Well, here it is then. We can only hope the new government has the bottle to get a grip on this issue and 'lean into' the problem and not go by what focus groups say. We also hope it presages a sensible review into the Probation Service that was promised in the Labour manifesto.
Landmark Sentencing Review launched to end prison crisis
Public safety will be at the heart of an independent review into sentencing, as the government pledges to end the crisis in our prisons.
- review into sentencing launched to end prison crisis and ensure no government forced into emergency release of prisoners again
- the first principle of the Review will be to protect the public and make sure prisons punish serious offenders
- this forms part of the government’s pledge to always have the prison places needed to lock up the most dangerous offenders, alongside its commitment to build 14,000 prison spaces
- review will also look at tough alternatives to custody
Chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke, the review will make sure the most serious offenders can be sent to prison to protect the public, and that the country always has the space needed to keep dangerous criminals locked up.
Launched on the day more prisoners will be leaving jail under an emergency release scheme due to chronic overcrowding, the review will make sure no government is ever placed in this position again.
The prison population has roughly doubled in the last 30 years - but in the last 14 of those years, just 500 places were added to the country’s stock of jail cells.
The government has committed to creating 14,000 extra prison places and outlining a 10-year capacity strategy later this year. Alongside this, the Sentencing Review will follow 3 core principles to ensure a sustainable justice system:
Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, said:
Independent Reviewer David Gauke said:
In Summer 2024, the capacity pressures on the prison system brought it dangerously close to total collapse. On taking office, the new government was forced to announce emergency measures that reduced the custodial term of some standard determinate sentences from 50 percent to 40 percent of a sentence.
This review of sentencing is tasked with a comprehensive re-evaluation of our sentencing framework. Its goal is to ensure we are never again in a position where the country has more prisoners than prison places, and the government is forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners.
To do so, the review will be guided by 3 principles:
Sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary and the review will therefore not look at sentencing in individual cases or the role of the judiciary.
The review will provide long term solutions for our justice system by:
How to fix the prisons crisis
The political bidding war over tougher sentences must end.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Perhaps a Godfather quotation is not entirely appropriate for the subject matter but, more than five years after leaving the Ministry of Justice I am back – rather to my surprise – chairing an independent review of sentencing policy.
It is a privilege to serve, not least because such a review is timely and necessary. It is timely because we face an immediate crisis in prison capacity. The current government inherited a situation in which we were very close to running out of places and had no choice but to take emergency measures and release prisoners early. Anyone in office over the summer would have done the same. But these emergency measures, including further releases today, only provided a brief respite. Demand for prison places is currently growing at 4,500 a year, much faster than the supply of places. This means that unless strategic measures are taken, we will repeatedly risk running out of places.
This capacity issue highlights why it is necessary to look more fundamentally at sentencing policy. We now incarcerate more people per head than any other western European country. Since 1993, the prison population of England and Wales has doubled, even as crime has consistently fallen (a fall, by the way, that can be seen in countries that have not increased their prison population). The reason for the increase in the prison population is clear. We sentence more people to prison and we sentence them for longer than we used to do.
Prison, of course, should continue to be a vital part of our criminal justice system. There are many circumstances in which it is the right form of punishment and the best way of protecting the public. But the large majority of prisoners will be released at some point and our very high reoffending rates suggest that our overcrowded prisons are not successful in rehabilitating offenders. We need to look at ways in which sentencing policy can better contribute to reducing reoffending and, as a consequence, crime.
There are some who will argue that we should build our way out of our prison capacity issues. But we cannot simply dismiss the reality that we will run out of capacity long before any new prisons can be built. And even if we do, there is a question of cost. On current projections, just to keep up with the growth in prison numbers, we would have to build three large prisons a year at a total cost of £2.3bn. Then there are the staffing, maintenance and other ongoing costs, which mean that it costs the taxpayer £52,000 per prisoner. Maintaining the current approach is, in effect, a significant and unfunded spending commitment at a time when tough decisions must be made about the public finances.
We really ought to be able to do better than an expensive system that fails to rehabilitate offenders. But how to do so?
The Sentencing Review Panel is, of course, only at the beginning of its process and there are many aspects of sentencing policy we will want to review but let me highlight three aspects here.
The first is short sentences. As justice secretary, I argued that short prison sentences did more harm than good. The evidence at the time supported this contention but I want to revisit it and, in particular, look at how we can more effectively deal with the most prolific offenders.
Whatever we do with short sentences, however, will not solve the capacity issue when the prison population is increasingly made up of those serving four years or more, very often considerably more. Prisoners, like everyone else, respond to incentives and other jurisdictions have done more than us to reward good behaviour. Texas, for example, introduced a new approach which results in prisoners who complete their programmes, behave well and show evidence of rehabilitation spending less time in jail. The (admittedly very high) Texan prison population has fallen, as has its crime rate. So a second area of interest is whether we could develop an incentives policy appropriate for our system.
The third area is technology. Specifically, does it provide an opportunity to punish, protect society and rehabilitate offenders outside of prison in a way that is much more effective than has previously been possible? Electronic tagging, for example, is increasingly used but we need to understand whether more could be done. The same can be said of drink and drug monitoring. We need to understand the potential for current and future technologies to keep offenders out of prison in the first place, or to safely release some prisoners at an earlier stage than is currently the case. There may well be lessons to be learned from other jurisdictions to ensure that sentencing policy is properly able to exploit these technologies.
For the last 30 years, there has been a sentencing bidding war between the political parties seeking to compete to be seen as the toughest on crime by promising ever-longer prison sentences. Rightly, the public expects criminality to be punished and prison is often viewed as the only effective means of punishment. But the capacity crisis in our prisons has meant that – at the very least – we have no choice but to pause the increase in the prison population. It is also sensible that we now look more broadly at the evidence and ask whether sentencing policy should be more fundamentally reformed. By next spring, we should have the answer.
Launched on the day more prisoners will be leaving jail under an emergency release scheme due to chronic overcrowding, the review will make sure no government is ever placed in this position again.
The prison population has roughly doubled in the last 30 years - but in the last 14 of those years, just 500 places were added to the country’s stock of jail cells.
The government has committed to creating 14,000 extra prison places and outlining a 10-year capacity strategy later this year. Alongside this, the Sentencing Review will follow 3 core principles to ensure a sustainable justice system:
- make sure prison sentences punish serious offenders and protect the public, and there is always the space in prison for the most dangerous offenders
- look at what more can be done to encourage offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime, and keep the public safe by reducing reoffending
- explore tougher punishments outside of prison to make sure these sentences cut crime while making the best use of taxpayers’ money
Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, said:
"This government inherited prisons in crisis, within days of collapse. This review, along with our prison building programme, will ensure we never again have more prisoners than prison spaces. I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use. And that those prisoners who earn the right to turn their lives around should be encouraged to do so. The Sentencing Review will make sure prison and punishment work - and that there is always a cell waiting for dangerous offenders."The review will examine the tough alternatives to custody, such as using technology to place criminals in a ‘prison outside prison’ and forcing offenders to do hard work in the community that gives back to society. In developing their recommendations, the independent chair and panel will look at evidence in this country and also from overseas jurisdictions, such as the US, to explore alternative approaches to criminal justice.
Independent Reviewer David Gauke said:
"Clearly, our prisons are not working. The prison population is increasing by around 4,500 every year, and nearly 90% of those sentenced to custody are reoffenders. This review will explore what punishment and rehabilitation should look like in the 21st century, and how we can move our justice system out of crisis and towards a long-term, sustainable future."
--oo00oo--
Terms of reference:-
Independent Sentencing Review 2024 to 2025 – Terms of Reference:In Summer 2024, the capacity pressures on the prison system brought it dangerously close to total collapse. On taking office, the new government was forced to announce emergency measures that reduced the custodial term of some standard determinate sentences from 50 percent to 40 percent of a sentence.
This review of sentencing is tasked with a comprehensive re-evaluation of our sentencing framework. Its goal is to ensure we are never again in a position where the country has more prisoners than prison places, and the government is forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners.
To do so, the review will be guided by 3 principles:
- firstly, sentences must punish offenders and protect the public - there must always be space in prison for the most dangerous offenders
- secondly, sentences must encourage offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime, cutting crime by reducing reoffending
- thirdly, we must expand and make greater use of punishment outside of prison
Sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary and the review will therefore not look at sentencing in individual cases or the role of the judiciary.
The review will provide long term solutions for our justice system by:
- examining the use and composition of non-custodial sentences, including robust community alternatives to prison and the use of fines
- looking at the role of incentives in sentence management and the powers of the probation service in the administration of sentences in the community
- looking at the use and impact of short custodial sentences
- reviewing the framework around longer custodial sentences, including the use of minimum sentences, and the range of sentences and maximum penalties available for different offences
- looking at the administration of sentences, including the point at which offenders are released from prison, how long they are supervised in the community on licence, recall to prison, and how technology can support this
- considering whether the sentencing framework should be amended to take into account the specific needs or vulnerabilities of specific cohorts, such as young adult offenders, older offenders, and women
- considering the approach to sentencing in cases of prolific offenders
- considering specifically sentencing for offences primarily committed against women and girls
- the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence or the administration of it
- the use of remand
- the youth sentencing framework
- wholesale reform of the murder sentencing framework: Whilst the review may consider the impact of sentencing for murder on the wider sentencing framework, the department is considering wholesale reform of homicide law and sentencing separately
- out of court resolutions
--oo00oo--
David Gauke writing in the New Statesman:-
How to fix the prisons crisis
The political bidding war over tougher sentences must end.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Perhaps a Godfather quotation is not entirely appropriate for the subject matter but, more than five years after leaving the Ministry of Justice I am back – rather to my surprise – chairing an independent review of sentencing policy.
It is a privilege to serve, not least because such a review is timely and necessary. It is timely because we face an immediate crisis in prison capacity. The current government inherited a situation in which we were very close to running out of places and had no choice but to take emergency measures and release prisoners early. Anyone in office over the summer would have done the same. But these emergency measures, including further releases today, only provided a brief respite. Demand for prison places is currently growing at 4,500 a year, much faster than the supply of places. This means that unless strategic measures are taken, we will repeatedly risk running out of places.
This capacity issue highlights why it is necessary to look more fundamentally at sentencing policy. We now incarcerate more people per head than any other western European country. Since 1993, the prison population of England and Wales has doubled, even as crime has consistently fallen (a fall, by the way, that can be seen in countries that have not increased their prison population). The reason for the increase in the prison population is clear. We sentence more people to prison and we sentence them for longer than we used to do.
Prison, of course, should continue to be a vital part of our criminal justice system. There are many circumstances in which it is the right form of punishment and the best way of protecting the public. But the large majority of prisoners will be released at some point and our very high reoffending rates suggest that our overcrowded prisons are not successful in rehabilitating offenders. We need to look at ways in which sentencing policy can better contribute to reducing reoffending and, as a consequence, crime.
There are some who will argue that we should build our way out of our prison capacity issues. But we cannot simply dismiss the reality that we will run out of capacity long before any new prisons can be built. And even if we do, there is a question of cost. On current projections, just to keep up with the growth in prison numbers, we would have to build three large prisons a year at a total cost of £2.3bn. Then there are the staffing, maintenance and other ongoing costs, which mean that it costs the taxpayer £52,000 per prisoner. Maintaining the current approach is, in effect, a significant and unfunded spending commitment at a time when tough decisions must be made about the public finances.
We really ought to be able to do better than an expensive system that fails to rehabilitate offenders. But how to do so?
The Sentencing Review Panel is, of course, only at the beginning of its process and there are many aspects of sentencing policy we will want to review but let me highlight three aspects here.
The first is short sentences. As justice secretary, I argued that short prison sentences did more harm than good. The evidence at the time supported this contention but I want to revisit it and, in particular, look at how we can more effectively deal with the most prolific offenders.
Whatever we do with short sentences, however, will not solve the capacity issue when the prison population is increasingly made up of those serving four years or more, very often considerably more. Prisoners, like everyone else, respond to incentives and other jurisdictions have done more than us to reward good behaviour. Texas, for example, introduced a new approach which results in prisoners who complete their programmes, behave well and show evidence of rehabilitation spending less time in jail. The (admittedly very high) Texan prison population has fallen, as has its crime rate. So a second area of interest is whether we could develop an incentives policy appropriate for our system.
The third area is technology. Specifically, does it provide an opportunity to punish, protect society and rehabilitate offenders outside of prison in a way that is much more effective than has previously been possible? Electronic tagging, for example, is increasingly used but we need to understand whether more could be done. The same can be said of drink and drug monitoring. We need to understand the potential for current and future technologies to keep offenders out of prison in the first place, or to safely release some prisoners at an earlier stage than is currently the case. There may well be lessons to be learned from other jurisdictions to ensure that sentencing policy is properly able to exploit these technologies.
For the last 30 years, there has been a sentencing bidding war between the political parties seeking to compete to be seen as the toughest on crime by promising ever-longer prison sentences. Rightly, the public expects criminality to be punished and prison is often viewed as the only effective means of punishment. But the capacity crisis in our prisons has meant that – at the very least – we have no choice but to pause the increase in the prison population. It is also sensible that we now look more broadly at the evidence and ask whether sentencing policy should be more fundamentally reformed. By next spring, we should have the answer.
David Gauke
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