The legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill is due its second reading this week. Much of the concern that’s been expressed about the bill focuses – rightly – on the government’s shocking plans to slash legal aid. But following Ken Clarke’s U-turn last week on plans to reduce sentences by 50 per cent for early guilty pleas, we must also be concerned at the clauses in relation to what the bill’s title now highlights as another of its principal purposes: the ‘punishment of offenders’. 

Clarke set out his stall last year: to reduce the prison population. Whatever his motives (and cost-cutting was certainly one of them), there was much to welcome in his early thinking. I’m all in favour of cutting the prison population where there are effective alternatives to custody, and I am very keen indeed on placing the emphasis on strong community penalties. I also support the totally sensible proposals in the bill to restrict the remand of defendants to custody when there’s no prospect that they could receive a custodial sentence if they’re eventually convicted. 

But Clarke’s plan to reduce sentences by 50 per cent was ill-thought-out: I haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever to show what the effect of such a measure would be on reoffending or protection of the public. The loss of credibility he’s suffered in consequence of the U-turn has led to a hardening of the rhetoric, and doubtless of intentions, right across government. The highly regrettable result of Clarke’s sloppiness is that the savings intended from introducing a 50 per cent discount will now have to be found elsewhere in the justice system. 

I’m particularly worried that community penalties, and probation services, will suffer. My own probation service is already facing a swingeing 24 per cent cut over the next three years (I really have no idea where the myth has sprung from that probation’s so far been protected by the government). Finding further cuts on top of that will greatly limit the service’s ability to develop and deliver effective community penalties. 

This is a real missed opportunity, for everyone knows that strong community penalties have a greater success rate in terms of reducing reconviction rates than do short custodial sentences. They’re far more cost-effective too. But if there isn’t the money to deliver them effectively, we’ll inevitably see reoffending rising, with repeat offenders then returning in ever-greater numbers to prison. That creates a vicious circle that in turn will lead to ever-higher costs – and it’s all a problem of the government’s own making. 

Of course the real agenda, if not from Clarke, then from Cameron, is nothing to do with effectiveness. It’s all about looking and sounding Tory-tough on crime. But simply putting ‘punishment of offenders’ in the title of the bill won’t deliver increased public protection, or serve to reduce reoffending – two of the principal objectives of sentencing policy that appear now to take a very back seat. In the long run, and for the majority of defendants, investing in rehabilitation to prevent future offending behaviour is a highly effective form of public protection, but the resources to do this properly now look to be very thin indeed. 

So there will be a further collapse in public confidence, making it all the harder for ministers to backtrack. In such circumstances, there’s an opportunity for Labour to seize the high ground, but we’ll need to box very clever indeed. 

Too often lately our contribution to the debate’s been strident rather than rational or principled, yet we need to look ahead. We do know what’s effective in sentencing policy, and we must stick with the evidence, and resist the dive to populism that the government’s fallen for. But we must also be absolutely clear that non-custodial penalties will be anything but a soft option under Labour – that we will ensure they are meaningful, challenging, and designed explicitly both to pay back to the community and to reduce future reoffending. 

Now is the time for Labour to adopt a slow-burn approach to detailing the effective, evidence-based policies we’d adopt, and a compelling and credible narrative. Our attack on police cuts, our outspoken challenges to the government’s shockingly casual attitudes to rape, and our strong track record on reducing crime when in government, give us a base from which to build.  It is vital that we take the greatest care to avoid kneejerk over-reaction now. As Clarke himself said, talking tough is easy, but it will come back to bite us in the end.    

Photo