While elements of the green paper are genuinely innovative, it is predominantly a sensible and measured package. Much of the media furore focused on the length of murderers’ prison sentences, yet the green paper clearly states that the government has ‘no intention of abolishing the mandatory life sentence or of prompting any general reduction in minimum terms imposed for murder’. What the green paper does propose is tidying up Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which is an overly complex and prescriptive set of measures that can prevent judges ensuring that murder sentences are appropriate and proportionate.
Proposals contained in the green paper to reduce the use of indeterminate sentences for public protection, one of the worst mistakes of the previous government, and to cut the use of remand are also welcome, as is the enthusiasm shown in Breaking the Cycle for restorative justice. Better treatment for people with mental health and drug problems are sensible and necessary, as are efforts to make community penalties more effective. The introduction of payment-by-results to fund improvements in rehabilitation is as yet untested, but is in effect a continuation and acceleration of existing policy, with the current payment-by-results pilot in HMP Peterborough authorised before the general election by the then justice secretary Jack Straw.
Overall, the Ministry of Justice has estimated that this package of proposals will cut the prison population by around 3,000, which is in reality a modest reduction given the enormous growth in the number of people in prison in the last two decades.
So, faced with a sensible and broadly progressive set of criminal justice policies, how should Labour respond? There will be huge temptation to attempt to brand the government as soft on crime, as proposed recently on this website. Yet the tough versus soft debate is as redundant as it is unhelpful; it is effectiveness that should be the focus of future reform. Crucially, a more effective justice system would reduce reoffending, addressing a significant failure of the current system. Indeed, as Victim Support noted in a recent report, ’94 per cent of victims of crime said that the most important thing to them was that the offender did not commit the crime again [and] 81 per cent would prefer an offender to receive an effective sentence rather than a harsh one’.
Labour should instead focus on scrutinising the delivery of the proposals. Nobody can dispute that implementing significant changes to the delivery of rehabilitation services at a time when funding is being cut substantially will be a challenge. It is also clear that much of the detail around payment-by-results still needs to be worked out. Ensuring that these changes are carried out in a way that ensures that the most challenging, and vulnerable, individuals receive the support that they need to turn their lives around, alongside an appropriate and proportionate sentence, would make a real difference to disadvantaged communities and should be the job of a responsible opposition.
At a time when public money is scarce we cannot afford to waste resources on sounding tough. These proposals instead focus on what is effective and cutting reoffending rates will benefit everybody, making communities safer and reducing the number of future victims of crime. Ed Miliband and shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan have both suggested that they will not play politics with criminal justice policy. Labour should make good on this commitment, ensuring that the political debate around law and order is based on making the system work better rather than scoring hollow political points.
Jon Collins is campaign director at the Criminal Justice Alliance
Thanks for the lecture Jon. Where’s the evidence that Restorative Justice reduces offending? All the evidence points to it being useless for that prescription althogh good for victim’s closure. The only interesting policy is the one they inherited from us. As for your belief that they are as good as their intentions, they are doing to save money. That’s why they’ve announced the closure of two jails. It’s very difficult to have good education and rehabilitation courses when jails are overcrowded. By closing jails they will continue to be overcrowded. As for long prison sentences, they have come down substantially in recent years. The problem is with Indeterminate sentences, yet thsoe people are still in jail and will remain so. So that hasn’t been addressed. They have added nothing new to the debate. Why don’t you admit it.
Some of these Ideas were suggested by Charles Clakre 6 years ago, So I’m not agaisnt htem all in principle, but many are justa case of saving money by releasing people early
I see even the Tories are allowed to write articles here or is it new labour answer to the Tories. People who commit crime in my area already have 60 or seventy crimes, one sixteen year old has committed 106 robberies, now the Police just get the articles back and let him go. Car theft a young man has stolen 96 cars has never been to jail, until his 97th when he killed a mother and baby while getting away from a crime. Yet I suspect an old Lady who refuses to pay her council tax will still get locked up. hard on crime, yes I like to see money spent putting idiots in jail before the lady was killed with her child, it’s about protecting the public not the idiots who commit the crime.
Thanks for the comments. On money-saving, yes it is a major motivation for these reforms. But, my sense from working on this is that the ministerial team at the MoJ genuinely support these changes and think they’ll make the criminal justice system work better. Implementing them properly and fairly while cutting money will be the real challenge, as I say in the article. Dan – The evidence on restorative justice is actually starting to show a significant impact on reoffending, as well as on victim satisfaction. The Home Office/MoJ ran a lengthy research project which concluded that restorative justice reduces the frequency of reoffending by 14%, with better results from some of the pilots (suggesting that some models may have a bigger impact). Results from the Youth Conference Service, introduced in Northern Ireland in 2003, are also promising. On overcrowding, yes it is a very significant problem. And I think it is a shame that the green paper did not address it head-on. But reducing prison numbers should, in time, start to address it (if they cut 3,000 from the population but close fewer prison places obviously, and that is something we’ll be watching carefully). On indeterminate sentences, I’d agree that they have been a real problem and I think introducing IPPs may have been the last government’s biggest mistake in criminal justice policy. But the green paper does start to address this. It further limits the use of IPPs and sets in place measures to speed up the release of those people already on an IPP. That’s a good start, even though I think that they would have been better to scrap IPPs altogether. John reid – Yes, I think a lot of this is a continuation of existing policy, with some tweaks. That’s probably a good thing – much of what Clarke proposed was sensible, as were some of the reforms introduced by Jack Straw. Robert – I’m not a Tory, nor am I New Labour. The Criminal Justice Alliance is a non-politically aligned organisation. We work for a fairer and more effective criminal justice system, and assess new policy as we see it. And I agree that the focus should be on reducing reoffending. If the criminal justice system worked better, people wouldn’t be committing so many crimes, going through the system again and again without it having any positive impact on them. I think that, if implemented properly, the reforms proposed in Breaking the Cycle could help to reduce reoffending. They’re not perfect, of course, and there are issues that need to be addressed (like prison overcrowding) but it could be a step forward. So I’d like to see all the parties try and make sure that it is by putting pressure on the Government to deliver it properly.
‘Yet the tough versus soft debate is as redundant as it is unhelpful’ At the age of 14 my parents kept me in one night because of problems I was causing and doing. That same night the group I associated were involved in a fight which left a member of another group in hospital. My parents ‘tough love’ and the realisation that I could just of easily been the one in hospital made me change my ways. 29 years on a member of the opposite group who didn’t get the same ‘tough love’ has just been given 26 years. Anyone who says ‘tough love’ doesn’t work I am afraid does not know what they are talking about.