When Ken Clarke announced that the coalition government was going to look at ways of reducing the prison population, his speech was greeted by some as a watershed moment, welcomed with a huge sigh of relief. Meanwhile there was much huff and puff within the Conservative party and the press about an apparent departure from Michael Howard’s ‘prison works’ approach.
The reality is that in many ways the coalition approach echoes many of Jack Straw’s speeches from his period as justice secretary from 2007 to 2010. Prison is the right place for the most serious and dangerous offenders, but there are better, more cost-effective and productive alternatives for lower level offenders. That was his mantra. It led my having endless conversations with Daily Mail and Sun reporters in which it was suggested that Labour had gone soft on ‘lags’ (a point also made by Tory frontbenchers in the Commons) while at the same time my boss was sometimes crudely portrayed as obsessed with locking more people up. It’s true that we made a mistake in dubbing potential new prisons as ‘Titans’, but beyond that there is much in the Straw approach which is now being advocated by Ken Clarke (it was Jack, for instance, who set up the payment by results reoffending scheme at Peterborough prison, opened with enthusiasm by the coalition this month).
The difference is that Ken Clarke has presented reducing the use of prison as a policy objective in its own right: Jack Straw’s approach was subtler and more sophisticated.
There will be many who question this view. But look at the evidence. In 2006, the prison projections for 2013 were for a ‘high’ prison population of 106,000. When the projections appeared this year, the high figure for 2013 was 90,800.
Such projections are incredibly difficult to put together but even considering the risks involved, that is a pretty remarkable change, and it is almost entirely due to the way in which Jack Straw and his two prisons ministers, David Hanson and Maria Eagle, carefully handled the issue from 2007 and 2010. They didn’t make big speeches about cutting the prison population because it wasn’t a policy objective, and nor was it right to look at the issue as a numbers game, and nor did they compromise when it came to staying true to Labour’s ‘tough on crime and its causes’ approach. But they carefully – ‘by osmosis’, Jack called it – changed the terms of trade in order to promote better ways of handling offenders. So there was more money to promote community sentences, the new and successful Intensive Alternatives to Custody for offenders on the cusp of prison, orange jackets to promote public confidence in community sentences, better than expected settlements – in difficult circumstances – for probation, investment in the vital Corston agenda to seek to reduce the number of women in prison, the Bradley review into offenders affected by mental illness, more community justice, domestic violence and mental health courts, and changes to sentencing which were politically difficult to swallow but necessary and right to ensure a more proportionate use of prison. It is these decisions which account in large part for that 16,000 fall in the prison population prediction for 2013.
The point is not that such a change was the objective of any policy programme: it was the result of changes aimed at dealing with offenders more effectively.
And, crucially, crime fell; the last Labour government remains the only one since the war to cut crime.
None of this means, of course, that those who work to see even better ways of dealing with offenders should give up their work. After the election, I moved from the Ministry of Justice to Rethink, England’s largest provider of services for people affected by mental illness and now spend a good chunk of time campaigning to build on Labour’s work to find better ways of approaching the issue of offences committed by people with mental health problems. Sending someone with mental health problems to prison is often the worst thing that can be done in terms of helping them or the community, and the number of people in prison with such problems is alarming.
Later this year the coalition will publish a green paper based on the principles of Ken Clarke’s speech. In many ways it will mirror some of the things Jack Straw was seeking to promote in the justice system – more openness, payment by results and more. Whether the coalition will go further and abolish short sentences remains to be seen. The argument goes that such sentences are ineffective in terms of dealing with offenders because they provide too little time to work with them. That may be true, but it doesn’t mean it is the length of the sentence which is the problem, it is the nature of the sanction. Investment in improved community sentences, with more use of mental health treatment requirements, for instance, with short prison sentences preserved for those who simply refuse to engage, is surely a better way forward – magistrates need the option of a prison sentence when all else has failed, and barring them from handing down short sentences will probably lead to more longer sentences and higher prison numbers. It’s critical too to remember that the views of communities need to be considered when it comes to punishing offenders: we need to find the best ways of preventing reoffending.
There is a message here for Labour in terms of how it chooses to oppose the coalition in this area. If the party cedes the centre ground – tough on crime and its causes – to the coalition it will take a long time to win it back, and it would be a prize well worth having for Messrs Cameron and Clegg. The new Labour leader should resist calls to return to pre-Blair thinking on law and order. He should support carefully managed and innovative schemes paying providers by results on reoffending – for instance, supporting the proportionate use of prison for the most serious and persistent offenders but looking for better alternatives for others.
The idea that there is something contradictory about a centre-left position on law and order which is tough and supports the law-abiding majority, but which is also pragmatic and innovative is what got the party into such a mess on this issue in the 1980s. It would be a tragedy for the party to return there.
Mark Davies was special adviser to Jack Straw from 2005 to 2010 and is now director of communications for mental health charity Rethink. He writes in a personal capacity.
I’m sorry but this is total nonsense. If Jack Straw was remotely progressive on criminal justice matters, then why did he pen the most revolting regressive article for the Daily Mail right after Ken Clarke started to question the obsession with prison? He even talked up Michael Howard for goodness sake calling him ‘brave’. Jack Straw is a reactionary waste of space and I am glad he will never be in a decision making position again. Ken Clarke is making all the right sounds and on this, the coalition has my full suport (and I am a fully paid up Labour party member). Three cheers for Ken Clarke, Dominic Grieve and Crispin Blunt – a real welcome change in the Ministry of Justice.
Even though crime doubled in the 80’s,LAw and order went from being bi-lateral to the Tories being thought of as teh Party of law and Order, True they did spend more on hardware and increased Police numbers and overtime in the 80’s, Yes labour oppose those increases and made themselves look foolish by opposing Tory policies that would actually make them more accountable (Taped interviews with Suspects have solicitors etc.)Or AS Jon Cruddas said the 83 manifesto consisted of Banning the police,But The Tories view that Crime doubled in the 80’s was not due to Poverty tripling was recently criticised by Ken Clark himslef when he said the fall in crime in the mid 90’s wasn’t Due to Michael Howard but due to His own handling of the economy and hte reduction in unemployment. Yes the prison population has increased since 97, various reasons, People live longer,larger population,More offences, Human traffickng, child porn, hate crimes, and the minorities in our society being previously to afraid to report, Homophobic attacks or Wife beating, Yes there are people who are found guilty of crimes where it doesn’t serve anyone to have them locked up as it doen’t send a message of deterant or they are not a threat so they could be better seen on the outside, such as those who get into dept to the point of needing to be punished for nt thinking how they douldhave paid the money back before they took it, the Tories in a cost cutting move are saying that Majistrates whould now have the power to sentence someone to 2 years, rather than having the cost of a jury and acrown court, yet it is majistrates who have sent people to prison for crimes where a private prosecution was brought as the individual wanted the accused to pay thorugh their wallet, Where someone can get 2 years in prison for perjury, the same as someone can get for manslaughter,Its questionable whether the shorter sentences given to people for criminal damage and driving under the influence of drugs, are comparable, If there were longer sentences for both,then maybe people would say that those found guilty of the latter weren;t a waste of resouces sending them there.
Emma, You’re amusing for being so offended by the notion that prison has a purpose. If there is no disincentive, crime will rise. The issue is not whether jails should exist, it’s whether the time spent in jail is productive for the offender. Do they come out more educated and mature than when they went in? All this talk of community sentences is good, but the people in jail for lesser offences are there because community sentences didn’t work, or they persistantly didn’t bother to show up, so to oppose sending them to jail on the basis that jail doesn’t work is silly.
Where in my post do I talk about the value or non-value of prison? My issue with past Labour Justice/Home Secretaries (and if John Reid is THE John Reid then, frankly shame on you; your repellent legacy AND your spelling and grammar) – is that prison became the sole drum on which they banged. Every one of them (Straw, Reid, Smith, Blunkett) seem to have this bizzare notion that a staggering rise in the prison population is an indication of success. To me, it is rather an indication of catastrophic failure. In the past 15 years, we have edged closer and closer to a US style sentencing policy and I for one am relieved that the debate has moved in an altogether less punitive and less populist fashion. It is a disgrace that the people with responsibility for criminal justice wet their pants in fear of the Daily Mail. There simply is NO justification for the doubling of the prison population under Labour – none whatsoever. Moreover, some policies (such as the introduction of indeterminate sentences) have ended up becoming horrendously unfair. Ken Clarke has only (re)-entered office and we have had: a promise to reduce the prison population; a move towards community rather than custodial sentences; a proposal of real work with real wages in prisons; promises to divert the mentally ill and drug addicted away from prisons and into treatment; a rethink on indeterminate sentences. He may not be successful in all these things but my god it is a joy to hear after years of regression. You get the impression that to Jack Straw there are only two kinds of people – ‘decent’ people (who read his worthless articles in the Daily Mail) and filthy criminal scum. He really can come across as THAT simplistic.
Your article More Mirror Less Guardian [December issue] is crass. The notion that our criminal justice policy objectives should be determined by their popularity with what you patronisingly call the C2’s is not progressive. The restoration of hanging and flogging might might put three points on our poll rating. The article lacks any analysis of the failure of New Labour criminal justice policy. Community punishments must help the offender address their behaviour and add value to the community. These are not mutually exclusive objectives but require a radically different approach that is inclusive and engaging with communities. More Ken Clarke please and less David Blunkett.
flippin’eck ‘engaging with communities’ pass the fairy dust so I can sprinkle it on our local crack house. ‘Simplistic ‘ for sure ! criminals are of course mainly from deprived circumstances,which society has neglected to improve ,but in the meantime there are others to protect.Most people in prison are mentally ill and drug addicts too ,the ‘custodial’ bit with increased resources could help them, dear old Ken is trying to save MONEY Emma,that’s all.
“Ken Clarke goes to prison today” oh good,well that’s one down.