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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, there is once again reference in the gracious Speech to penal matters, and on this occasion it is in relation to ASBOs and linking them to parenting orders and knife crime. Putting these issues together in isolation from their particular context is characteristic of how penal affairs have been dealt with in the past few years when we have had multifaceted bills which lack an overall cohesion, but include piecemeal responses by the Government to specific issues which have recently hit the headlines, as seems to be the case here, too. This use of legislation raises worrying questions about the lack of a coherent, consistent vision of what the Government are trying to achieve, which in turn undermines wider confidence and trust in what the Government are doing to make Britain a safer place both now and in the future. That is particularly true of the Government's approach to custody. Government policy on the use of custody for people found guilty by the courts is very clear: only the most dangerous, violent and prolific offenders from whom we need protection should go to prison, and all the rest should be dealt with by means of community-based disposals. What is actually happening, however, is a contradiction of that policy, with the prison population now at an all-time high of 84,500 people, resulting in unprecedented and unacceptable levels of prison overcrowding, making it impossible for the Prison Service to do the good job for which it was designed. Who are these people causing the prisons to burst at the seams? Can they all really be so violent, dangerous and prolific as policy states they should be? Of course not. In 2008, nearly 29,000 people were serving only three months or less, and still more were sent to prison for six or 12 months. These are not dangerous and violent offenders from whom we should be protected, but in large part they reflect the dozens of Bills and thousands of offences which have been created over the life of this Government. This is enormously costly—in 2008, prisons expenditure was £3.8 billion and rising—and does considerable damage not only to society at large but to the thousands of prisoners and their families inappropriately caught up in the custodial net. The social cost is incalculable. Yet, amazingly, over the life of this Government the number of people found guilty by the courts has actually fallen, while the prison population has soared. Quite simply, ever more people are going to prison for less serious offences and for longer. Meanwhile, what about the other part of the Government’s policy; that community-based disposals should be used for the great majority of non-violent, non-dangerous or prolific offenders? The truth is that this excellent, effective policy has been systematically undermined by the Government's own lack of committed, focused or remotely adequate investment, development or support for the providers of these disposals. This includes the probation service, which is the national agency with responsibility for the management of offenders in the community and is now enormously stretched, a great range of very able third sector organisations and the private sector. A great deal of evidence has accumulated that community-based alternatives work better. Not only do they do less damage to society as families are kept together, people’s homes are not lost and jobs are retained, they are far cheaper to deliver and, most importantly of all, reoffending rates are significantly lower. This is what really matters as it is the official criterion used to measure the success of any intervention and is an indication of how society is being made safer. In fact, just under half of all prisoners reoffend. In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, announced a drop in reoffending—that is true—but failed to put it in the context of a drop from an unacceptable high to a still unacceptable level. This includes up to 60 per cent reoffending by those who serve less than 12 months. Among our youngest, most troubled young children, who we also think fit to incarcerate, the figure is as high as 80 per cent—they just do it again. Yet Rethinking Crime and Punishment, which I chaired for seven years, published a booklet last year describing just some of the pockets of outstanding community-based work going on the length of the country which had won prizes for good practice awarded by the Howard League. The results speak for themselves. They work, with rates of people who do not reoffend as high as 75 per cent and 80 per cent—or rates of 25 per cent or 20 per cent who reoffend. It is heartbreaking to note that this valuable and important part of government policy is not being prioritised, but is undermined in the quality of delivery and in the minds of sentencers by the lack of adequate resources for the Government’s own policy. In these days of economic downturn, all departments of the Ministry of Justice under NOMS, including the probation service and prisons, have to find savings in their operations amounting to some £171 million. Somehow we expected that. But, at the same time, we did not expect Jack Straw to announce that £1 billion is to be allocated to the new prison building programme. Why £1 billion is not being put into the positive, cost-effective and infinitely less socially damaging part of the Government’s policy which actually works, and would in turn make it possible to reduce prison numbers far quicker than it takes to build a new prison, and reduce the need for any building, is utterly baffling. It demonstrates a government policy which is incoherent, inconsistent, incomprehensible and wrong. Apart from this evidence, the Government naturally want to respond to public pressure and demands. Here again it appears that the Government are getting it wrong, because the evidence of public opinion, through a range of studies, shows that while the public finds it difficult to believe that crime is falling, only 11 per cent think that a greater use of custody would do most to reduce crime. The public is not nearly as retributive or punitive as the Government appear to believe. Instead, the influence of the red-top newspapers have had a greater impact on what the Government believe, with lurid reporting extolling prison as the only real punishment and dismissing alternatives as a soft option. Offending which is not dangerous, violent or prolific is much less likely to recur when offenders have served a sentence in the community. If the Government want to show that they can be tough on crime, they must realise that prison for the majority of offenders is not effective toughness, but rather it is the toughness of sanctions that reduce reoffending that the public want implemented. So far, we have yet to see policies which are consistent or able to deliver just that.