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Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced Conservative minister, found God and a new wife when he came out of prison. Lord Archer appears to have acquired a sense of empathy (while forfeiting his title) with those he once considered lesser mortals..

In a speech to a Howard League for Penal Reform conference last week, he gave his thoughts on penal reform. It had its authoritarian moments but much of what he advocates makes sense.

For instance, first-time offenders - often incarcerated for traffic offences - should not be banged up with professional criminals. They should be categorised earlier. He also suggests that a distinction be made in prison punishment between those caught smoking marijuana and those found injecting heroin.


A third idea is that an intensive 12-week reading and writing course should be provided for the many who are illiterate - and here is the hard edge - culminating in a compulsory test. "The prisoner would have to pass [the test] before they could be considered for any other job, or, even more draconian, early release," he says. He also makes the case for prisoners who make use of full-time educational opportunities being paid the same weekly wage - £12 - as those who do prison jobs instead of the current £4 to £5 a week.

But why not give them more, as a further incentive to learn? Indeed, the fact that they are financially penalised in the first place, raises the notion that a range of institutions, not just prisons, might benefit from an annual common sense audit on the way the organisation is run.

Prisoners who emerge from jail with qualifications obviously improve their chances of finding a better paid job - so why on earth are they docked half a week's wage because they want to learn?


To give another example of what a common sense check might unearth. We live in a 24-hour economy in which shifts and unsocial hours are now deemed part of the "normal" working week. Yet, parole terms often stipulate that an ex-prisoner is not allowed to leave his place of residence before 7am or after 7pm. As a result, a whole raft of jobs are out of reach.

Rules and regulations have a way of becoming embedded in the system, unchanged although society has rapidly moved on. Archer, to his credit, has pointed that out - but there's something rotten in the body politic when the only voices it appears to heed on prison reform are those of celebrity ex-cons.