While most of the country thinks we should be cracking down on crime, former prime minister Sir John Major has been busy telling the world this week that in the UK we lock up too many prisoners. In a speech at the Old Bailey for the Prison Reform Trust, Major has made the case for reducing the UK’s prison population, arguing that we should have more non-custodial sentences instead, especially for ‘non-violent’ offences.
You really have to wonder what planet he is living on. Only this year a teenage girl who was raped was forced to watch her attacker walk free from court after being sentenced to unpaid work. In Brighton, a police sergeant was violently assaulted, left with broken bones and almost lost his sight. His attacker was given a suspended sentence this month.
Sir John peddled many of the lines favoured by penal reformers and abolitionists intent on reducing the size of the prison population at all costs
Most people think this is abhorrent, and if anything we should be doling out longer sentences. But as is often the case when politicians discuss the justice system, what the public thinks about crime is dismissed as some sort of unacceptable or extreme populism. Meanwhile the justice or punishment that a prison sentence provides is ignored – as are the crimes prevented when a prisoner is locked up.
In his speech, Sir John peddled many of the lines favoured by penal reformers and abolitionists intent on reducing the size of the prison population at all costs.
The most common argument is the phoney distinction between ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’ criminals. The argument goes that the prisoners who are ‘non-violent’ don’t need to be locked up. As Sir John said in his speech: ‘Was prison the correct, or fair, sentence for all the 26,000 non-violent offenders? Some, perhaps… but all? I am not sure that it was.’
The truth is that non-violent prisoners will include crack dealers, heroin pushers and worse, who will often be up to their necks in unlawful violence – whether meted out directly, threatening it, or causing others to dish it out on their behalf.
Fraudsters targeting your life savings, pension, rent or mortgage deposit: non-violent. The man racing about on a stolen moped, with a machete in his trousers: non-violent. The prolific car criminal: non-violent.
The idea of ‘non-violent’ prisoners doesn’t reflect the reality of criminal life in other ways too. I’ve lost count of the number of occasions where criminals will admit one charge, such as drugs or weapon-carrying, if the prosecution agrees to drop other charges, such as assaulting a police officer. When this happens, magically, a violent criminal becomes ‘non-violent’ according to the system.
And when you take into account the guilty plea discount (which allows a criminal to reduce his sentence if he pleads early) even those that are sent to prison are back on the streets in no time. Is Major now saying that they – like ‘street dealers’, whom he suggests should be given community sentences – don’t need to see the inside of a prison cell at all?
It’s ironic that Sir John’s speech was given at the Old Bailey. This court has witnessed the trials of some of the most serious offenders in the country. Many of these cases could perhaps have been prevented if prison had been used earlier to punish, incapacitate and reform repeat offenders. More than half (52 per cent) of those sentenced to prison last year had more than ten previous convictions. And nearly 1,000 offenders had more than 75. Rather than being an indictment of prison, this reveals just how weak and ineffective the ‘alternatives to custody’ currently are for serious, persistent and prolific criminals.
To prove that point, we know that every year around 500 serious offences, including murder and rape, are committed by offenders who are on probation – with the majority having been released from prison back into the community. None of this suggests that the current system is too lenient.
Sir John’s speech also argued for a reduction in the use of prison to hold defendants awaiting trial. Never mind that this could include people charged with murder or serious violence, gangsters caught with guns, drug dealers and robbery crews.
There is a danger in Major’s comments. You only need to look to the USA to see what happens when well-meaning but misguided politicians support policies that sound compassionate but end up having disastrous effects. Several US cities face growing crime challenges as criminals who would have been held before their trial are now being routinely released.
None of this is to say that we should be indifferent to the conditions inside our prisons. We should want our prisons to be well-run and well-resourced. As I’ve argued before, they can and should be places of control, order and hope.
The state of too many of them should shame those responsible. But the answer is not to abolish prison, reduce its use, or advocate for a further watering down of sentences. It is to get prisons working – and to maximise the opportunity they provide to incapacitate, to reform, and to make our streets safer.
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