Prison is the only justifiable punishment for certain crimes. Serious, violent criminals must be kept behind bars and off our streets so that the public is protected and justice is delivered. That isn’t controversial. But as Britain searches for answers to the riots which left our major cities reeling, our criminal justice system is under renewed scrutiny. How should those who terrorised neighbourhoods, smashed shop windows and looted local businesses be punished? We now know that many of those behind the violence had previous criminal convictions. This shouldn’t surprise us. The majority of offenders who have served a short prison sentence go on to reoffend within a year. But it does put a spotlight on our criminal justice system which sees the same persistent offenders rotating through the revolving door dividing prison and the community.
Much comment has been focused on whether or not custodial sentences have been too harsh. But little has been said about how we ensure that society acts to punish those involved while also ensuring that they don’t commit those crimes again. Will a spell in prison make sure these criminals accept responsibility for what they did? While they sit in their cells, will they switch on the television or will they think about their victims and the harm they caused? Perhaps, for persistent offenders, a few months in prison, taking offenders out of the community instead of forcing them to face up to their victims, is the real soft option.Yet anyone who suggests prison doesn’t work is savaged in the media. And politicians are all too aware of how damaging the ‘soft on crime’ label can be.
So Make Justice Work, which I founded in 2010, commissioned a national enquiry to examine alternatives to custody and consider whether or not they can really punish offenders and reduce the likelihood of them reoffending. This enquiry brought together national criminal justice experts and was led by Javed Khan, chief executive of Victim Support, John Thornhill, chair of the Magistrates Association; Lord Blair, former commissioner of the Metropolitan police; Dame Anne Owers, former chief inspector of prisons; and Paul McDowell, chief executive of Nacro and former governor of Brixton prison. It was chaired by the commentator Peter Oborne. These people are certainly not ‘soft’ and they all understand the deep and devastating impact that crime has on its victims. But they have seen the same offenders drifting in and out of prison, doing nothing productive while behind bars and then targeting new victims when they’re released back into the community. They were keen to look at alternatives to custody and consider whether they can deliver justice in such a way to command public confidence and remain effective.
Over the last 12 months, the enquiry gathered first-hand evidence from victims, offenders, magistrates, police, probation officers, and private and voluntary sector providers delivering community sentences across the country. And the panel were left astonished and impressed by the rigour and impact of what we saw. It was clear to all of us who visited the intensive community sentence programmes that they delivered tough punishment alongside effective reductions in reoffending. Indeed, we were startled to hear from many offenders that they viewed community sentences as tougher than a short spell in prison which served as little more than a break from their chaotic lifestyles. And with the constraints on the public purse helping to focus minds, the evidence suggesting that intensive community sentences are able to cut crime at a fraction of the cost of prison is particularly powerful.
Intensive community sentences do present us with a tough and effective alternative to short stints in custody.There will always be those who refuse to cooperate with community punishments and given that neighbourhoods need respite, prison will be the only option. But for many low-level, persistent offenders, it is a community sentence that is more likely to force a change in their behaviour and ensure they confront the impact that their actions have had on their victims.
While the enquiry’s panel set off with an open mind, it was mindful that the prison estate is under great strain. In the wake of the riots, it now bulges at the seams. At a minimum of £40,000 per year per prisoner, these costs are eye-watering. The Government’s own estimates suggest that the endless cycle of reoffending by low-level criminals who have served short prison sentences costs the economy at least £7bn annually. For this group of persistent offenders, it is self-evident that another short spell in prison holds no deterrence. Nor does it offer much protection from reoffending – apart from the short time the offender actually spends in custody.
Given the dire state of our public finances, we are now in an unprecedented situation. Our politicians are engaging in a battle over the wisdom of paring back the prison estate to reduce costs. Ken Clarke, the justice secretary, has argued that increasing the use of community sentences for low-level, persistent offenders will cut costs and, because they are more effective, cut crime. He has shown considerable bravery in taking on a largely hostile media. The evidence collected through our national enquiry provides him with the further ammunition he needs to make his rehabilitation revolution – punishing offenders, but also changing their behaviour – a reality. And we’re not calling for extra money. Instead, money already within the system needs to be spent more effectively.
By adopting the specific recommendations proposed in the final report, Mr Clarke can demonstrate that his talk of a rehabilitation revolution is far more than mere political rhetoric. He now has an opportunity to be a great reformer, getting a grip on reoffending and putting an end to the scandal which sees so much public money being wasted on ineffective and counterproductive punishments.
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Roma Hooper is director of Make Justice Work. Watch the Make Justice Work video here
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While any exercise engaged to explore a variety of sentencing options is commendable your ‘Make Justice Work’ group (including some dubious characters on your panel list) too often confuse punishment with rehabilitation, custodial sentencing with failure – particularly financially.
Too many people expect the prison system to assume roles it could never attain – and should never attempt. How many closed prison governors, in their annual reports, claim that as a result of the educational, vocational and role-playing initiatives they have introduced have produced criminal/non-crimnal conversions of the majority of inmates discharged from their prisons that year? I suspect the % is pretty low and for the most part not a direct consequence of these rehabilitation exercises. The constantly high rate of prisoner recidivism common here for generations suggests that all these initiatives are having little or no effect on people leaving our prisons.
What could and should be done? Firstly, I would approach every aspect of sentencing options with objectivity and reality so, for example, I condemn the magistrates and judges who handed down OTT sentences to many of the looters in August’s ‘riots’. Issuing draconian punishments “as an example to others” is not objective justice: it only reinforced some people’s views that much of our judiciary is populated by fully payed up members of the irrational ‘hang-em and flog-em’ brigade. Let the punishment ALWAYS fit the crime. Also, there is a popular perception that magistrates/judges, like football referees, are too inconsistent in their punishments, as if they were a law unto themselves.
Secondly, I would be far more honest and realistic about punishment/rehabilitation regimes. I would see prison ONLY as a means of removing the criminal from mainstream society, punishing him/her by depriving them of their freedom and as protection for the public. In other words, prison should only be seen as a penal institution. It should have no interest in reforming or rehabilitating offenders – that should be the concern of other agencies. Using welfare agencies at an early stage would, if used professionally, help to guide many children away from an otherwise predictable path to criminality. For adolescents who are well known to the police for their antisocial and petty criminal behaviour could be forced to attend a school that has been specifically adapted to educate the uneducated with rewards and punishments aimed at developing mental strength and discipline, emotional maturity and social responsibility. Adult criminals who have not experienced the previous remedial measures could be ordered to attend educational courses with the same objectives as above coupled with non-specific skills training and courses in morality. Those criminals whose offences merit a prison sentence (which should be fixed with no possibility of reduction) should, on release, be further required to complete suitable workshops, courses that are aimed at preparing them for acceptable re-entry into society. During this period of enforced rehabilitation (perhaps one year) the probationary (ex-)offender would receive a living wage from the State. At the successful end of this probationary period the criminal record of the ex-offender would be expunged as far as society is concerned, allowing him/her to re-enter society with a clean sheet.
Oh! I hear you cry: “the cost, the cost!” and, to be sure, the initial investments needed to reform the system would be daunting – but it would be cost effective in the short term and financially beneficial in the long term.
Those who believe the prison system is failing because it doesn’t reduce (or eliminate) the rate of recidivism are fundamentally wrong in their thinking. When the local drunk keeps turning up at the A&E Dept every weekend you do not blame the hospital for failing to change him into a tea-totaller. Just like hospitals, prisons are not equipped, nor should they, to transform the behaviour of the people they admit.