Where are Labour going on Crime and Punishment?

 

There are many reasons Keir Starmer’s Labour Party might provide better government than the current administration but hoping for a new approach to crime and punishment may not be one of them.

New Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Justice Secretary Steve Reed are promising to put crime top of the May election agenda, not only to exploit the PM’s personal imbroglio with the police but to outflank the Conservatives’ law and order credentials. Angela Rayner's call to “shoot your terrorists and ask questions second" might give her former human rights lawyer leader pause for thought, but her hard-line approach to burglars probably won't.

Just as Tony Blair and Jack Straw did thirty years ago, Starmer’s team are seeking to ditch any notion that they care more about criminals than victims, reviving the New Labour commitment to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” and floating harsh sounding but often unworkable gimmicks- in Reed’s case a “naming and shaming’ scheme for people convicted of buying drugs; in Rayner's, beating down the doors of criminals at 3 in the morning to annoy the hell out of them. 

In the short term, Labour’s repositioning brings with it a real risk of another penal arms race; early skirmishes include the Justice Secretary apparently now personally authorising (or not) moves of prisoners to open conditions; and the plan to increase magistrates' sentencing powers.  While the Johnson government has already put measures in train which could push the prison population to 98,500 over the next four years, Opposition pressure could fan the flames of penal populism yet further, leading to the creation of more offences, increased maximum penalties and more austere prison conditions. The tone for any administration Starmer might form in the future would have been set. It would not be a surprise if the post war trend continued of prison populations rising faster during periods of Labour government than Conservative.  The Blair-Brown years saw a 40% rise from 61,000 to 85,000.

Any more growth in imprisonment would be a financial, social and moral calamity – and an unnecessary one.  Ipsos Mori’s monthly tracker poll shows people don’t currently rate crime among the top ten important issues facing Britain today. Its salience is at near record low levels. Could this be a window of opportunity for de-escalating the war on crime? 

Where Labour could learn something from Blair’s approach is not in terms of his rhetoric but his efforts to create a better reality on the ground- improving clear up rates, reducing delays in processing cases, increasing opportunities for drug and mental health treatment, and creating institutional infrastructure to deliver it. It didn’t all work- too much coercion, too many targets with unintended consequences, not always enough local ownership and commitment.  And the need to spin everything as a success obscured learning about the complexities involved.

The big picture Cooper and Reed should be seeing is of an expanded range of measures beyond cops, courts, and corrections.  Promising approaches such as Restorative Justice and Justice Reinvestment need to be dusted off . Innovative Out of Court disposals should be encouraged as a preferred option to meaningless court processing. Sentencing guidelines need to promote effectiveness and limit the unproductive use of imprisonment. Mental health needs to be addressed much more thoroughly in prison and probation services. These are some of the elements from which Labour could fashion a much more diverse and positive agenda than the dismal offer of more punishment.

Will they do so? Reed told the Mirror that “if you over-focus on the things that have happened in people’s lives that lead them to offend, it can sound like you’re trying to excuse what they’ve done. We cannot because they’ve damaged someone else’s life.” Perhaps he should worry less about what things sound like and more about what works to prevent and resolve crime and the harms it entails.