Liberal Order

One of many recent disappointments for prison reformers was how little the Liberal Democrats were able to influence criminal justice policy during their time in government. Almost none of their 2010 manifesto pledges on justice – such as a presumption against short term prison sentences - made it into the Coalition agreement. They might pray in aid a modest expansion in restorative justice. But the Lib Dems share of responsibility both for the disastrous underinvestment in prisons and rushed privatisation of probation weigh heavily on the debit side as does the absurd and thankfully abandoned Secure College for young offenders.  What are they offering to the electorate this time round?

Despite their electoral meltdown two years ago, the 2017 Lib Dem manifesto creditably retains many of the proposals from previous campaigns; the presumption against short prison terms, an extension of the role of the Youth Justice Board to young adults, and a new Women’s Justice Board. They continue to want to see Community Justice Panels and other local schemes designed to resolve conflicts and reduce harm.

As in 2015, the Lib Dems would replace the elected Police and Crime Commissioners (whom they helped to introduce) with local boards and introduce a Victim’s Bill of Rights. This would include a right for victims “to request restorative justice rather than a prison sentence” (whatever that exactly means).

The radicalism comes in the drugs field. Previous manifestos have pledged an end to imprisonment for possession for personal use, but policy on legalisation has gone no further than looking at evidence from abroad. The party is presumably satisfied that the impact on public health and crime of legalisation initiatives in the US and Uruguay are such that they can go further and so now promise a legal, regulated market for cannabis. They’d repeal the Psychoactive Substances Act and move responsibility for policy from the Home Office to Department of Health.

The ambition on the drugs front is not quite matched on prisons. Yes the plan is to transform prisons into places of rehabilitation, recovery, learning, and work, with suitable treatment, education or work available to all prisoners. Trans prisoners would be placed in prisons that reflect their gender identity, rather than their birth gender. And the overrepresentation of individuals from a BAME background reduced at every stage of the criminal justice system, taking into account the upcoming recommendations of the Lammy Review.

But unlike in previous manifestos, there’s nothing about stopping or scaling back prison building. Two years ago the party believed “that a large prison population is a sign of failure to rehabilitate, not a sign of success. So our aim is to significantly reduce the prison population by using more effective alternative punishments and correcting offending behaviour".  In 2017 they look a bit more cautious.

It’s Plaid Cymru whose manifesto has a hint of reductionism. They would block the development of the Port Talbot super prison. But it’s only a hint. Instead they would provide “much-needed” prison spaces for women and youth offenders in Wales.