For some unknown reason, we want to ignore the facts when it comes to prisoners and reoffending.

The statistics are truly appalling.  For those serving sentences of less than 12 months, 58% reoffend within a year of leaving prison.  That figure rises to 68% for those with a number of previous custodial sentences and stands at 71% for children released from custody!

It is difficult to draw any conclusion but that prisons or youth offender institutions ‘train' offenders to continue with crime.

When prisoners are asked what might stop them reoffending, two thirds responded, "having a job".

Yet we are reluctant to invest in training and work activity in our prisons to provide offenders with the skills and work discipline that will help them to order their lives and turn away from offending.

Somehow in Britain too many see investment in education and training as "cosseting" prisoners, or work in prisons as somehow infringing prisoners "rights" …. shades of chain gangs in the USA or slave labour in the Gulags – or sewing mailbags in ‘Porridge' !

That is why the Coalition Government's approach is refreshing and why Chris Grayling's reforms of both the Prison Service and the Probation Service are so critically important.

Our young people in custody need to be offered the opportunity of ordering their lives around high quality, relevant vocational education, with a rehabilitation service on release that is expert in finding them suitable employment with ongoing training, and which helps them to hold down those jobs.

For adults, all our prisons should be working prisons, where offenders can train for and undertake useful trades.

And for those who think all this would be too costly, think for a moment about the £9bn spend of the Ministry of Justice which, sadly, leads to two thirds of those going through the system – reoffending.