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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I should start as everyone has started: by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, on securing this debate and leading it so effectively and passionately, as she always does. It is always a delight to listen to the noble Baroness and, while I do not always agree with everything she says, I certainly admire the passion with which it is spoken. This debate has provided the House with an opportunity to discuss important issues which affect all of us and our communities. We have had before us a dazzling array of talents from a distinguished cast list who have substantial form on this issue and have done a lot of time in different roles. We have heard two former Home Office Ministers, one in recounting mode; a former chief constable; a distinguished former chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee; and a former Chief Inspector of Prisons. We have heard a Christian perspective and people speaking with experience from work on probation boards. Interest has been shown from former special advisers and we have also heard from a very distinguished chair of the Youth Justice Board. I could go on, but the point is that all contributors to today’s debate come at it from different angles, nevertheless contributing a great deal to this very important debate. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has said, this week there has been a great deal of interest in the criminal justice agenda—one might say that there has been unparalleled interest expressed, not least in the media. It falls to me at least to address some of the issues which currently occupy much of that media time, particularly and principally, of course, the acute pressure on prison places. As a number of noble Lords detected, in part that pressure is due to serious offenders being significantly more likely to get a custodial sentence. Over the past 10 years, there has been something like a 25 per cent increase in the length of sentences for indictable offences; that is, offences which have been tried in the Crown Court. People who have been sentenced in that way are sent to prison for longer periods than 10 years ago. We now have in place much tighter recall arrangements for those who breach their licence conditions and community orders, to which a number of noble Lords made reference. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, demonstrated, we live within a framework where there is a conundrum: we have a rising prison population but at the same time falling levels of crime, although that fact is not often recognised. We also have some 20,000 more prison places than in 1997, but we have not witnessed the expected shift from custodial to community sentences following the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which is why the Home Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Attorney-General produced a ministerial statement to restate the importance and value of sentencing guidelines. Just last week the Home Secretary announced the building of a new 350-place prison on Merseyside and we have an additional 8,000 places to be delivered by 2012. That is not news which many noble Lords who have taken part in the debate today would necessarily welcome, but it is an important fact and, like it or not, we must ensure that we make effective use of prison places. As a Government we will continue to assess whether more places are required. Arrangements for sex offenders have also come under scrutiny during the past few weeks, and I echo the words of the Prime Minister in saying that we have one of the most advanced systems in the world for monitoring and managing dangerous offenders, and those considered to present the greatest risk to the public will come increasingly under the multi-agency public protection arrangements led by the police, probation and prison services. Difficult though it is, we are determined to strengthen arrangements for dealing with sex offenders in the community, which is why the Home Secretary commissioned a comprehensive review of child sex offenders. We will ensure that the public are properly protected from dangerous offenders, and let me be clear that prison places must be and will be available for those offenders. But it is equally vital that non-violent, non-dangerous and non-persistent offenders pay back to their communities the damage they have caused through tough and credible community punishments. The report by Anne Owers, published last week, was referred to. It rightly highlights a number of concerns about the Prison Service, including, unsurprisingly, overcrowding. However, the report also acknowledges the very significant improvements made over the past five years on key prison issues, including safer custody, education and training, resettlement, healthcare and the treatment of juveniles. More widely, substantial progress has been made in the Home Office on crime reduction. This includes more visible policing, with an 11 per cent increase in police numbers and the publication of a serious crime Bill which includes a serious crime prevention order and measures to try to improve data-sharing to tackle serious organised crime. A reduction in violent crime, bringing more offenders to justice, improving services to victims and witnesses and improved partnership working across agencies have increased public confidence, which is key to the success of the criminal justice system. However, and despite improvements, we need to improve public confidence in the criminal justice system, and there is clearly still a lot to do. The report Rebalancing the Criminal Justice System in Favour of the Law-Abiding Majority sets out our ambitious but nevertheless practical programme for change. We are working towards a system that gives the law-abiding public much greater involvement in the criminal justice services they receive, starting with ensuring that the needs of victims are properly addressed. The Government have already achieved much in introducing new services for victims and witnesses, such as new rights, better information and better emotional and practical support. In our view, these initiatives must be expanded further and faster. It is essential that we do more to bring offenders to justice and that the community is more closely involved in that whole process, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, drew particular attention. Judges and magistrates must become much more involved in the communities they serve, as they are in the new criminal justice centres in Liverpool and Salford, supported by local criminal justice boards. I was grateful for the favourable comments of noble Lords on the importance of those leading-edge projects. These will enable the public to ensure that local policing reflects the priorities of the local community. Community sentencing, which, many noble Lords pointed out, is extremely important, includes the expansion of community payback initiatives—making the ““unpaid work”” requirement of a community sentence visible to the public and increasing opportunities for local people to have a say in the type of work undertaken. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, referred to that, and6 million hours were worked last year to benefit communities. The latest initiative is the mayors’ project, announced by the Home Secretary last month, in which probation areas will be working with local authorities and locally elected mayors to identify more and increased suitable opportunities. Other initiatives referred to by the noble Baroness and others include the important Thames Valley partnership pilot funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. These schemes support the work we are trying to take forward to improve local partnership working and contribute to local criminal justice objectives to improve public confidence in how the criminal justice system works. Our central aim must be to cut crime altogether. Around half of all offences are committed by people who have been through the system before, so reducing reoffending is essential. We are agreed on that. The latest results for adults, published on 9 November last year, show that overall the reoffending rate had decreased by some 3.4 per cent by 2003 when compared with 1997, so at least we can demonstrate that the numbers are going in the right direction. For juvenile offenders we have achieved a reduction in the rate of reoffending by 4 per cent between 1997 and 2004, and 1.4 per cent between 2000 and 2004. These are small but encouraging results, but there is much more that we can do and we have set ourselves challenging targets in dealing with this difficult group of offenders, many of whom come from extremely troubled backgrounds, as many noble Lords have acknowledged. We have invested some £45 million in innovative targeted prevention schemes for young people who are at risk, focusing on enabling vulnerable young people to gain access to the services that they need. For example, the Youth Justice Board has rolled out 50 resettlement and after-care programmes, which provide intensive support to young people with substance abuse problems. We have worked to build support and gain cross-government ownership of a comprehensive strategy to reduce reoffending. In July last year, my noble friend Lady Scotland and Phil Hope, the DfES Minister, jointly set up the Inter Ministerial Group on Reducing Reoffending to take responsibility for ensuring the alignment of departmental targets and public service agreements to support the reduction of crime and reoffending, to ensure delivery of agreed cross-government plans and outcomes, and to ensure that they are effectively secured. In November 2005, the National Reducing Reoffending Delivery Plan set out the key things the Government will do to reduce adult reoffending; at the same time, we launched three reducing reoffending alliances with the corporate, civic society and faith, voluntary and community sectors, involving local people and organisations to support delivery. With the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions we published the Reducing Re-offending Through Skills and Employment Green Paper and also a ““next steps”” action plan. NOMS is committed to implementing a new approach to managing offenders through the entire length of their sentence, where the focus will be unremittingly trained on the offender and what is needed to protect the public and reduce reoffending. We have already rolled out this new offender management approach for offenders on community sentences and licences. In November we commenced a phased roll-out for those in custody, beginning with a high-priority group; namely, those serving determinate sentences of 12 months or more who are assessed as presenting a high or very high risk of serious harm, and also for prolific and other priority offenders. This autumn our next phase of implementation will introduce offender management for prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence, which includes those sentenced to life imprisonment. As far as possible, each offender will be managed by the same offender manager throughout the sentence. The offender manager is always based in the community, even when the offender is in prison, which helps with preparation for release and reintegration into the community. The offender manager is responsible for assessing the risk of harm and reoffending posed by the offender, for determining which issues need to be addressed to reduce these and for drawing up the sentence plan and ensuring that it is implemented. The guiding principle for these changes remains, as it has always been, for the highest quality services to be delivered in order to best protect the public and meet the sentencing requirements of local courts and the needs of local communities. I think I have given a fair picture and reflection of our commitment to reducing reoffending and of some of the important work being undertaken in that regard, but much more must be done therefore we remain fully committed to providing a strong and effective Probation Service properly located within the public sector. Many noble Lords commented about the Probation Service and its change of direction. I suppose I could sum up the debate by saying that essentially many noble Lords called for a return to a more traditional service. However, the public sector cannot do all that it needs to do on its own. By removing the current statutory restrictions, we will give all sectors, private, public or voluntary, the freedom and the opportunity to innovate in partnership and improve overall performance, something the noble Lord, Lord Warner, highlighted. His comments reflected the importance of changing the service to adapt to new circumstances and keeping apace of wider changes in society. Commissioners in the English regions and Wales, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State and working within existing local partnership frameworks, including, importantly, local strategic partnerships and local area agreements, will be able to contract with the best available provider for different aspects of probation services, and to do so across existing organisational and geographical boundaries. The Government are committed to reducing crime and its impact on the communities in which we live and work. That is why this debate is so important. During the debate many questions were asked that I shall attempt to address in the remaining minutes that I have. One important issue raised was the importance and value of family ties. I know it is often observed that in some ways prison does much to undermine family ties, and that that can have an effect on reoffending rates, particularly when people are reintroduced into the community without as much support as we might desire. We have done much to ensure that family ties are kept up when people are imprisoned. We are developing a cross-government approach to improve support for children and families of offenders to reduce the risk of reoffending, because we understand the important part that family life plays for many of those who have to be incarcerated. That work is being overseen by a joint DfES/Home Office steering group, which will report, as I said earlier, to the inter-ministerial group chaired by my noble friend Lady Scotland and Phil Hope. We have committed a considerable sum of money to ensure that that important work with children and families is undertaken. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, focused on the important work on community sentencing and on what methods work. He made an important point: it is valuable that we carry out research that enables us to be supported by good evidence before we commit ourselves to a programme. That is why we have to look across government and at international evidence before embarking on particular approaches to community sentences. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester observed that it was important to build community capacity and involve the voluntary and community sector, something that was reflected in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others. It is fair to say that the Offender Management Bill will remove some of the public sector monopolies that have existed in service provision. We must endeavour, with NOMS in particular, to put in place well valued partnerships. On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, we have made good progress in implementing the strategies set out in the Youth Matters Green Paper, and through new legislation we will be placing a duty on local government to consult local young people and provide good-quality recreation facilities that meet their interests and needs. Between 2006 and 2008 it is our intention to invest some £115 million directly into the hands of young people through the new Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund, to enable them to build the services they require. Much was said about drug support and drug treatment in prison. I shall provide a full response to that in writing. The Government have a good record on drug rehabilitation, on which we have committed substantial funding. The drug rehabilitation programmes are beginning to show improved performance. Completion rates are rising: they were up by 28 per cent to 2003. We are now seeing far higher levels of completion of courses undertaken in prisons. It is vital that that work continues. It will assist us in reducing reoffending rates and provide us with important pathways for the future. This has been a very important debate. I recognise its value and the sincerity and commitment of everyone involved in it. Although we might all find it hard to agree on how best to ensure a good rehabilitation programmes and reduced levels of reoffending, if we pursue the matter in a spirit of informed debate, as we have today, I am sure that outcomes will improve over time. I am grateful to those noble Lords who have taken part in what is an important and continuing debate, which I am sure we will return to on many occasions.