Time to make alternatives to prison a real choice for courts
Charles Clarke
—The reduction of crime ought to be a central goal of any democratic government. As a wide range of statistics demonstrates, it was a goal at which Labour in office was pretty successful.
The reason for our success was a combination of approaches, including a commitment to neighbourhood policing, partnership working with other public and community organisations, a focus on using intelligence techniques to identify the key sources of crime, and targeted strategies to reduce particular categories of crime.
Penal policy, too, ought to be focused on reducing levels of crime. Part of that is achieved by keeping dangerous or prolific criminals, likely to reoffend, behind bars. But a much more significant contribution to reducing crime levels comes from the oft-derided rehabilitation of offenders so that when they are released they are less likely to commit crimes. It is a shocking fact that over half of crime is committed by people who have already been through the criminal justice system.
Labour made far less progress in this regard than it ought to have. My own lecture in 2005 as home secretary to the Prison Reform Trust was an attempt to set out the policy direction which needs to be followed to make progress in this area. Despite a return to similar themes in Breaking the Cycle by the coalition’s first minister for justice, Ken Clarke, his approach was soon abandoned and he was replaced.
The reduction of crime through rehabilitation of offenders has merit on its own terms but is also cheaper and saves the state money in comparison with the very expensive prison system. Of course, the savings which a reduction of crime brings to society as a whole are immense.
There are four main components of such a strategy. First, a personal intervention strategy is needed for each offender. This is most important in health and education. Drug and alcohol abuse and mental health remain massive issues for many criminals, which in turn stimulate further criminality. Illiteracy and innumeracy are long-term weaknesses which debilitate in themselves. After prison these often make it difficult to find employment and become a full member of society.
An important part of this approach to personal intervention is to encourage strong and continuing relationships between the offender and their family and friends, which current prison strategy often makes difficult. It is particularly important to manage the transition from prison after release in a way which discourages a return to the custom of criminality.
Second, a partnership approach is the best means of making progress in these areas. Working together with local health and education organisations is better than remaining within the prison service silo. That also applies to housing and employment. There have been effective pilots with major employers and voluntary organisations which ease the routes from prison to long-term stability.
Third, it is necessary to develop a wider range of effective punishments. Prison is currently the default, seen as the ‘gold standard’, from which any deviation becomes subject to public criticism. However, three other forms of punishment seem to me very much worth strengthening for particular categories of crime.
‘Community payback’ sentences are in fact a lot tougher than the prison experience, involving, as they do, hard work which has the additional benefit of elements of reparation, restorative justice and benefiting the community. Wider use of home detention and electronic tagging is both far more economic than prison and is more appropriate, for example, for those in prison on remand, and possible for those guilty of other offences not involving crimes of violence. And for some offences properly enforced fines or confiscation of property (for example, cars for motor offences) might be better than prison.
It is often the case that the courts do not feel that they can really use such non-custodial sentences, since the options do not seem practical. A far more flexible probation system and better partnership with other organisations is necessary to make alternatives to prison a real choice for courts.
Finally it is necessary to reform and modernise the prison estate. We should be locating remand prisoners and those on sentences of less than four years (about 48 per cent of all sentenced prisoners) in a local community or remand prison. There is also a strong case for following the example in the United States and developing specific prisons for those with drug and alcohol abuse problems and mental health issues. More local prisons offer significantly better value than the maximum-security Titan-style model.
It has never been easy to promote a penal reform agenda. Popular fears are genuine, even when stoked up by some sections of the media, and the sense of necessary retribution for crime remains a powerful emotion across society. But it also remains true that what people most want is secure communities and low levels of crime. That means that governments should continue to put crime reduction top of their agenda, with rehabilitation of criminals a central part of that process. That is the way to keep reducing the levels of crime in our communities and the policy should be presented with energy and conviction.
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Charles Clarke is a former home secretary. He will be speaking at Justice: Cuts We Can Believe In alongside Jenny Chapman MP, Ian Birrell and Frances Crook on Tuesday 24 September at 5.45pm at King’s Terrace, Grand Hotel, Brighton. Sign up here
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