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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater of Butterstone, on securing this important debate. I declare my interests as recorded in the Register, which include being a member of the Prison Service and National Offender Management Service boards and audit committees and being a lay magistrate. Resources directed to reducing reoffending—and there are some indicators of falls in reoffending—have to be shown to be delivering objectives to a degree that represents value for money compared with other potential uses of the same money. When it comes to the prevention of crime, there are differing views on how the resources available can best be spent. Some argue that the most effective deterrent to committing crime is the likelihood of being caught and that available additional resources should be directed at the police and at crime detection measures. Others argue that resources should be directed at preventing young people, in particular, starting down the road of crime in the first place. Yet others argue that those resources should be directed at reducing reoffending among those who have already been convicted of crime. Once again, it is crucial that money spent in this area can be shown to be delivering in respect of those who are sentenced to terms of imprisonment and those who receive community sentences. Most people would no doubt say that more money should be spent on measures to reduce reoffending, just as they might also say that more money should be spent on further improving healthcare, education and public transport and on increasing police numbers. The desire to see more resources allocated is not often matched by a desire to see levels of taxation rise to provide for them, which means that an argument for more resources needs to be based on a case that money spent today stands a credible prospect of producing savings within a defined timespan. There are programmes and projects associated with community sentences that are designed to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and to rehabilitate the offender. There are also programmes and courses for those serving a sentence in prison designed to address the causes of offending; and courses to improve basic skills to enhance the prospects of securing employment and thus a source of income, or to enable prisoners to continue with some form of training or educational course on release. Help is also given in seeking to have accommodation available for a prisoner to go to on leaving prison. With the advent of the National Offender Management Service, it is expected that co-ordination between the different organisations and agencies, whether public, private, or voluntary, that may be involved in dealing with offenders inside prison and in the community will be developed and strengthened. However, bearing in mind that resources will be tight in the immediate future, at least, it is imperative that full and reliable information is available on what programmes and courses give the best return in respect of reoffending and of on which kind of offenders such programmes are likely to have the greatest impact. We also need to be clear, based on hard evidence, about the levels and kinds of support and supervision for offenders in the community that have the greatest impact on reducing reoffending. I am aware that some statistics are available; for example, there are the results of pilot exercises. However, at the moment, for one reason or another—in some cases because it is too early to be able to evaluate the impact on reoffending of a programme or course—we have too little hard evidence to be certain about what works most effectively and what has the least impact on reoffending in respect of each area of activity and support. That information is crucial if the case is to be made for further resources to be directed at addressing reoffending on the argument that reducing reoffending will save financial and social costs at a time when resources are limited and the demands for them are numerous and widespread. There is also a further issue. Points are made about the size of our prison population in relation to that of other countries. If the argument is that community sentences in a number of cases where prison sentences are being given represent a better alternative in terms of protection of the public and in reducing the likelihood of further offending by the defendant, then sentencers, and those who lay down guidelines for sentencers, have to be persuaded of the argument as well. That brings us back to the issue of the quality and completeness of information about the impact, in terms of protecting the public and reducing the likelihood of further offending, of community sentences rather than prison sentences in those cases where a prison sentence is not inevitable. Sentencers are much more likely to have confidence in community sentences if hard evidence is there to show that, in cases where prison is not inevitable, a community sentence is likely to be at least as effective, if not more so, in achieving the objectives that sentencers wish. That hard evidence of effectiveness also has to be produced if large sections of the public are also to be persuaded that community sentences work and that they are not tantamount—as certain sections of the media portray—to a soft option or getting off. I appreciate that much has been done by the Probation Service, in particular, and others to get across what a community sentence can actually involve for the offender, but more needs to be done in this area. Reducing reoffending represents an enormous prize financially, in reducing the cost of crime, and socially, in improving the quality of life of offenders and of communities who suffer from the effects of high levels of crime. Like everyone else, I want to see that goal achieved, as well as the reduction in the prison population that should follow, but it will not happen unless we have solid and reliable hard evidence available to enable us to concentrate limited financial resources on those specific programmes, activities and support activities that have a proven track record of delivering reductions in reoffending rates.