I think if the prisons are grossly overcrowded, as they are, and many of the people there shouldn't be there in the first place, it makes rehabilitation much more difficult. There are much better ways of dealing with these unfortunate people, in many respects, with mental health issues, substance misuse problems—probably they may well be illiterate or innumerate or have very poor skills. There are much better ways of dealing with them outside prison than locking them up and incarcerating them. And of course, the impact on families and prisoners themselves of going to prison is obviously very grave indeed, but the impact on communities is very negative because actually reoffending rates are much higher because of the difficulties of rehabilitation because people shouldn't be there in the first place. It actually makes for more victims of crime than would be the case if we had alternative sentencing in the community.

Many reports, a number of reports, have made these issues. The evidence is stacked up. You know, the distance between prisons and home communities is negative in terms of reoffending and rehabilitation. Welsh women going to prison in England has a negative impact on their families and their children. We need community solutions and diversion schemes if we're going to prevent crimes in the future. We need smaller community units. We must meet the complex needs that prisoners have: literacy, numeracy, skills, mental health, substance misuse. That isn't happening at the moment and people with those problems really shouldn't be in prison in the first place unless it's absolutely necessary.

In terms of life after prison, Dirprwy Lywydd, we know that in terms of healthcare, social care and indeed housing, provision isn't what it should be and that then feeds into further reoffending. If we take homelessness, for example, the removal of automatic priority need under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 that we passed here has in fact made homelessness and rough-sleeping more of a problem for prison leavers. We do have a pathway in place, but unfortunately it's not being implemented and it's not working as well as it needs to. So, we've actually moved backwards and we need to move forwards as far as homelessness and rough-sleeping and prison leavers are concerned. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, I think there's a strong consensus in this Chamber that we could do much, much better in England and Wales in terms of our criminal justice policy. If we had devolution of the criminal justice systems, we would do much, much better. We've heard a lot of evidence here today. Lots of reports point in the direction that Members here would like to move in if we are to reduce reoffending, have fewer victims of crime and fewer of our people incarcerated with the terrible impacts on them and their families. So, I am confident that we will have a much more progressive system here in Wales, a much more productive system, if we have that devolution, and I very much believe that we need to move towards it.