Is Osborne rather than Gove the real Prison Reformer?

When the history of prison policy comes to be written, last Wednesday 16 March could prove to be a significant date.

That won’t be because of anything that the new Chief Inspector of Prisons said in his first speech, at the Howard League Penal Reform conference in Oxford- although his closing remark that “a prison is more than a school with a wall around it” seemed designed to inject a shot of realism into the sometimes over-idealistic rhetoric emerging from Mr Gove and his advisers.

Nor is the appearance by Gove himself before the Justice Select Committee likely to be long remembered. He did not reveal enough detail about his reform proposals to make a judgment about their merits. His reported consultations with leading academics, his promises to use evidence rigorously and announcement of a review of security categorisation augur reasonably well.  But Gove’s wish not to fixate about prison numbers or seek to alter them “artificially” – as if they were somehow a natural phenomenon- continue to cast doubt on the feasibility of his grand vision of turning prisoners from liabilities into assets. His White Paper due “in the spring” will be the time to make a measured assessment of the proposals as a whole.

Surprisingly perhaps, the potentially more momentous announcements came in George Osborne’s budget. A fortnight before Greater Manchester takes over control of the £6 billion spent on the health and social care of its residents each year, the Chancellor proposed to start a process of devolving responsibilities for the criminal justice system in the region. His budget also contained an agreement that regional authorities will be playing an increased role in arranging services for Greater Lincolnshire offenders serving short sentences. While this may look like bureaucratic musical chairs or a way for the Ministry of Justice to wash its hands of struggling services, as I argued in a recent report for Transform Justice, the localisation of criminal justice offers a chance for fundamental reform of the penal system.
   

Yes the regions, particularly Manchester, will be expected to give effect to new Ministry of Justice initiatives -to set up problem solving courts, to link up learning in prison with education facilities outside, to pilot satellite tracking of offenders’ whereabouts and to establish Charlie Taylor’s new secure schools. But the shift in organisational and financial responsibility provide the chance for a region to analyse what’s really needed to address its crime problems, to develop home grown responses and, if they are successful, to invest savings from fewer court cases into public services which benefit local people. Greater Lincolnshire’s aim is “to create a whole system approach to criminal justice, which includes out of court disposals, restorative justice, community and custodial rehabilitation, with a truly effective re-integration policy to tackle social exclusion by supporting and encouraging people into work and productive lives.”

The Manchester Evening News reported that the new devolved responsibilities will lead to the construction of a new prison, but the new arrangements should instead provide a motor to reduce the use of custody over time. The Chancellor promised to consider options to devolve the custody budgets for female offenders, young offenders and those sentenced to less than 2 years. If this happens , Manchester’s elected representatives will be able to use the funds not simply to buy prison places but to fund a wide range of alternative measures which could bring down the need for so many of them.  Increasing housing, work and education opportunities in the neighbourhoods from which most young prisoners are drawn, offering treatment and therapy and intensive support for the many women who serve repeated short sentences and improving the community supervision of people on probation and  parole should reduce re-offending and breach rates and hence demand for prison places. 

If the new measures are developed in close cooperation with magistrates and judges, they are likely to prove more attractive as alternatives to short prison sentences than what’s currently available as well as being more effective in reducing re-offending and making reparation. Far from building a new prison, the devolution could lead to closing parts of existing ones.  

  

This kind of Justice Reinvestment is having an impact on prison numbers in more than half of US states. While the challenges in England and Wales are somewhat different, George Osborne’s rehabilitation devolution offers great opportunities- to local areas to improve their public safety and balance sheets; and to Michael Gove to make a reality of his rhetoric.     

Gove Actually: What the Justice Committee should ask the Justice Secretary

I’m not sure whether the Justice Secretary’s alleged involvement in RoyalBrexitgate means that he is now officially "beleaguered", but coming on top of his branding by the boss as nuts and a Maoist, he will perhaps be looking forward to returning to the day job tomorrow when the Justice Committee asks him about the Government’s plans for prison reform.  But ten months into that job, with no evidence of any improvement in the state of the country’s jails, it’s really time for him to provide some concrete answers about what he’s actually going to do rather than say. He seems to have ruled out cutting prison numbers – something the Committee has long called for – and will no doubt have to justify what looks a perverse if politically safety first position. 

Here are five additional points for the Committee to put to him. First which precisely of the Victorian city centre prisons are to be closed and sold and when. Holloway’s the only one that’s confirmed plus Reading which is already empty. The plans were announced in the Autumn statement but there been little further detail since then.

Second which are the so-called Reform prisons which governors are going to be given greater autonomy to run, freed from the bureaucratic shackles of Whitehall and the fragmenting effects of outsourcing ? Presumably high performing ones to begin with or will there be some strugglers. It will be interesting to know the rationale.

Third what is that autonomy going to amount to in practice.  If Academy schools are the model, how much change will Prison Principals be able to make to the curriculum and what control will they be given over, for example admissions -or even discharges?

Fourth, what does Gove make of the Probation reforms? There have been reports of problems lasting well beyond the teething stage with staff morale at rock bottom and CRC’s looking to withdraw from their contracts. He’s not been shy of ditching several of his predecessor’s policies. Could Transforming Rehabilitation become the most significant item on the list of Grayling’s failings?

Finally a bit of clarity would not go amiss on the proliferation of reviews that Gove has commissioned. He seems to have accepted the findings of the Coates review on education before the report has been published. It’s not clear whether Charlie Taylor’s radical trajectory for youth custody has been similarly received nor exactly what his extended terms of reference include- the age of criminal responsibility for example?    The Committee will no doubt want to be updated on Gove's post G4S plans for STC’s, his proposals for accommodating young adults in custody, and initiatives for preventing radicalisation in prison. 

Some information on these questions may come out from the Ministry of Justice in advance of the hearing. Otherwise, it will make for a frustrating hour or two. But on Budget Day, few will probably notice.   

   

Why Gove should look to Europe on Prison Numbers

 News that the UK continues to imprison more people than any other EU country, prompted me to look again at a report I wrote for the Criminal Justice Alliance in May 2012. Reducing the use of Imprisonment: What can we learn from Europe? was timed to give a Europhile justice secretary some ideas for cutting a custodial population he considered way too high. Ken Clarke was fired a few months later.  With his successor but one a Europhobe who doesn’t think we have too many prisoners, the chances of any of the lessons being taken on board are probably weaker now (though there must be a fair chance that Mr Gove will be on the back benches with Mr Clarke on June 24th).

The report actually focussed mainly on Germany and the Netherlands, countries with much lower rates of imprisonment than the UK and where following rises in the prison population in the 1990’s, the  numbers in prison fell in the 2000’s- unlike England and Wales where the prison population has- from a higher baseline-  pretty well continued to climb and climb.

The report identified a range of factors which might help explain why European countries lock up fewer people than the UK. A lower crime rate was, surprisingly perhaps, not one of them. Rather the way the criminal justice is organised more plausibly accounts for the difference.

For one thing criminal prosecution is not available for children under 15 in Scandinavia, 14 in Germany and 12 in Holland and young people aged 18-21 tend to be treated more leniently than older adults.  For all age groups, prosecutors in much of Europe play a much stronger role in settling cases outside court than they do here, exercising quasi- judicial discretion to deal with quite serious cases by way of fines or compensation, or participation in mediation and reconciliation between offender and victim. In the Netherlands prosecutors can impose and oversee Community Service, while in Germany they can dismiss charges if the accused makes a serious attempt to reach a mediated agreement with the victim.  About half of victim offender mediation cases in Germany relate to a violent offence. More measures tend to be available in Europe for dealing with people with mental health and addiction problems outside the criminal justice and mainstream prison systems.

When cases do go to court, for certain common crimes such as theft, burglary and certain low level drug offences, the maximum penalties are higher in England and Wales than in much of Western Europe. Mandatory minimum sentences, indeterminate sentences and life sentences are also very much less commonly used on the continent.

The report highlighted some evidence that courts exercise greater restraint in remanding defendants to custody (in Germany but not the Netherlands), use certain community based sentences as genuine alternatives to custody and adopt a more generous approach to those who fail to comply with all of the requirements.

Underpinning the milder approach are a greater role played by academic and other nongovernmental expert organisations in the formulation of criminal policy and the ability of both politicians and courts to withstand pressure from media and populist campaigns for tougher sentencing. The Chair of the Sentencing Council said last week that they have a particular problem with tabloid newspapers, which have an agenda of their own in relation to criminal sentencing and criminal justice generally. Some European countries at least do not seem to share that problem.

Since the report was published, England and Wales has seen some progress restricting remands to custody, taking account of the developing maturity of young adults and expanding opportunities for Restorative Justice. But too many minor cases go to court unnecessarily and sentencing is still too harsh and complex. The Justice Committee heard last week that there are some 1,300 pages of legislation currently in force in relation to sentencing procedure and that almost a third of sentencing appeals in the Court of Appeal include an unlawful element to the sentence.

There’s a growing recognition that the Government cannot realistically achieve its prison reform plans without addressing what the UN last year called “over incarceration and overcrowding’. Europe has plenty to teach us – it’s a shame the Justice Secretary doesn’t want to go there.   

Narey joins Hardwick in Calling for Reduction in Prison Numbers

In his inaugural speech as Professor of Criminal Justice at Royal Holloway College this week, Nick Hardwick set out his views on what makes for a good prison. Recently released from his duty to catalogue the deteriorating state of the nation’s jails, the former Chief Inspector of Prisons turned his mind to what’s needed to turn into reality the government’s ambitious agenda to “lead the world with new rehabilitation techniques and smarter ways of managing prisoners”.

On one requirement he was clear; if the prison system cannot take on more personnel – and he seemed pretty sure the spending settlement will not permit that- then there will have to be a reduction in the numbers of prisoners. Many of the failings that Hardwick has documented since 2011 – in keeping prisoners safe, in providing purposeful activity and preparing them for release - boil down to inadequate staffing. Hardwick will, like many, be disappointed to read in a Guardian interview that the Justice Secretary has no intention of seeking to reduce the size of the prison population.  Michael Gove appears to believe that you can improve the ability of a pint pot to accommodate a quart by letting the pot decide how to do it. 

Hardwick was careful to say that he personally would not be significantly contributing to reducing prison numbers in his new role as chair of the Parole Board where he will decide on the liberty of the most dangerous prisoners. He pointed to the possibilities for less serious offenders; of increased use of tagging, sentences served in instalments and radical alternatives for women and children organised in the health and social care sectors. While Gove has echoed the call for more radical thinking with these latter groups, they amount to about 5% of the 85,753 people in prison last Friday. By closing the door on prison reduction for adult men, Gove has made the bold promises to create a modern, more effective prison system look a good deal emptier.

 By coincidence, former NOMS Chief and now Ministry of Justice Board member Sir Martin Narey was also this week quoted as seeing a need to reduce prison numbers. He told the Prison Service Journal he doesn't think “the Prison Service can flourish … if we don’t do something about the inevitable conflict between shrinking budgets and a rising population". Indeed he quit NOMS in the mid 2000's because new Home Secretary Charles Clarke was not interested in capping the prison population. “If we had been able to control numbers the Prison Service would be in a much better place now”. Let’s hope Narey and, and Hardwick, will have better luck persuading Gove of this.  

The In/Out Question: Can Gove really deliver reform without reducing the prison population?

In his inaugural speech as Professor of Criminal Justice at Royal Holloway College last night, Nick Hardwick set out his views on what makes for a good prison. Recently released from his duty to catalogue the deteriorating state of the nation’s jails, the former Chief Inspector of Prisons turned his mind to what’s needed to turn into reality the government’s ambitious agenda to “lead the world with new rehabilitation techniques and smarter ways of managing prisoners”.

On one requirement he was clear; if the prison system cannot take on more personnel – and he seemed pretty sure the spending settlement will not permit that- then there will have to be a reduction in the numbers of prisoners. Many of the failings that Hardwick has documented since 2011 – in keeping prisoners safe, in providing purposeful activity and preparing them for release - boil down to inadequate staffing. Hardwick will, like many, be disappointed to read today that the Justice Secretary hasno intention of seeking to reduce the size of the prison population.  Michael Gove appears to believe that you can improve the ability of a pint pot to accommodate a quart by letting the pot decide how to do it. 

Hardwick was careful to say that he personally would not be significantly contributing to reducing prison numbers in his new role as chair of the Parole Board where he will decide on the liberty of the most dangerous prisoners. He pointed to the possibilities for less serious offenders; of increased use of tagging, sentences served in instalments and radical alternatives for women and children organised in the health and social care sectors. While Gove has echoed the call for more radical thinking with these latter groups, they amount to about 5% of the 85,753 people in prison last Friday. By closing the door on prison reduction for adult men, Gove has made the bold promises to create a modern, more effective prison system look a good deal emptier.

In his surprisingly upbeat speech, Hardwick urged reformers to seize the day and help the Government to fulfil those promises.  The case, he thinks, for penal reform has been made, thanks in part to the work of his inspectorate.  What’s needed now is to get the basics right within prisons, to improve and increase the training of staff and devolve leadership away from Whitehall, initially in the six Reform prisons and nine new establishments. Do this in one in eight prisons and Hardwick foresees a momentum to transform the whole system.

Or at least he did yesterday. But devoting adequate resources to the task of imprisonment was an underlying requirement for him and one which today looks seriously in question.