Re: Finding better solutions for society than prison

As the local representative for Cities of London & Westminster, I hope
that in this election you will lend your broad support to the Howard
League for Penal Reform’s Take Action 2010 campaign.

As you know, the English and Welsh prison system is in crisis, with a
prison population that has more than doubled since the early 1990s.  It
has become too easy to talk about being tough on crime and simply
increase the number of prison places but all the evidence tells us that
this does not work.

Around two thirds of those receiving short sentences go on to re-offend
within two years of release and this rises up to three quarters for
children leaving custody.  Locking up children and vulnerable people
with mental health needs does not make our community much safer and
will not do much to cut crime.

Instead of simply accepting that each year the prison population will
hit record levels, it seems high time for a different vision.

I have a particular interest in the field of investment in the
community and feel that local justice problems should be tackled
locally. Bureaucratic targets dictated from Whitehall are all very well
but the best way to increase public confidence in the criminal justice
system is to bring it closer to the people.  I think investing in
amenities for the community and schemes to protect local vulnerable
people – particularly addiction treatment programmes – would prevent a
lot of crime from happening in the first place.

It seems to me that a government priority should be ending the use of
short-term prison sentences. In 2008, around two thirds of those
sentenced received a jail term of less than 12 months. Such sentences
are a waste of taxpayers’ money and do very little to stop
re-offending. The re-offending rate of those leaving prison after
sentences of a year or less is 60% within two years of release,
compared to 38% for those completing community orders. There has to be
a better way to tackle petty crime than a short and inefficient spell
in prison.

As my local representative I would really like you to consider the
scandal of how we treat children in the criminal justice system. I
believe we are far too punitive on some of our youngest and most
vulnerable people. England and Wales jails more children than any other
region in Western Europe. 76% of these children re-offend within one
year of release. Since 1990, 30 children have died in custody. I think
such a deliberate policy of incarceration of children is morally
questionable and practically inefficient. I would really like to know
your views on how we can better support our vulnerable young people.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the Howard League’s
radical new approach to providing real work in prison. The Howard
League for Penal Reform believes prisoners should be introduced to the
world of real work and its responsibilities. Real work requires an
employment relationship between an external employer and the prisoner,
in order to create a meaningful and realistic employee-employer
relationship. The work should be suitably meaningful to inspire pride
in the work done and should be fairly paid for the task undertaken to
create an incentive to work. I think this is exactly the sort of scheme
we need in English and Welsh prisons that could help turn people’s
lives around.

This election I hope you will make a priority the Howard League’s
campaign promise to fight for “less crime, safer communities, fewer
people in prison”.  It is a promise not to take the soft option on
crime by simply increasing the number of prison places but to think
about how certain individuals might be better catered for in the
community and how the justice system can do more to tackle the
underlying causes of crime.  It is a promise to make our community
safer and it is a promise to use taxpayers’ money wisely on a system
that can justify the expenditure with results.

If you feel you can support this campaign, then please sign up at
www.howardleague.org/takeaction.

Thank you for taking the time to consider backing this campaign.

Yours sincerely,

Justin Atkinson.

PS This email has been published on my blog, Just & Reasonable™, which
you may be interested to read at www.justinatkinson.com/blog/.

Following the foreword by Frances Crook OBE, Director of the Howard League, the book opens with different perspectives from members of the judging panel of the Community Programmes Awards, including representatives from the International Centre for Prison Studies, the National Offender Management Service, the probation service and the judiciary. One of the key messages these opening pages convey is that there is still some work required to convince the public – and sentencers – of the merits of community programmes compared to other sanctions.

The remainder of the book should help to convince its readers that community programmes are often a better solution than, for example, short custodial sentences of under a year. It describes some of the successes achieved by award-winning community programmes in the following categories: early interventions with young people; dealing with factors that contribute to offending; restorative justice and mediation; young people; education, training, employment and mentoring; unpaid work and training; high-risk offenders; and resettlement.

The descriptions of the community programmes generally start with a real life example of how the community programme helped a participant to take responsibility and make amends for what s/he did and return to living a law-abiding life in the community. These stories are followed by details about, among other things: the origins of the community programme, what it aims to achieve, how it is funded, who it is targeted at, how effective it is, who it is staffed by, how many participants it serves, and the benefits it provides.

These details make the “Community Programmes Handbook” a useful reference book, especially for organisers of community programmes and for sentencers. Contact details are also provided regarding each of the award-winning programmes for anyone requiring further information. Why not follow the link below for your own copy now.

In front of the crowd of neighbours that had assembled around the scene of the fight, he orders the two men to work for the rest of the day cleaning the slum latrines. He then binds the two men together at the ankle using his scarf around one’s right and the other’s left leg “to remind you that you are friends and brothers, while cleaning the latrine will fill your noses with the stink of what you have done to each other today.” That evening, having convened a council of Hindu and Muslim friends and neighbours, he requires each man to learn one complete prayer from the religious observances of the other as their punishment for fighting about religion.

“In this way justice is done, because justice is a judgement that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.”

Qasim Ali Hussein’s wise solution seems to meet the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003: punishment (cleaning the latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (cleaning the latrines in public and tied together); reform and rehabilitation (learning a prayer from each other’s religion); protection of the public (via the deterrence and reform mentioned above); and reparation (cleaning the latrines for the community’s benefit).

Why not compare this with a prison sentence under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006?

Punishment (prison – arguably more comfortable than cleaning latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (sadly there are some people for whom prison is not a deterrent, whereas there are very few people for whom cleaning the latrines in a Mumbai slum would not be a deterrent); reform and rehabilitation (prison – yet approximately 65% of all prisoners released were reconvicted within two years according to a 2007 Home Office study); protection of the public (prison); and reparation (prison – at a cost to the taxpayers in the community of approximately £39,000 per prisoner per year).

Some of you may say, “Ah, but Qasim Ali Hussein only has to serve justice to a tiny city of around twenty-five thousand people compared to tens of millions of people in, say, England. No wonder he can tailor his solutions so well.”

Yet he didn’t have policemen or courts to assist.

Don’t you think that we could spend £39,000 per prisoner per year on something which addresses more effectively the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003?

A good start might be to channel more resources to community programmes such as those highlighted by the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Community Programmes Awards. Why not read more about the awards – and nominate for the 2010 awards right now – at http://bit.ly/9Cnybn.