Whilst the House of Lords doesn’t return to formal action until Wednesday, the work of its committees continues. And, between Christmas and the New Year, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee published its report “Cutting crime: better community sentences“.
With our prisons overcrowded to the extent that inmates are being sent home early, and with the Probation Service still recovering from a botched and wholly unnecessary reorganisation, the Committee’s timely call for better use of community sentences, with their required punitive element, will hopefully receive a welcome from an incoming administration following the General Election later this year.
Committee Chair, and Liberal Democrat Peer, Baroness Sally Hamwee, commented on the report:
The dots must be joined up. Prisons are at crisis point. Places are simply not available. Yet it is well-known that a short time in custody too often schools someone in how to be a ‘better’ criminal. The Government acknowledges all this.
If the crisis is regarded as an opportunity to focus on how to make the best use of community orders, their potential can be realised, to the benefit of individual offenders and of the community.
The use of community sentences has dropped dramatically over the last ten years. Used well, and with the necessary investment in the intensive treatment that is often needed, they can turn people’s lives around.
We acknowledge the challenges the Government faces in the prison service, and welcome the attention on community sentences. Our report shows the contribution that these sentences can make, and that they are valuable in themselves — and that they need commitment from Government for their full potential to be realised.
The report itself appears to be heavily influenced by existing Liberal Democrat policy which, given the tendency of both Labour and the Conservatives to believe that “prison works”, perhaps doesn’t come as a huge surprise. But for readers with an interest in sentencing policy, the report makes interesting reading.
* Mark Valladares is the Lords Correspondent for Liberal Democrat Voice.
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5 Comments
Prison works as the offender is locked up – not long enough if you listen to a lot of voters.
Community sentences are all well & good – but so often they’re repeat offenders who let’s be honest have been given multiple opportunities to address their behaviour ..Crime impacts the poorest in society most & those are the people we should be protecting …Putting the victim first should be paramount…
Martin,
If what you’re hoping to achieve is more effective, more efficient, more highly trained criminals, then perhaps your approach is the right one. if, on the other hand, you’re trying to break the cycle of crime, then punishment and then more crime, not so.
What people really want is less crime, and punishment is part of the process of achieving that. Punishment, not purely vengeance. So, a palette of possible penalties designed to deter and rehabilitate is the obvious way forward.
But you know that, so you set up your straw man to be demolished with a few pithy “man of the people” phrases.
Community sentences are intended for those at an earlier stage of the spiral into serious crime rather than hardened and/or violent criminals. We imprison people for minor drugs offences, a proven way to ensure that they don’t return to mainstream society and fall back into crime. We imprison people for a whole range of offences that don’t necessarily impact on anyone but make some people feel good that someone is suffering. And given the lack of sufficient prison officers or support and education staff, prison hardly acts to rehabilitate inmates so that they’re equipped to take their place in society after they have served their sentence.
So, I’d suggest that the correct answer is that prison works… sometimes, if only to protect the public. Does that necessarily put the victim first? Does it protect society? Or are simplistic soundbites part of what has got this country into the mess it’s in?
The human condition involves a disturbing tension between rationality and irrationality. This is particularly evident in the criminal justice processes. While rationality would tell us to focus on a better future, irrationality demands retribution for the past.
Ideally malefactors would be returned to society once they are fit to be reintroduced, however this ideal is beset with both practical and philosophical problems, nonetheless this ideal should serve as a reference point for rational reform of the criminal justice system.
Martin Gray’s illiberal appeal to irrational sentiment is an appeal to perpetuate the failure of the system.
‘We imprison people for minor drugs offences, a proven way to ensure that they don’t return to mainstream society and fall back into crime. We imprison people for a whole range of offences that don’t necessarily impact’
It impacts the poorest in society who have to endure repeated low levels of crime daily – normally from the same offenders week in week out …
Offenders who’ve been through the system multiple occasions – have been given so many chance to address their behaviour but continue along their chosen path ..
Community sentences just don’t deter a significant number of repeat offenders….As anybody who lives in a community blighted by crime will tell you ..
@Martin Gray
Isn’t it important to try to prevent first offenders becoming repeat offenders? In which case are the resources – probation officers etc. available to manage first time offenders serving community sentences? I think not.
Prison is a very expensive way of managing offenders. Prison sentences seem rarely to rehabilitate, only to punish.
More resources need to go into managing offenders serving community sentences.
And given the extent to which youth services have been cut back more resources need to go into those as well. So that kids have safe places where they can assoicate with their peers instead of roaming the streets getting into trouble.