Sophie Willett, of The Howard League for Penal Reform, reports on public attitudes to crime and punishment and the need for more evidenced based policies to reduce crime.
Sophie Willett, of The Howard League for Penal Reform, reports on public attitudes to crime and punishment and the need for more evidenced based policies to reduce crime.
The Times’ poll (£) into public attitudes on crime and punishment has found the public worried that sentences are too short and they blame the lack of deterrent as the principal reason for their fears over crime.
The timing of this poll is important; at this moment the prison population is teetering on the brink of a record high. Never before have we sent more people to prison; 126,000 men women and children last year alone. Consecutive governments boast about locking up more of their citizens in prison than ever before; a badge of honour for being the tough guy of politics.
But this tired rhetoric has failed to engage with the common man. After 20 years of being tough on crime, at a cost running into billions of pounds for the taxpayer, people still aren’t happy. Three quarters of those polled say that the coalition is no tougher than the previous government.
The reality is that sentences have got steadily longer over the past 10 years. The average time served of those on determinate sentences has increased by 14 per cent since 2000 and we now jail more people on life and other indeterminate sentences than the rest of Western Europe combined. Sending ever increasing numbers of people to prison does not work. People are still fearful of crime. So maybe it’s time to look beyond the Mitchell brothers’ school of tough politics.
Now is the time to focus not what is tough, but what is effective. If given a choice between a punishment that will reduce the chances of somebody going out and doing the same thing to someone else, or a punishment that will encourage it, I know what I’d pick. It doesn’t really matter what the remedy is, as long as it works.
Ever increasing prison populations are a sign of failure, not success. In recognising that the criminal justice system is a blunt tool, and that lasting solutions to crime lie outside the confines of the prison cell, the government is taking a major step towards meaningful reform that will shape the way we respond to crime in the 21st century. I just hope they rely on empirical evidence on reducing crime to inform public opinion, and not the other way round.
23 Responses to “Progressives should rally around coalition’s better instincts on prison reform”
Anon E Mouse
Sophie Willett – Just to let you know what the judge said regarding that unfortunate wretch I mentioned to John:
The judge said: “The life of this girl changed irretrievably on 9 January last year. It changed for the worse. In her eyes, and [those] of her mother’s, her life was ruined. She has been left with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and scarring to 50 per cent of her body. It is doubtful what form her life will take and whether she can operate fully as a young woman.”
And in 3 years (minus any time on remand) an individual withe the capacity to behave that badly will be free on the streets to do the same again. That poor girl is ruined for life.
I really think the types of people you work for need to start showing a caring attitude in this matter and think about the innocents not the perpetrators…
Jose Aguiar
RT @leftfootfwd: https://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/progressives-should-rally-around-coalitions-better-instincts-on-prison-reform/
John
Anon Your example is clearly an extreme crime, and I would not suggest that a lighter sentence is appropriate – indeed I believe the sentence in those circumstances is ridiculously light. However, your argument is what is known as a “straw man fallacy”, in which an extreme and unrelated statement is made in an effort to prop up an argument that has no substance. Furthermore, what you are suggesting is exactly a life sentence – in the absence of some new approach to rehabilitation, we can predict that most offenders will return to their former activity, e.g. dealing drugs, stealing etc to feed what is frequently an addiction to some substance or another, because they have no prospect of employment, or indeed housing, having been released. Therefore, the only way that you can have what you claim you want is for the offender to remain in prison, because according to your argument, we should keep them in prison until they will not re-offend, which we know will not happen.
Furthermore, the facts are that sentences have got longer in the past 10 years, without reducing rates of reoffending. You say prison works, well it depends what you mean by works – we have roughly doubled the number of people in prison over the past 20 years, and crime has fallen by around 9%, most of which can be explained by economic factors. In that time, reoffending rates have been unaffected. As has been stated by another contributor, prison doesn’t stop crime, it merely delays it through denying the offender the opportunity ( although plenty of crime happens in prisons, usually involving some degree of violence). As to thinking about the victims, I would have thought that reducing the reoffending rate would be a positive thing for victims, in that there would be less of them. It’s about thinking through the consequences and dealing with reality, rather than what we might wish were true.
Anon E Mouse
John – My argument isn’t Strawman look at Wikipedia – actually yours is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman
You have misrepresented my position and made false claims yourself and the example I gave was on page 1 of google – it is not extreme John. You need to read the papers more or listen to the news.
Your last comment about the victims shows exactly how you do not show any concern for their plight, seemingly seeing them merely as statistics.
The group the author here works for clearly do not live in the world they constantly describe and should try walking a mile in other peoples shoes. I’d wager every one of the members of staff is educated to degree level and comes from a middle class background and not one has lived in a sink estate in an inner city. They do not know the real world because they are not affected by it.
Finally this fine blog purports to be evidence based so let’s see you answer this one directly. And the numbers illustrate it is far from an extreme example. By the last election, under the Labour government, 81,578 offenders were released early from prison:
16,334 of these offenders were serving sentences for violence against the person.
1,234 offenders were reported for alleged re-offending while on early release.
1,624 alleged offences were committed by offenders on early release.
125 offenders recalled for alleged re-offending or breaching the terms of their early release are still at large.
The numbers that prove my case and disprove yours are the last three, 2983 people possible crimes against the person. Not laptops stolen – acts of violence against human beings.
My position is that if all those 16,334 criminals were still in prison they could not have reoffended upon their release. That is an indisputable fact John.
You can care about statistics on a computer John to illustrate your position and I’ll continue to care about victims of crime. You may have a case about rehabilitation and we may have common ground there but this misguided article isn’t doing that and I’m with Labour on this one I’m afraid…
Tara Majumdar
Anon E Mouse
I understand your position and you are consistent in always putting victims at the heart of your responses, which I respect.
Do you suggest that all criminals should be in prison for longer/forever, including benefit cheats, insurance dodgers, drink drivers, rapists, murderers and pedophiles? Or do you think the sentencing framework for the more serious crimes should be scaled up to allow for longer sentences?