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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, on securing this important debate and on her marvellous introductory speech, which covered so much important ground. I am also at one with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in that I sympathise with the mess in which the Home Secretary has found himself, although my sympathies run out when I hear him criticising the probation officers in front of prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, because that is not a very sensible way to go. I propose to take a slightly indirect route in my contribution, because this is an auspicious day for some of us, including the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, on the Front Bench opposite. Some 49 years ago, I was commissioned into a regiment called the Rifle Brigade, which was awarded more VCs than any other regiment in the Army. Some eight years later, I fired the last round in action by the Rifle Brigade into Indonesia on 31 December 1965, and early after midnight on the following day, I fired the first round in action by the Royal Green Jackets into the same place. Yesterday, the Royal Green Jackets ceased to exist, and today is the birthday of a new regiment called the Rifles. I take this opportunity to wish well all those who are currently serving and due to serve in it. I mention that not only to remember the traditions and all the good things that the former regiments—the Royal Green Jackets, the Light Infantry, the Devon and Dorsets, and the Royal Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Berkshire—have done in the past, but to point out that that amalgamation of four fairly unlikely candidates has been brought about by the fact that there is a structure to manage the transition, that good operational practice has been brought into the new regiment, merging all that is good from all of them, and, finally, that the advice of the people currently serving in it has been taken in the formation of the new venture. Why is that important? It is important when we consider the huge numbers currently swamping our prisons and the Probation Service and presenting figures of failure because of the appallingly high reoffending rate of 67 per cent of adult males. What concerns and appals me when I consider that and think about what could and should be done is how much good advice is not being listened to. Rethinking Crime and Punishment, an organisation that ran under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Baroness and in which I had the great pleasure to serve as a member, said that stronger links should be made between organisations running alternatives to prison and the communities they serve by extending the role of youth offender panels and creating mechanisms through which communities decide on the nature of community work to be done by offenders. That was sensible advice and was backed up by practical evidence. Towards the end of last year, the Local Government Association published a marvellous report, Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood, in which it said: "““The Coalition on Social and Criminal Justice believes that the key to successful transition from prison to living back in the community is councils, health service, probation, police, Job Centre Plus, housing associations and the voluntary and community sector working together. They can provide the continuous and consistent management that individual offenders need””." Set against that is the report produced two days ago by my successor as Chief Inspector of Prisons, saying that in 2005-06, "““inspections found that some prisons still did not have a current resettlement strategy, and most did not have one that covered the specific needs of all the prisoner groups in their population. Though some needs analysis had been carried out, in general there was insufficient objective analysis and poor use of data. Management structure and practices remained weak: many inspection reports referred to a lack of strategic focus in the prison’s resettlement policy””." In November, the Probation Boards Association, commenting on what is currently facing it, said: "““Money spent on breaking up the probation service and on transaction costs in relation to commissioning from a multitude of providers would be better spent on boosting the probation service and its partners.""The Home Office, rowing in the opposite direction to the Department of Health, the Department of Communities & Local Government and the Department for Constitutional Affairs, ignores the value of local citizen centred governance in creating a sense of ownership and building confidence in the management of offenders””." For years, the received wisdom has been that being near home, a job and a stable relationship are the three factors most likely to prevent reoffending, all of which are put at risk by imprisonment. It is said that any fool can criticise, and fools usually do; I do not want to fall into that trap. In responding to the challenge, I should like to suggest some things that the Government can do to help them out of this, because there is no short-term solution—there is a long one. Let us remember the initiative of NOMS and its intention of having end-to-end management. We all agree with that. But, for heaven’s sake, drop the so-called NOMS. Get rid of it, because it is getting in the way. Make the prison and probation services fit for purpose in the way that many people have been asking for years. Use the existing criminal justice boards around the country to focus local attention on local needs. Retain the probation boards, which are a key part of that in planning resettlement, and establish male and female adult offender teams on the line of youth offender teams to provide supervision for low-level offenders. Listen to what is going on locally, bring in local activities, local industry and local services, and keep people as near to home as possible. It is easy to say all that, but I cannot help reflecting that it is less than two years since the Rifles was ordered into being. It is there now, with young men in Iraq at this moment.