Equality Before the Law?

I'm grateful to a reader for pointing me in the direction of the following little-noticed story concerning one of this blog's mainstays, Serco. In another piece of extraordinary MoJ news management timing, only the day after both Serco and fellow pariah G4S were shamed into announcing their withdrawal from the TR omnishambles bidding process for probation, Serco was rewarded with another lucrative 25 year prison contract in London. Here's a piece in Business Week:-

Serco Group Plc (SRP) won a 120 million-pound ($200 million) contract extension to operate a London prison, a day after the U.K. services provider settled its bill for incorrect invoicing in a Ministry of Justice inquiry. Serco has managed the HMP Thameside prison in East London’s Plumstead district since it opened in March 2012 under a 415 million-pound, 26 1/2-year order. The extension will run for 22 years and includes a 36 million-pound, 18-month construction phase, Serco said in a statement.

“We are delighted to have been awarded this contract expansion to extend the size of the prison at Thameside which will support the MoJ in its program to modernize the U.K. prison estate,” said James Thorburn, Serco’s managing director for home affairs.

Serco rose 6.2 percent yesterday after the company reached a settlement with the U.K. government over claims it overcharged for the electronic tagging of prisoners. Shares were down 0.8 percent at 472.90 pounds as of 1:16 p.m. London time.

The Hook, England-based company agreed to pay 68.5 million pounds to settle the inquiry that has caused the resignation of its chief executive officer and shaved 30 percent off its share price since July. Serco’s settlement and the absence of additional issues are “positive” steps in rebuilding the company’s credibility and “significantly” shrinks the risk of it being barred from future U.K. government work, UBS said in a note today.

So yet again we have a clear example of the disparity between the way corporations are treated who break the law, and individuals. I notice that this theme of 'rehabilitation' and inequality before the law was explored recently in a comment piece over on the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies website:-

‘Rehabilitation’ is difficult to define when applied to criminal justice. Re-integration, re-settlement or re-entry are often used instead of re-habilitation. Yet all these terms imply that those to be ‘re-habilitated’/’re-integrated’/‘re-settled’ or ‘re-stored’ previously occupied a social state or status to which it is desirable they should return. Not so. Most criminal prisoners have, prior to their imprisonment, usually been so economically and/or socially disadvantaged that they have nothing to which they can be advantageously rehabilitated. They are returned to their place in society, but from that disadvantaged place they are repeatedly returned to prison. 

Rehabilitation programmes have tended to be reserved for poorer prisoners found guilty of crimes against property and for prisoners released after serving long sentences for non-business–related crimes. When poorer citizens break the law their needs are not viewed as deserving of rehabilitative measures by the state, but as risk factors predictive of future lawbreaking. By contrast, many white collar and corporate criminals are too embedded in, and/or too geographically dislocated from, local jurisdictions for prosecution to be possible. When successful prosecution occurs, rehabilitative measures aimed at changing greedy corporate mindsets are not seen as being necessary, desirable or possible. 

Rehabilitation is not seen as being necessary for corporate and other white collar criminals because their punishments seldom de-habilitate them in either material or status terms. Nor is rehabilitation considered to be desirable in terms of turning corporate offenders away from wrongdoing. Corporate lawbreaking is such a celebration of capitalist values that, on those infrequent occasions when offenders are brought to trial, they, unlike poorer criminals, are seldom assessed as criminals whose thinking requires changing. Governments are reluctant to see corporate criminals in court through fear that publicity will fuel calls for more corporate regulation, a destabilising of markets or an exodus of corporate capital to more sympathetic jurisdictions. Finally, rehabilitation is not seen as possible because corporate and other powerful criminals have such access to world-wide communications, global travel and hospitality that bringing them to trial is physically impossible. 

One way to stop thinking of criminal justice as being primarily about the crimes of the poor, might be to rethink crime and its regulation within a new social justice applicable to all classes: a justice seeking pay-back from lawbreakers from all classes to the state in proportion both to the harms committed and the ability to pay; and payback from the state to all those - whether law abiding or law breaking - whom it has failed materially and culturally in terms of ensuring satisfaction of their minimum needs. Outside of an inclusive justice based on equality before the law, rehabilitation policy has no relevance to the richest and most powerful criminals who pose the deadliest risks both locally and globally, and very little relevance to all those other prisoners who have never had anything to be rehabilitated to. 

Just as an aside to the issue of disparity is the seeming power the likes of the Daily Mail and 'public opinion' can have. Following Nigella Lawson's recent admission, whilst giving evidence on oath, of drug taking in the past, the police understandably announced that no further action was likely, as reported on the BBC website:-

TV cook Nigella Lawson will not face an investigation over claims she took cocaine, police have said.

Scotland Yard said it would not look into the allegations at this stage but would review the decision if new evidence came to light. Giving evidence at the trial of two former personal assistants, Ms Lawson said she had previously taken the drug. Sisters Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo were cleared of defrauding Ms Lawson and her former husband Charles Saatchi.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Allegations that one of the (alleged) victims was involved in taking Class A drugs have been made during the course of this trial. "At this stage the Metropolitan Police will not be investigating these allegations. Should any evidence, and that includes material from the trial, that could be investigated come to light this decision will be reviewed."

But only a day later it seems that the decision has been reversed by someone, as reported on the BBC website:-

Police are to review TV cook Nigella Lawson's admission as a witness in a court case that she took cocaine.

Scotland Yard had said it would not take action but would review the decision if new evidence came to light. However, in a further statement the Met said a specialist team would "examine all the evidence emerging". Giving evidence at the trial of two former personal assistants, Ms Lawson said she had taken the drug, but was not a habitual user.

This change of mind is somewhat surprising because we all know it's not the taking of an illegal substance that constitutes an offence, but rather the possession beforehand that does.

Having said that though, we must have all come across the very unhappy situation where a person arrested on suspicion of shoplifting proves positive for opiates, thus triggering a mandatory drug treatment appointment, but subsequently the original theft allegation is withdrawn and they then stand to be punished for failing to attend the drug treatment appointment. Quite wrong and bizarre.