Blighty

Recommendations and reflections on Britain

Why British prisons are failing

Adam Roberts
Digital editor

Hello from London,

I’ve seen inside a few prisons: a privately run one in South Africa; Tihar, a huge and notorious one in Delhi; then interviewing a death-row inmate in Texas. How a country treats its prisoners, after all, can be revealing. Over half a century ago my grandfather, Robert Roberts, argued so. He was an author who also taught in Strangeways prison, in Manchester. He wrote a book, “Imprisoned Tongues”, in co-operation with several previously illiterate inmates whom he’d been teaching.

He firmly believed that everyone would be better off if prisons did more to educate and rehabilitate those inside. So do I. The trouble is that, as Mian Ridge sets out in a powerful new article we have just published, British prisons are failing. They are overcrowded, underfunded and often decrepit. We lock up more people than any country in western Europe. A chief reason for the problems, as she sets out, is that too many people who commit non-violent crimes get short sentences—of weeks or months—when non-custodial punishment would be far better for all concerned. Their disruptive presence in the prison system does no one any favours.

Let me also recommend our interview with Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who told our defence editor Shashank Joshi why he’s given up on his previous hopes of becoming NATO secretary-general. Meanwhile Vinjeru Mkandawire has compared what executives earn on either side of the Atlantic and asked if the pay differential between America and Britain is hurting London. And Georgia Banjo has looked at public anxieties over kids who vape, showing that the situation is more complicated (and perhaps less scary) than some would have you believe.

Finally, if you like a bucolic day out, then I recommend Emma Irving’s story on a national boom in country shows. It appears that more Britons than ever flock to them for the Morris dancing, cow parades and the like. My suspicion? It’s the cider tents drawing them in.

Thanks for your messages last week. As ever, you can reach us here with your thoughts on this newsletter: [email protected].

Happy reading.

Britain by numbers

How to make a country grow? Britain’s dodgy diets

James Fransham
Data correspondent

We Brits are not known for our height: an average Dutch person towers over us. The inches that we do have, we should hang on to. But according to a study published in the Lancet, in recent years British children, when measured at age five, have become shorter, and are now among the smallest in Europe (see top chart).

What’s behind that? A few factors such as migration (arrivals from countries with shorter people, on average) and measurement error could be at play. But the most likely explanation, highlighted by a new report released today from the Food Foundation, a think-tank, is that many Britons have poor nutrition. That, in turn, goes together with poverty. Last year, when white British boys were measured in their final year of primary school—aged between 10 and 11 years—those living in the most deprived areas were found, on average, to be 1.3cm shorter than boys in the least deprived areas (see bottom chart).

The new report is crammed with gloomy statistics. Overall, the price of food has risen sharply—by 19% year-on-year in May. But the price of good food is dearer still. In the past two years, the most healthy foods increased in price by £1.76 per 1,000 calories compared with £0.76 per 1,000 calories for the least healthy ones. It now costs about twice as much per calorie to eat the most healthy foods rather than the least healthy. That helps to explain why the poorest households consume nearly 40% less fruit and vegetables than the richest fifth.

Cooking a decent meal takes time, education and costs money. No surprise then people are tempted by easier alternatives: 25% of eateries on the country's high streets are fast-food outlets. In the most deprived parts of England, that figure rises to 40%. One-third of advertising spending for food and drink goes towards sweets and snacks, often aimed at children: just 7% of kids' breakfast cereals are low in sugar. A quarter of England's five-year-olds suffer from tooth decay. That rises to more than one third among children living in the most deprived places (the scarcity of NHS dentists may play a role, too).

Meanwhile, children are also getting fatter. Obesity rates among boys in the last year of primary school have risen from 19% in 2007 to 26% last year (and if children are getting shorter, that will raise their body-mass index further). Being overweight as a child leads to health problems later. Around one in 14 adults in England has diabetes and around 10,000 diabetic-related amputations were carried out last year, 20% more than six years ago.

How can policymakers encourage healthier eating? Last month the government toyed with the idea of encouraging supermarkets to introduce voluntary price-caps on basic necessities. Affordability is clearly a problem—food banks are oversubscribed—but persuading people to eat the right types of food is not only about prices. Legislation to restrict promotions of sugary food and drinks in supermarkets was recently delayed for two years. Clearer nutrition labelling for products could help. France and a few other European countries, where obesity is also a problem, provide a simple rating on food packaging which distils all the nutritional information into a score from A to E. If British kids are to catch up with their European counterparts, such ABCs might be a good place to start.