Capacity Assessment

 

If the Independent Review of Prison Capacity was designed to remind the public how badly the last government managed the penal system, it’s probably succeeded. Will it help the current and future governments do much better? I’m not so sure.

Like Gauke’s review of sentencing and Leveson’s on the courts, Dame Anne Owers final report  in the trilogy is stronger on diagnosing the problems than prescribing remedies. An independent advisory body for the system, a ten year strategy to develop probation and an evaluation of the prison service may help- or just deliver more talking heads.

Much more promising are the proposals for local multi-disciplinary management of offenders, modelled on youth justice; and improved addiction, health, housing, and employment services.

But they’ll need money. I’d like to have seen a recommendation that these approaches could be resourced from some of the billions earmarked for prison expansion on the basis that they will reduce the requirement for it. Could the time be ripe to revive the idea of Justice Reinvestment ? Alongside some new prison places we surely need more hostels and halfway houses, secure hospital beds and residential drug treatment- institutional measures that can act as effective alternatives to custody.   

There are two other concrete recommendations I’d also have liked to see. First that the Sentencing Council plays an enhanced role in balancing supply and demand for prison places.

The Council reports each year on how changing sentencing practice impacts on prison, probation and youth justice services; and on how “non-sentencing factors” such as the numbers in court, and release and recall decisions affect the resources needed to implement sentences. This has been a watchdog that never barked if ever there was one. It should be urged to use its vocal chords and even be given some teeth. It gets no mention in the Capacity Review.   

Second, the Review could propose more to limit the use of custodial remand. Oddly Anne Owers says those remanded to prison were looked at by the Gauke Sentencing Review. They weren’t.  Leveson looked at remand a bit and may return to it in the second part of his review on Court Efficiency. His first report says he was looking forward to what the Capacity Review had to say on the topic. He may be disappointed.

While Anne Owers rightly notes “the very lengthy periods…prisoners are now spending on remand has had an extremely detrimental impact on them (as well as on prisons)”, there is no recommendation about how to address the problem.  There is a suggestion that more alternatives could be considered but something more specific is needed- a tightening of the Bail Act and guidelines for Magistrates and Judges for example. The whole subject has fallen between the gaps of the three reviews.

A trilogy originally referred to three related tragedies. Whether the mismanagement of criminal justice in recent years amounts to a tragedy I don’t know, but it certainly needs urgent action to put right.

I’d thought the post- Gauke Sentencing Bill would have been published before the Summer Recess but although most of its recommendations have been accepted, I hear that getting Ministers to make detailed decisions isn’t easy. The Bill’s now expected next month.  The response to Leveson’s first review will be in the autumn but there is no timetable given for a response to the Capacity Review.  

While the prison place emergency the government faced last year may have eased, there is no excuse in delaying the delivery of a more effective and sustainable system.