It's a ridiculous question of course, but one we all feel obliged to address ever since Michael Howard made it his slogan some 20 years ago for unashamed political ends. In many respects the mess we're in now is a direct result of criminal justice matters becoming a political football. The answer is not conducive to a simplistic soundbite response but if pressed I would have to say it's obvious and 'yes and no'.
Since the abolition of the death penalty, imprisonment for life is the only sanction available for the most serious offences of murder, rape or arson. To the extent that a persons liberty is removed, the requirement for punishment and public protection are both satisfied and therefore prison can be said to work. However, virtually all life sentence prisoners will be released into the community at some stage and it has to be recognised that prison almost certainly damages everyone. This was confirmed recently by the governor of HMP High Down during the BBC Newsnight programme.
One of the reasons why many lifers go way past their tariff before release is that they've been affected adversely by their incarceration, in the most serious cases leading to a condition commonly referred to as institutionalisation. In order to try and deal with this takes time and great care and is not always successful. At best re-integration into society is difficult for this group as it will invariably involve constructing an entirely new life as much if not all of their former life will have either been destroyed or disappeared. In this regard prison can be said to have failed.
In relation to long and medium term determinate sentences imposed for serious offences, prison again satisfies the dual requirements of punishment and public protection. There is less danger of institutionalisation and with the possibility of gaining early release on Parole Licence, every incentive to take part in programmes and courses that might address offending behaviour and possibly improve employability upon release. However, such long term sentences can have a very negative affect on relationships with many failing and the difficulty of gaining employment from a long prison sentence cannot be over estimated. In a sense, whether in these cases prison can be said to have 'worked' or not will depend on how each prisoner responded to the sentence. For some it will prove to be the turning point in their life and they do not return. For others, they become more determined not to get caught next time and will have picked up lots of tips on better execution and avoidance of detection.
Where prison can be said to almost certainly fail is in relation to short sentences. Even so for some the so called 'short, sharp shock' might work, but for the majority it might have the opposite effect and they come to realise that prison is not that bad, in fact it can serve as a welcome respite from the chaotic drug and alcohol-fuelled world of unemployment and misery outside. The trouble is that they're typically not in long enough to take part in programmes or courses and if serving less than 12 months, will not be under any statutory supervision upon release. However, their stay in prison might just be long enough so that they lose their accommodation, any employment, relationships and community support for things like drug treatment and regaining any combination of these upon release is not easy.
Not surprising then that the re-offending rates for this group is extremely high. In essence, any short term benefit that society might derive from having a 'rest' from such offenders, is more than outweighed by them being rapidly returned in a worse state than they went in. Not a very intelligent way for society to tackle this group in my view. Nor is it to build more prisons and fill them with yet more short term prisoners. Ken Clarke is definitely on the right track and Michael Howard and the rest of the bleating right wing will have to get used to the idea that a financial recession has finally brought some commonsense to prevail. We are fast approaching the start of a new year and it would be my earnest wish that the whole pointless, juvenile argument about whether prison works or not is put to rest. Thankyou.
I’m going to have a blast back at your post which I hope you don’t mind. Unsurprisingly ( by my career choice) I am a firm believer that prison does work ( does more good than harm) and that as a sentence policy is under used.
ReplyDeleteFirst though, common ground. We both think that serious violent offenders should spend a long time in prison. We both disagree with the death penalty. We both think that sending a twelve year old shoplifter to Feltham for two years might be a bit excessive. We both think that the mentally ill should be in secure hospitals and not dumped on the prison service like they are now.
The political football that is sentencing
You are correct in stating that until about the mid 1980’s crime was not a political issue. If you look at manifestos from the sixties and seventies you will find little about the police, prisons and sentencing. Citizens just assumed that these things would be ok, like they always had been historically in the UK. But something went wrong. From the mid fifties onwards crime rose. It carried on in the sixties and rose at a faster rate in the seventies. It exploded in the eighties peaking off in the early nineties. The fifties, sixties and seventies were periods of economic growth and declining inequality, but still crime rose. The explanation why is quite complicated, but for me one of the strongest (although not only ) correlation is the declining use of prison as a sentence. For instance one in three convicted of robbery in 1950 were sent to prison, in 1996 it was one in twenty. The period saw the introduction of suspended sentences, concurrent sentences and the ‘TIC’ ( taken into consideration). The prison population may have risen but this was simply because there was more crime and criminals to sentence.
The late eighties were without a doubt the worse in British sentencing history. Douglas Hurd stated that ‘prison makes bad people worse’, the government reduced the prison population by 10% and masses of criminals guilty of serious and repeat offences were diverted from prison into the ‘group therapy session’ offered by probation services. The 1991 CJA basically banned judges from taking into account previous convictions. All this culminated in the highest rise in crime ever seen in the UK. Michael Howard gave his speech at the top of this peak. Crime was now a political issue as it affected so many more than it had done previously.
ReplyDeleteSo what did Howard do to make himself such a hate figure of the left? Well he got rid of the 1991 CJA , once again allowing judges to take into account offending history. Noticeably no one has seriously challenged this decision again. Oh and he said that criminals convicted of three separate domestic burglaries should go to prison. He also said taht there being no space in prison should never be a factor in sentencing decisions. If the judge wanted to send someone to prison the government should provided the space. Not the other way round. Not really revolutionary in my point of view. But by no great coincidence crime fell and continued to do so under new labour.
So in conclusion to that part , thank god crime is a political football or we would all be dealing with a lot more crime. The political system held to account the failed liberal experiments of the sixties seventies and eighties and I hope it continues to do so for the future. Sentencing is no place to win a seat in heaven. Real people’s lives are affected.
Prison vs community sentences
Prison is also alot cheaper when you take into account the cost inflicted on other agencies by not sending someone to prison. Prison does housing, health , education , law and order and social security all under one roof which is why it ‘ costs the same as eton’. Alos when you see the costs incurred by the police chasing about prolific offenders who should be prison and dealing with their victims you will soon see prison as a bargin.
ReplyDeleteIn short , prison is one of many appropriate sentences the courts can give. I support a wide spectrum of sentences including community service, probation and prison, but I believe that probation and community sentences are used when they should not be and that prison has a greater role to play in the future.
Menatlliy ill = Hospital
Serious and violent= Prison
Little offending history and very minor offences= Probation /community sentence.
Drug offender= Discuss another time
The rest ( prolific property offenders) = More in prison than currently are.
Regards , London PC.
Sorry , swap the third and fourth block round!
ReplyDeleteI know the reoffending rate of short prison sentences is high, but sentencing is NOT JUST ABOUT REHABILITATION. Rehabilitation is one of many objectives, deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, lowering crime. Prison satisfies all the other objectives better than community service. The high reoffending rate of prison and the ‘quite high’ reoffending rate of community service is also easily explained by the fact that most prisoners have tried and failed at community sentences. The worst offender even for petty crime goes to prison because they will not comply with anything else. I have also never seen any evidence that prison makes offenders worse.
ReplyDeleteI agree that short prison sentences don’t give the prison staffs time to try to help criminals, but the solution to this is surely a longer sentence if appropriate.
The fact that community sentences offer rehabilitation within society flies in the face of what criminologists believe causes crime, society. If we are to believe that the criminals upbringing , environment , relationships , economic situation make them criminals what chance have we of rehabilitating them within that system? In simple terms, regardless of what the court says , its the same estate , the same chaos , the same social group , the same dealer and eventually the same crime. We need not worry about breaking existing relationships because these , whatever there merit , have all failed to make a law abiding citizen. Prison offers a break, a fresh start, new people, a move from their estate. And crucially it offers some sort of routine to a life full of chaos. Its why many ex cons speak quite fondly of their time in prison. Prison can actually offer more for rehabilitation than community service for the average criminal.
London PC - many thanks for such a comprehensive response - I'm not at all sure how to move blocks of text yet and didn't want to risk losing any.
ReplyDeleteYour piece serves to highlight that this is a complicated subject not at all conducive to short soundbite, 'magic bullet' solutions, but does deserve some serious discussion by people other than academics. As you indicate there is much we can agree about, but also some differences as we obviously inhabit different bits of the CJS.
As a PO I would say that the huge growth in crime through the 80's was fuelled largely by drugs and it remains a problem to which we have no effective response. I look forward to your comments about drugs some other time. I've written a couple of posts about it already.
In a sense it would perhaps really only be beneficial if we were able to discuss specific cases - which we can't of course - but generally speaking my response would be that people are damaged early on and due to family and peer influences just drift into criminal activity. We, society, the govt etc have to get back to those liberal ideas of the past and try and break that cycle - it can be done and the Probation Service are experts if given the resources and like the police, freed from bureaucracy.
You might be interested in the next post about the USA and their experience.
Cheers and thanks again for taking the trouble,
Jim
i think rapist child sex offenders sex offenders pedophiles burgulers violent dangerous people like that should go a prison and any other offender that aint really an offender but a plum to him self 4 the stupid mistakes that he or she makes should be helped with reabilitation counsalling .theres a lot of factors about why some people make silly little mistakes the police can tend to arrest people and make a big thing out of nothink cuz they wana get an extra badge on the shoulder
ReplyDeleteI think the whole criminal justice system needs to be reformed both for the victims and prisoners, imprisonment is becoming the easy option of punishment, yes don’t get me wrong malicious people who enjoy committing horrible crimes should defiantly be punished but also I think any person committing a crime may be in need of some sort of help, either, finical, mental, relationships, family, drug treatment, jobs……..
ReplyDeletea person doesn’t not ultimately choose to commit a crime but from surveys most people who do either have an issue listed above not mentioning the people who have been in care, dropped out of school or addicted to drugs, these issues are not being met.
as for the officer who commented above im very shocked you think the prison does work, in rare cases yes it does, but often prison causes more harm than good, many leave prison wanting to go back in, rehabilitation isn’t working prison causes many underling issues such as discrimination in employment, family/ relationship issue, mental health issues which is a massive factor in and when offenders has left prison …. How can this be working for the offender???
I think you've made an excellent case for a well trained and resourced professional Probation Service! In effect we always have been the agency of the state given the job of trying to repair damage already done to people and charged with attempting to rectify deficits with education, health, employment etc etc .
ReplyDeleteYes don’t get me wrong there is a lot of support offered whilst incarcerated but once realised I personally don’t think there’s enough to carry on normally. I am studying criminology at university and I’m hopefully looking to join the prison services but I’m also interested having some experience with yot and probation. I just dont understand if prison is a deterrent of crime why is it used so much, surly making somebody "institutionalised" will continue to see prisoners reoffending. thank for replying. you sound like you have helped people over the many years during your time in this field, we need more people like you!
ReplyDeletejust wondering could you tell me what the problems are with the sentencing issues and sentencing guidelines and their main variables... please would be much appreciated!
ReplyDelete