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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, for securing the debate and for setting us off with such a marvellous speech. I am also grateful to her for sending us the copy of Increasing Competence of Sentencers in Community Sentences by the Thames Valley Partnership. This could not be a more timely debate. The prisons are full; potential prisoners are walking free following the Home Secretary’s instructions to the judiciary; Professor Rod Morgan, chairman of the Youth Justice Board has resigned, stating that children’s prisons are being swamped; Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, has stated that the Home Office has failed to carry out proper planning; and the police have recorded violent crime increasing year on year. Conversely, the 2005 sentencing statistics released on Tuesday revealed that the average jail sentence for robbery has fallen to its lowest level since 1998. They also revealed that the overall number of people jailed in England and Wales also fell to its lowest level for seven years. That is rather paradoxical against the apparently inexorable rise in the prison population. The noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, put his finger on it: it is because of the large number of custodial sentences for minor offences—a point fleshed out by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. On the other hand, jail sentences for violence against the person, drugs offences and criminal damage fell, despite the comments of the current Home Secretary that the Government are constantly supporting tougher sentences in the course of protecting the public. As my right honourable friend David Davis said in another place, the statistics show that, under Labour, fewer offenders are being sent to jail for less time for more serious offences. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned shoplifting. In 1993, the average number of people in jail for shoplifting was 29; in 2003, it was 1,500. My right honourable friend went on to say that that speaks volumes about the Government's approach to public safety. This is no longer a crisis. The Home Office and Prison Service are in meltdown. No wonder there is a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system. Lord Coulsfield’s report, commissioned by the Esmeé Fairburn Foundation in 2004, agreed that the Government often fail to take account of the research evidence that they have themselves sponsored, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Perhaps that explains why, at present, 60 per cent of adult offenders are reconvicted within two years of being released from prison or commencing a community sentence. As we have heard today, for those released from prison, the reoffending rate is higher at 66 per cent and, embarrassingly for the Government, the reoffending rate for those on drug treatment and testing orders stands at an astonishing 89 per cent. I am sure that we all agree that custodial sentencing is not necessarily ideal. Prison can break up families, impede resettlement and place children at risk of an intergenerational cycle of crime, especially with overcrowding, insufficient prison capacity and the dreaded but apparently inevitable churning to which the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, referred. That seriously undermines attempts to deliver effective rehabilitation. I am sure that we were all impressed by the references to compassion made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and my noble friend Lord Elton. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has previously said—I hope that I cite him correctly—that the three things that are most likely to prevent reoffending are a home, a job and a stable relationship. Programmes that help prisoners to develop skills and maintain contact—that enable all three while providing justice and a deterrent—seem to be the ideal to be aimed at. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, referred to community sentencing. It is clear that community sentencing is not working as it should. The think tank Reform states: "““in some cases the evidence suggests their use needs to be re-evaluated altogether””." It is vital to develop community programmes with realistic expectations of offenders’ learning abilities. Improperly targeted programmes will, as we can see, worsen rather than improve reoffending. I hope that the Minister will inform the House what steps the Government are taking in the light of those comments. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, also referred to restorative justice—also a theme of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton—and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, gave us a moving account of her experiences at Grendon. As the noble Baroness and others have highlighted today, there are some promising approaches that merit investigation. Many have been proposed by Rethinking Crime & Punishment, as well as by the Coulsfield report. I would be interested to know the Minister’s views on those two reports. Indeed, the work to which the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, referred is a spin-off of those reports. It looks at improving the communication and understanding between the judges and probation services so that the sentence-givers have first-hand knowledge of the alternative community programmes. It highlighted the fact that, "““lack of contact in recent years has affected the knowledge of Judges about community sentences and surely it is impossible to expect an increase in confidence without an increase in that knowledge””." Indeed, I commend to any noble Lord who has not read it the foreword by His Honour Judge Hall in that Thames Valley report, which highlights the communications problems between the judiciary and the Probation Service. It is very short. I agree so much with the study. Considering the general level of communication in the Home Office, as well as the number of times the Probation Service has been shaken up and rearranged by this Government, it is unsurprising that there are communication problems there. If there has been one theme running through the debate, it is the rape of the Probation Service. Indeed, the continual ignoring of the Probation Service is having a serious negative effect on morale, performance, and the recruitment and retention of probation staff—a significant problem if you are trying to ensure a high level of qualified and well informed staff. This point has been well made not only this afternoon but by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in his admirable evidence before the pre-Bill committee on the Offender Management Bill, convened by my right honourable friend David Davis. The Government have helpfully provided a transcript of the proceedings, which I commend to your Lordships. As a humble national service officer in the Rifle Brigade, I am obviously proud to be associated with the noble Lord’s remarks. He made a very pertinent point in the context of that debate when he asked what can be achieved with the proper, integrated management of joined-up bodies. The Government could well study this and take advantage of it. Communication is one area that could be addressed. Another is delivery. Your Lordships have discussed the possibility of community penalties and programmes being delivered locally and the need for co-operation between local authorities, mainstream services and voluntary organisations, and I am sure that debates will arise in consideration of the Offender Management Bill. Successful delivery is the key to building confidence in the system. Within this, there is a clear need to try and tailor custodial and community programmes to specific groups. There has been a steep rise in the number of black offenders in recent years. Women are another such group. Shockingly, more than seven out of 10 women in prison say that they have been physically assaulted at some point in their lives, and two-thirds have been sexually assaulted. This House also often comments on young offenders, more than 70 per cent of whom come from broken homes. This is one area in which the Government have not been tough on the causes of crime. The report of the Social Justice Policy Group, under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, entitled Breakdown Britain, concludes that government thinking here, as on prisons, has been short-term. It says: "““The narrow focus on a wholly inadequate poverty target, followed by complacent trumpeting of supposedly major reductions in poverty, has obscured the scale of the problems that have yet to be tackled””." Poverty, family breakdown, mental health and drug or substance abuse are all undeniable factors in the lives of those who offend and reoffend. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, commented in the hearing to which I have just referred that he was saddened that the Government are not using the current Mental Health Bill to address the provision for mental health problems in prisons. I hope that the Minister can answer this point in his reply. On Monday, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, wrote an article in the Times. In the interests of balance, I have to say that he thought that the Home Secretary’s criticisms in his instructions to the judiciary on sentencing were misplaced but, at the end, he gave the Government several pieces of advice. I hope your Lordships will permit me to read them: "““1) For ministers to announce the action they propose to take to deal with the present crisis; 2) The action to include the repeal or suspension of statutory provisions that force judges to use more and longer sentences than are necessary for the public's protection; 3) The Sentencing Guidelines Council to be given a statutory mandate to produce guidelines that will result in an appropriate balance between the places and resources available for those in custody and the number jailed; 4) The Government to review the prison population and, as an emergency measure, release on licence those prisoners who can be released without endangering the public; 5) The resources of the Probation Service to be increased to restore its morale; make community sentences a realistic alternative to custody for non-violentor sexual offenders and ensure proper supervision of those released; 6) No further legislation to be introduced without properly assessing its impact on the prison population””." I hope that that last point will be not lost on the Government. After reading it, I was tempted to tear up my speech and hope I would not be spotted; but I feel that that says it all. I shall be very interested to hear the Minister’s comments.