. As a former probation officer who often visited Ford, I believe this riot and its cost to the taxpayer could and should have been avoided. The aim of the prison and probation service is to "keep the public safe by ensuring that ... offenders each year safely and securely undertake the punishment of the courts". This did not happen at Ford and the prisons minister and director of offender management for the south-east region should resign.

Duncan Heining

Ingrave, Essex

• Ford open prison is under-staffed over the Christmas period. So what do they do? They launch a booze crackdown on New Year's Eve and are surprised when it all kicks off. Warehousing prisoners securely with scant rehabilitation effort is fairly cheap. Reforming criminals into constructive citizens demands a lot of effort. Done on the cheap, with target-driven management, it causes the kind of backlash seen at Ford.

Mary Pimm & Nik Wood


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