Sentencing Review 3

Mr Jones has spoken:- 

A statement from HM Chief Inspector of Probation, on the launch of an Independent Review of Sentencing

Last week the Lord Chancellor announced an Independent Review of Sentencing, which will be chaired by former Lord Chancellor, the Rt Hon David Gauke, and supported by a panel including representatives from the judiciary and expertise from across the justice system.

I believe this review represents a unique opportunity to deliver a more effective system, resulting in better use of resources, lower reoffending rates, fewer victims and safer communities.

The decisions HM Inspectorate of Probation stands ready to support this work, using our findings to highlight options for the future of probation, and its consequential impact on prisons, and I have shared my initial thoughts, as detailed below. 

• Use of community orders and sentence lengths 
• Increasing the use of deferred sentences 
• Length of licence periods
• Recalls 
• Better support in the community

Use of community orders and sentence lengths:

I have no hesitation in arguing that serious, violent or sexual offenders should receive custodial sentences which are long enough to punish, deter, and protect the public. However, whilst prison must be there for the most serious offences, based on the Ministry’s published evidence there is a compelling case to move less serious cases from prison into the community. There, a better resourced, more stable probation service, working closely with local partnerships, would reduce reoffending, keep communities safer, and prevent future victims. Far from being soft on crime, such a move is smarter and demonstrably more effective. This approach would also enable our prisons to become safer places, where successful rehabilitation can become the expectation, rather than the exception.

The shift in numbers over the last decade is stark. In 2012 c150,000 people received a community sentence, and it was the mainstay of the work of probation. By 2023 that number had more than halved to c71,000. Over the same period the growth in post-sentence supervision has meant that the probation service is spending a far greater proportion of its resources preparing prisoners for release and supervising and enforcing licence conditions. C137,000 people are currently subject to pre or post release supervision. This is in spite of the fact that we know that well-delivered community sentences may be more effective at getting to the root of the causes of crime and reducing reoffending.

Given the extent of the shift, a new strategy is now needed to reinvigorate and rebuild sentencer and public confidence in community sentences. Whilst undoubtedly punitive, short custodial sentences do little to achieve rehabilitation and creating a statutory presumption against their use could reduce reoffending. In youth justice there is a minimum four-month threshold for a Detention Training Order which works effectively.

I note the recent Judicial Critique on sentence inflation and believe that through a non-partisan review of the evidence it may be possible to reverse the inexorable, expensive and, in reality, ineffective increases in sentence lengths we have seen over the last three decades. Such a move would enable the Government to better refocus the finite resources available to reduce reoffending, ensure rehabilitation in our prisons, and better support intervention and supervision in the community on licence.

Increasing the use of deferred sentences:

Many of those that end up in contact with the criminal justice systems are there because of their underlying issues. People in prison are more likely to have: 

• spent a childhood in care; 
• experienced abuse as a child; 
• failed to have gained qualifications, or been excluded from school; 
• been unemployed or homeless; 
• suffered depression or other mental health issues; used class A drugs or misused alcohol.

A short time in prison will fix none of those underlying issues, nor will a short period on licence; feeding the revolving door of reoffending.

In France, some custodial sentences are not served immediately. Judges who believe custody is merited can instead provide a window for an individual who has committed a crime to turn their lives around before they invoke a prison sentence. People have an incentive to engage and receive credit where that opportunity is taken. The sentencing review might consider the case for a similar approach involving deferred sentencing for those with entrenched underlying issues. Local partnerships, led by probation, could work to deliver better provision, tackling these challenges which are cross-cutting local and central Government. For less serious offences it may be possible to deliver similar outcomes through use of conditional cautioning (with requirements that must be fulfilled).

Length of licence periods:

Whilst we can make better use of our prisons, there will always be people whose offences are so serious that detention is the only answer. All prisoners must be released when they have served the relevant part of their sentence, or (for the most serious cases) when they are no longer judged a risk to the public. At that point they need to be supervised for long enough to ensure the public are protected, but there is a risk that excessive licence periods can be a sword of Damocles, which do not allow people on probation to move on with their lives.

As sentences have grown longer, so has the number of people being supervised by the probation service. Nearly 60% of the service’s caseload are people being prepared for release or being managed in the community. This has been a seismic shift of focus. As a result, there is a danger the probation service becomes focused on supervision and ensuring compliance with rules rather than seeking to turn lives around. It would be reasonable to consider pruning that caseload. Until 2014, those serving less than twelve months in custody were not supervised by the probation service at all, nor could they be recalled to custody.

The sentencing review could usefully consider shortening those licence periods to give the probation service more time and space to better manage the cases where its supervision can make the most difference. Before the Criminal Justice Act 2003 there were periods where people on probation were not supervised on licence, but would instead face a tougher sentence if they reoffended in their “at risk” period. Such changes would also limit recall numbers.

Recalls:

Whilst, for understandable reasons, there has been a focus on the remand population which has been driven up in recent years by the Crown Court backlog; the fastest growing part of the population over the last two decades has been the recall population. This has been driven by sentencing changes including the now abolished IPP sentence, and an increase in the number of people supervised and subject to recall.

In the year 2000, the recall population was under 1,000 (even then a record high). By 2010, as a result of sentencing changes including growing licence periods and a reduction in judicial oversight of recall, it had increased to over 5,000. According to the last published figure the recall population now stands at 12,199 which equates to 14% of the total prison population. Recent increases have been driven by the extension of supervision to short sentences, and the underlying fear of serious further offending. According to official figures over 2,000 prisoners are recalled to prison every month. Whilst it is important that licence conditions are enforced, it is unclear to me what this scale of recall is achieving.

Recall can be a vital tool to protect the public when there are signs that a person on probation’s risk has increased. I am certain that a timely, well-judged recall keeps the public safer – particularly where there is high risk (as seen in our independent reviews of cases like McSweeney and Bendall). However, it may not always be necessary. Despite the twelve-fold rise in the recall population, there is little to indicate that the overall rate of serious further offending has changed significantly over the period. In 2009-10 there were 273 convicted SFOs. In the latest year for which figures are available (2021-22) there were 288. The number of SFOs remains broadly stable at close to 300.

According to the publishes figures on reasons for recall, the majority of recalls are for non-compliance (39 per cent), failing to keep in touch (17 per cent), failing to reside (13 per cent), or problems with drugs and alcohol (4 per cent). These figures support my assessment that recalls are inexorably linked with pressure on the probation service, a lack of confidence, and a lack of adequate support in the community.

I would fully support moves to draw upon international evidence to reimagine the way in which recall is used. In most common law countries (including Scotland, Canada and New Zealand) there is judicial oversight by the courts, or the Parole Board, of executive use of recall. It is noteworthy that the recall population started to rise steeply following the removal of judicial oversight of recall in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Under Canadian law, there is a statutory requirement that even if a prisoner’s recall is endorsed by the Canadian Parole Board, a new automatic release date is calculated to avoid a situation where prisonersare released with no supervision by probation. They argue this keeps the public safer, and I am minded to agree.

Better support in the community:

We know from the evidence that having a place to live, the opportunity for employment, help with drugs, alcohol or mental health problems, and support in the community, are key to reducing reoffending. However, the unsustainable pressures on prisons, probation and local services make this extremely difficult to achieve. The high rates of recall and reoffending we see at present demonstrate that there is much more to do to improve preparedness for release. I am hoping that we will identify some helpful lessons through our planned Approved Premises inspection programme which is due to commence in 2025, and our upcoming national inspection of the Probation Service.

In recent inspections HM Inspectorate of Probation have found that recall is often the result of a lack of support in the community. In essence a lack of help with drugs, alcohol, mental health, and accommodation, combined with probation officers being under too much pressure to spot early warning signs, precipitates a “crisis” that results in recall. Avoiding that crisis by earlier action would represent a significantly better use of resources. Although unpalatable, it may be necessary to move a proportion of offender managers in custody to better manage people in the community.

Based on the annual cost of a prison place, the 12,000 recall population currently costs the taxpayer c£600m a year. I am certain that, through prudent change, that number could be reduced and some of those resources could be reinvested to better manage people in the community. It is noteworthy that Youth Justice Services tend to achieve better results because they have strong statutory partnerships and local leadership to get to the heart of the reasons children offend. Within a national organisation it should still be possible to provide delegated local budgets which empower local probation leaders to work with local partners to design and develop services that are capable of breaking the destructive cycle of reoffending.

It's All Been Said Before

In amongst all the recent nonsense being talked about lie-detectors, I note the right-leaning Reform think tank has taken the opportunity afforded by a new right-leaning Tory government to say something about our failing prison system. 

Of particular interest to us in probation is what they have to say regarding the numbers of people we are sending to prison and why it would be sensible to reduce this. Of course it's all been said many times before and likely to fall on deaf right-wing ears, but lets give it a look anyway:-

The Prison System 

Priorities for Investment

About 

Reform is established as the leading Westminster think tank for public service reform. We are dedicated to achieving better and smarter public services. Our mission is to set out ideas that will improve public services for all and deliver value for money. We work on core sectors such as health and social care, education, home affairs and justice, and work and pensions. Our work also covers issues that cut across these sectors, including public service design and delivery and digital public services. We are determinedly independent and strictly non-party in our approach. Reform is a registered charity, the Reform Research Trust, charity no.1103739. This publication is the property of the Reform Research Trust. The arguments and any errors that remain are the authors’ and the authors’ alone. 

About Reform Policy 

Reform Policy are in-depth research reports focusing on a specific challenge facing public services. They provide a detailed and evidence-based examination of the issues and put forward implementable recommendations to government, public sector bodies and other key stakeholders to help deliver better public services for all.

Recommendation 1: The Ministry of Justice should launch a consultation on the use of custodial sentences and consider the impact of implementing a ban on, or presumption against, short custodial sentences. It should also consider how to make magistrates more willing to use and improve their understanding of a community sentence, as they are less expensive than prison sentences and, on average, more effective at reducing reoffending. 

Recommendation 2: The Ministry of Justice should develop a strategy for future prison closures which considers various factors such as their location, efficiency and effectiveness or whether they would be too difficult to replace. This will help the Government to create a more fit-for-purpose estate. 

Recommendation 3: The Ministry of Justice should devolve a portion of the facilities management budget to prison governors. This could allow for minor maintenance problems to be addressed more quickly by local provision. 

Recommendation 4: The Government should fund the Ministry of Justice £900 million to address the growing maintenance backlog in prisons, to improve standards of decency and safety. 

Recommendation 5: The Government should ensure that the Ministry of Justice receives additional annual funding to sustain new and improved prison security measures, so that prisons can continue to disrupt the supply of contraband in the long term. 

Recommendation 6: Her Majesty’s Treasury should ensure that Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service has enough funding to close the pay gap between Closed and Fair & Sustainable pay grades by 2027, to end the two-tier pay system for Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service staff.

Introduction

In 2016 the Government published a landmark White Paper, ‘Prison Safety and Reform’, which promised to deliver much-needed changes to the prison system.  It committed to address poor safety for staff and prisoners, high levels of assaults, the poor condition of the estate, poor retention in the workforce, and ultimately poor outcomes for reoffending. 

Since the Government laid out its plans for “the biggest overhaul of our prisons in a generation” progress has been poor in several key areas: 

• Prisoner-on-prisoner and prisoner-on-staff assaults have increased by 30 per cent since 2016.  
• Incidents of prisoners self-harming have increased by 65 per cent since 2016.  
• The leaving rate for Band 3-5 staff – operational prison officers – has increased by 32 per cent since 2016. 
• In the 12 months to March 2019, 17 per cent of drug tests on prisoners were positive. 
• Nearly £529 million intended for spending on the prison estate has been diverted to spending on the day-to-day running of prisons since 2016. 

Significant resource pressures on prisons are likely to have held back the progress of reforms. The White Paper promised prisons the “resources, authority and tools” to address these challenges, but real-terms resource spending on prisons fell in 2016-17 and 2017-18. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) has highlighted that “reduced resources, both in terms of staff and investment [has] made it extremely difficult” to run prisons.

Increasing spending is an opportunity to make progress – if targeted effectively. In 2018- 19, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) resource budget rose by 4 per cent in real terms to over £3.9 billion. Several further commitments have been made: £2.5 billion for 10,000 additional prison places, £100 million for enhanced security, and £156 million for maintenance. To make the most of this increased spend the Government should focus on four priorities: more effective sentencing policies, creating a fit-for-purpose prison estate, improving prison safety, and developing the workforce.

1 Smarter Sentencing

Sentencing policies affect key outcomes of the justice system, such as levels of crime, and also have an impact on the size of the prison population. The courts must not only protect the public by imprisoning people who have committed serious offences, but it should use sentences and sanctions that make them less likely to reoffend in the community. However this is not currently the case, as three quarters of all crime is reoffending. It has a huge cost to society, estimated at about £18.1 billion a year, five times what the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spend annually on prisons. To address high levels of reoffending and unsustainable levels of overcrowding the Government should ensure that prison sentences are used proportionately. 

1.1 Towards effective sentencing

Some types of sentences are used heavily even though they result in consistently high levels of reoffending. Nearly half of all prison sentences are ‘short’ custodial sentences of six months or less. The majority of these, some 11,500, are for theft offences. These carry a very high reoffending rate of 65 per cent – for theft offences specifically, it is 82 per cent – and this has remained around this level for over ten years. Convicted offenders who are not sent to prison may instead receive a community sentence. If they are personalised and properly enforced, these flexible punishments may entail unpaid work, restrictions on activities or a curfew, and rehabilitative measures, such as treatment requirements for addictions or mental health problems. While reoffending rates are not directly comparable, the reoffending rate for suspended sentence orders and community sentences is only 33 per cent, illustrating how high the rate is for those on short custodial sentences.

Reoffending following short sentences costs an estimated £4.4 billion a year, which could be avoided in part if other types of sentences where used. Short sentences can break a prisoner’s ties with housing, employment families and leave little time to focus on prisoner’s needs, making them more likely to reoffend. While short-sentences prisoners make up only a small proportion of the prison population at any one time, the high churn that they create puts disproportionate and sustained pressure on the criminal justice system. Community sentences could be used instead for many offence types.

The MoJ has shown in repeated studies that these are on average more effective at reducing reoffending. Evaluating levels of reoffending between two groups with comparable offender characteristics – created from 150 variables including offending history and other data like employment history – the MoJ has shown that those on community sentences reoffend 4 per cent less than those on short sentences, and those who do reoffend commit fewer crimes. 

Therefore, to reduce reoffending and deliver the best value-for-money, the use of short prison sentences should be reduced in favour of non-custodial sentences. At just under £4,500 annually, a community sentence costs just over a tenth of the cost of imprisonment.  Given the evidence that community sentences are often more effective, if these are used instead of short custodial ones, reoffending should decrease and the costs associated with repeat crime should fall. The MoJ estimate that if all those who currently receive a short prison sentence instead received a community sentence, there would be 32,000 fewer crimes every year. This would create savings for the police, the prison service, and the public. It has been estimated that the Government would accrue savings of at least £83 million a year if community sentences were used instead of short prison sentences for theft and non-violent drug offences.

1.2 The decline in community sentences

In the last ten years the numbers of custodial sentences and community sentences passed have decreased, as shown in Figure 2. However, despite the evidence in their favour, community sentences have declined at a much faster rate, with their use more than halving in the last decade. 

This decline in the use of community sentences is likely to have been driven by poor confidence in their effectiveness, against a background of continued poor performance by probation services. Despite the evidence that they result in less reoffending on average, in a 2017 survey of 582 magistrates, 37 per cent said that they were not confident that a community sentence is an effective alternative to custody. In addition, 65 per cent felt they did not reduce or deter crime, and three quarters felt that they did not effectively protect the public. 

Magistrates will often lack a full understanding of community sentences due to poor training or available information. In the same survey, 28 per cent of respondents said they did not feel their training had adequately prepared them for dealing with community sentences. The use of pre-sentence reports by the National Probation Service to sentencers, which recommend what a community sentence should include, declined by 22 per cent between 2012-13 and 2016-17. The Centre for Justice Innovation has suggested a link between this and the decline in community sentences. Similarly, as probation services for low-risk offenders are currently provided by private Community Rehabilitation Companies, who are not permitted to access courts and advise magistrates, sentencers will often not be fully informed. 

Sentencers may lack confidence in probation services to enforce a sentence properly. The “implementation and delivery” of probation services by all Community Rehabilitation Companies inspected by HM Inspectorate of Probation in the 12 months to March 2019 was rated at best as “requires improvement”, with the majority rated as “inadequate”. Investing in a larger, better trained workforce could result in higher-quality supervision and enforcement, and therefore begin to offset the costs of reoffending. The Government plans to spend at most an average of £329 million a year on Community Rehabilitation Companies’ services between 2014 and December 2020, which is less than one fiftieth of the annual cost of reoffending. 

In 2021 under a new proposed model for probation, the management of offenders will return to the National Probation Service and some elements of community sentences, such as unpaid work, will continue to be outsourced. Whilst it cannot yet be said whether this will result in more personalised, well-delivered community sentences, it is likely that investing in this part of the system could create better outcomes. 

To move towards a more effective sentencing policy for those who currently receive short sentences, the Government could consider doing two things. First, it should invest in better training for sentencers. Spending on training for magistrates fell from £72 per person to £30 per person between 2009-10 and 2013-14, and it is reported that this trend has continued. If magistrates were better informed about community alternatives, they could be more willing to use them. Second, the Government should consult on how to decrease the use of short prison sentences. This should consider how to affect this change, such as with a ban or a presumption in favour of community sentences.

Recommendation 1: The Ministry of Justice should launch a consultation on the use of custodial sentences and consider the impact of implementing a ban on, or presumption against, short custodial sentences. It should also consider how to make magistrates more willing to use and improve their understanding of a community sentence, as they are less expensive than prison sentences and, on average, more effective at reducing reoffending.  

A Sad Inevitability 2

With little real news around, I see probation gets a mention in today's Guardian:-

Decline in community sentencing blamed on probation privatisation

Report says courts have lost trust in non-custodial orders being carried out properly

A sharp decline in the use of community sentences is due to trust breaking down between judges, magistrates and the probation service after privatisation, according to a study by a justice thinktank. Since 2011, there has been a 24% fall in the number of non-custodial sentences imposed in England and Wales at a time when Scottish courts are using them far more frequently.

A report by the Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) blames the decrease chiefly on disruption caused by changes introduced by Chris Grayling when he was justice secretary. Those changes split the former probation service into privately operated community rehabilitation companies (CRC) and a residual National Probation Service (NPS), which only deals with high-risk offenders.

Judges and magistrates remain largely unaware about what happens after they hand down a community sentence, the report, entitled Renewing Trust, says. Few of them witness the progress of, and compliance with, court orders. Many on the bench still want to use community sentences, recognising them as a vital option, says the report. “It is simply that their trust in them has been dented recently, largely by reforms imposed by policymakers on hard-working probation practitioners in both the NPS and CRCs.”

At his annual press conference two weeks ago, the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, acknowledged recent difficulties. “There were very profound problems in the delivery of the monitoring and implementation of community sentences for some time and … as a result, judges did lose confidence in it,” he said.

“It was simply that it became clear that many people were not complying with the orders, were breaching the orders, and little, if anything, was happening … The Ministry of Justice has been working hard with those who deliver community sentences and that problem is being resolved and so the confidence of sentences both in magistrates courts and crown courts is increasing.”

The CJI report found the number of drug rehabilitation and mental heath treatment requirements being issued by the courts had fallen by more than half from peaks earlier in the decade. A shortage of funding for treatment in community places was also blamed.

Phil Bowen, the director of the CJI, said: 

“Despite the best efforts of practitioners on the ground, our report shows that the trust of sentencers in community sentences is fraying. While sentencers still see community sentences as a vital option, the combination of cuts to justice budgets and the government’s poorly implemented privatisation reforms to probation means that their trust in probation’s ability to deliver them has been dented over the past six years.”

Commenting on the report, John Bache, the national chair of the Magistrates’ Association, said: 

“We share [this report’s] concerns about magistrates’ confidence in community sentences … There is an urgent need to ensure that effective community sentences are made available in every area of the country. Sentencers should also be given opportunities to review the progress made by offenders on community sentences. This would enable magistrates to give community sentences with confidence, knowing that they will help offenders to turn their lives around.”

Why Prison Numbers Are Increasing

Here we have the latest blog post from Rob Allen:-

Why the Punitive (Re)Turn?

Why is the prison population increasing? Latest projections show numbers in custody are likely to increase by 1600 – at least one new prison’s worth – by 2022. The main reason is not that more and more people are being caught and punished for criminal offences. It’s that higher and higher proportions of those who are, nowadays receive custodial sentences. And their prison terms are getting longer. Both trends are confirmed in the latest criminal justice statistics. These show that it’s not only sexual and violent offenders who are facing tougher sanctions in court. Less than a quarter of people convicted for theft in 2010 went to jail but last year it was almost 30%. Average prison terms as a whole have gone up from 13.7 to 16.6 months over the last seven years.

It’s possible that courts are seeing more serious cases or more prolific offenders than before. That’s difficult to know in the absence of detailed research. But the halving of the cautioning rate – the proportion of offenders who were either cautioned or convicted who received a caution - suggest that many more low level cases came to court in 2016 than 2010.

There are other more likely explanations for this new punitive turn. The dismantling of the probation service may have made non-custodial sentences it supervises less attractive to judges and magistrates. Since 2010 the proportion of indictable only crimes - the most serious - dealt with by a community order or suspended sentence fell from a quarter to a fifth. For either way offences, market share for these two disposals fell from 42% to 37%.

Another culprit may be the Sentencing Council. A recent analysis has found that the guideline it produced on burglary offences in 2011 may have inadvertently encouraged courts to deal more severely with all types of breaking and entering. Although the Council did not intend to inflate the going rate, expanding the definition of the loss to the victim in such cases and creating a long list of factors signalling greater culpability by the offender seems to have pushed courts to punish offences more harshly than before. As I argued in a report for Transform Justice last year, the Council has not only failed to curb the growth in imprisonment - its original purpose. It may have made matters worse.

A poll published this week confirmed what has long been known - that the public is much less punitive than is often supposed. Asked what they believe would be most effective in cutting crime, more police on the streets, better parenting, greater discipline in schools and better rehabilitation all score highest. Just 7% of the public think the answer is more people in prison. Yet without some bold policy making in the Ministry of Justice, that’s just what we are going to get.

Rob Allen

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

I'm still ploughing through stuff kindly highlighted by readers while I was away last week, such as this:-

"Article in The Times today Thurs 27/4 citing report by criminal justice think tank Crest Advisory. 66% of magistrates lack confidence in community sentences. Less use made of community sentences in 2016 than in anytime in the past 13 years! Eg: Just over 100,000 orders made in 2016 compared to nearly 200,000 in 2006."

An astonishing statistic and in case there are still any doubters out there, here we have further evidence of just what a disaster the TR omnishambles has been:-

Community sentences: where did it all go wrong?

A study into the use of community sentences in England and Wales

Despite crime falling overall, our criminal justice system remains under pressure, particularly in our prisons, which are, in the words of the former Chief Inspector, ‘in their worst state for a decade’, with violence, overcrowding and self-harm higher than at any point on record.

The notion that community sentences can be a more effective, cheaper alternative to prison is supported by a strong body of evidence. At their best, sentences served in the community can offer a powerful tool for addressing the root causes of offending behaviour, reducing the rate at which an offender reoffends and thus lowering demand on the system overall.

Yet despite their obvious potential, community sentences are being used less than at any point over the last 15 years.

Where did it all go wrong? is the first systematic attempt in over a decade to understand what lies behind this phenomenon and reveals some of the reasons for this loss of confidence.

Crest Advisory has explored the current use of community sentences in the context of the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme and the ongoing and challenging fiscal context. Whilst there are no silver bullet solutions, the report sets out a number of measures the government could implement to make a difference.

Key findings:

The report reveals that community sentences:

• are implemented in a way that bears little resemblance to the evidence of what works: they are neither intensive, swift, nor punitive enough to act as a proper deterrent. Most importantly, offenders are not held properly to account for complying with their sentence;
• are failing to transform lives, acting as little more than a stepping stone on the path to prison: 35% of those sentenced to custody have received at least five previous community sentences;
• have lost the confidence of magistrates: a new survey of magistrates commissioned for this report reveals that over a third of magistrates (37%) are not confident that community sentences are an effective alternative to custody, and two thirds (65%) are not confident that community sentences reduce crime. As one magistrate we interviewed put it: “It may be wonderful what is going on but we want to know what’s going on”.

Recommendations:

The report recommends eleven policy changes, to do with sentencing reform, the role of magistrates, the role of probation and justice devolution:

1. A ‘Project Hope’ for England and Wales
2. Greater flexibility for magistrates to administer innovative punishments tailored to the offender/offence
3. Amend sentencing guidelines to introduce a presumption of intensive community orders for young adult offenders facing custodial sentences of 12 months or less in magistrates’ courts
4. Amend sentencing guidelines to remove the assumption that suspended sentence orders are less onerous than community orders
5. Extend the power to undertake regular court reviews for prolific offenders serving short custodial sentences and/or community orders to all magistrates’ courts
6. Enhance magistrates’ training to improve their understanding of community sentences
7. Improve the quality of pre-sentencing advice
8. Provide feedback about the outcome of sentences to magistrates
9. Support greater transparency of community sentences, particularly the nature of unpaid work
10. Require a new target to ensure that the NPS allocates cases to the CRC on the same day as the sentencing, and that requirements are commenced the week afterwards (or at least no later than a month after sentencing for specialist requirements)
11. Enable PCCs and mayors to co-commission offender management services locally

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About Crest

We are a team of policy, communications and brand specialists who care about building safer communities. We work with organisations across multiple sectors – helping them think, speak and act more clearly to improve criminal justice and policing. Unafraid to challenge, we take time to understand your needs and offer the right blend of support for you to navigate change and drive success.

Why are we different?

Because we know criminal justice and policing inside out, we provide bespoke advice tailored to your needs, rather than generic solutions. Our range of skills, perspectives and networks also means we are able to offer a unique blend of insight, analysis, communications and brand expertise. And with a team based across the UK, we are able to work alongside you in your communities.

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Gavin Lockhart-Mirams
Managing Director

About Gavin

A specialist in criminal justice, Gavin has more than a decade of experience working with government, police and public safety organisations. He worked in No.10 Downing Street advising the British Prime Minister and worked closely with other governments to cut crime.

By combining his experience in management consultancy with public policy-development, Gavin founded Crest Advisory in 2011. As a father of two, Gavin is committed to making the world a better and safer place for all.

Key achievements

• Senior policy adviser to the Prime Minister David Cameron on criminal justice, counter-terrorism, public services and crime.
• Advised on ways to shift power to individuals and communities (including introducing legislation paving the way for elected police commissioners in 2012).
• Pushed forward work to increase transparency across the justice system (for example publishing local crime data).

Prison Reform

I notice Rob Allen, in his latest blog posts, outlines how the prison reform debate is increasingly becoming one that highlights the need for sentencing reform as well. Here's the first:-

From Prison Reform to Sentencing Reform?

Will last week’s events prove a defining moment in the history of prisons in England and Wales? The Sun thinks so, yesterday proclaiming that jails have become little more than a war-zone as the level of rioting, violence and drug-abuse reaches a tipping point. Tuesday’s action by prison staff certainly represented a very a serious breakdown in industrial relations and whether these have been repaired remains to be seen. With the ink barely dry on a Prison White Paper claiming to be the biggest overhaul of our prisons in a generation, it looks as if those who work in prisons are unconvinced that the measures it contains will secure their safety and that of the people in their custody.

Unsurprisingly, more radical measures are now being suggested. Former Governor Ian Acheson who reported on radicalisation in prisons earlier this year called in the Telegraph, for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to be scrapped. NOMS - Nightmare on Marsham Street, as it was known when under the Home Office - was intended to break down the silos of prison and probation and ensure a better focus on managing offenders. Acheson argued that it has become “an unloved, unlovely bureaucratic monster, dangerously out of touch with its operational heartland”.

NOMS first Chief Executive, Sir Martin Narey widened the focus still further in the Times by arguing for sentence lengths to be reduced, giving support to Michael Gove‘s argument in his Longford Lecture that “we need to work, over time and pragmatically, to reduce our prison population”. This is something Gove resisted when as Justice Secretary he could have done something about it. Narey is still a non-executive board member at the Ministry of Justice so perhaps could persuade Gove’s successor to do something on prison numbers. But what?

I was out of the country last week speaking for Penal Reform International at two events in Central Asia. Kazakhstan has halved its prison population over the last fifteen years through a comprehensive package of reforms- decriminalising and reclassifying offences, diversion of minor cases, reducing remand time, shortening sentence lengths, earlier release, a new probation system and community sentences. The country developed and implemented a plan - “Ten steps to reduce the number of inmates”. True the prison population is still pro rata higher than the UK’s – 250 per 100,000 population compared to 150 – but the direction of travel adopted in Astana is now sorely needed in Westminster.

Of course, the technical elements of any Ten Steps in England and Wales will be somewhat different to Kazakhstan’s. Next month, Transform Justice will be publishing a report I’ve drafted which will argue that the Sentencing Council which produces guidelines for courts should play a much stronger role in reversing sentence inflation. Earlier Transform Justice reports have argued for a justice reinvestment approach which devolves custodial budgets to regions to incentivise local bodies to prevent crime, rehabilitate offenders and reduce the use of prison. With radical changes like these, prison numbers could start to come down to a more manageable level. Without them, the Government might be tempted to emulate one of Kazakhstan’s less progressive policies; back in 2011 it moved the prison system back from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Interior.

Conventional wisdom is that politicians who adopt a soft approach will be slaughtered in the media and the polls. But the Sun on Sunday said today “Our jails are stuffed with too many non-dangerous criminals…” That's as much of an invitation to sentencing reform you are likely to get.

Rob Allen

--oo00oo--

The second:-

Alternatives to Prison - a Shot in the Arm or Shot in the Foot?

The movement to cut the prison population picked up steam this morning when the Lord Chief Justice told the Justice Select Committee that “fewer criminals should be jailed and tougher community punishments developed as an alternative to imprisonment”. In contrast to Michael Gove, who last week called for a reduction in prison numbers having steadfastly refused to countenance it when in office, Lord Thomas is in a position to do more than talk.

As head of the judiciary he can exercise a strong influence on the 20,000 judges and magistrates who send people to jail. Unfortunately, he seems to have passed up the opportunity to persuade the Sentencing Council (of which he is President) to take a more ambitious line on alternatives to prison in its recent guideline on the imposition of community and custodial orders. He might, however, look for an opportunity to issue a guideline judgment encouraging the greater use of community sentences.

The Chief Justice might say that his support for such sentences is contingent on their being tougher. If he means that they should impose more and more onerous requirements on offenders, his positive intentions could easily lead to unintended consequences. The numbers spared custody at the front door of sentencing could be exceeded by those experiencing it via the back door of breach - a risk Lord Thomas seemed to recognise in respect of the post release supervision of short term prisoners introduced last year. If the Chief means the sentences should be  to coin a phrase, tougher on the causes of crime, he might be on to something.

Gove last week called for community sentences to be far better policed, with swift and certain sanctions for those who don’t comply. “Swift and Certain” is shorthand for an American approach to probation originating in Hawaii. It appeared in the 2015 Conservative manifesto but has yet to find its way into legislation. I’ve long had doubts about its applicability here, though these would be alleviated if the response to missing appointments or drug tests were not swift and certain periods of detention - as they are in the US HOPE Probation system - but more intensive rehabilitation efforts or lesser sanctions such as community work or curfews reinforced, if necessary, by tagging.

There’s a bigger problem of course which is whether the reformed probation service is able to step up to the plate. It may be that the Ministry of Justice review of the new arrangements finds the new model fatally flawed, but its hard to see it being abandoned. The MoJ may look to reinvigorate it by encouraging more diversion from prison.

We are told that the Community Rehabilitation Companies are struggling because the numbers of cases they supervise - and the fees that go with them- are lower than they’d expected. On business grounds if no other, they’d presumably be keen to get onto their books some of the 90,000 people sentenced to custody each year, as an alternative to custody and not just after release from it.

If that’s something the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice want too, it shouldn’t be beyond their wit to arrange it.

Rob Allen