12 July 2010
A think-tank has today called for Britain’s prison and justice system to be reformed to tackle drug addiction and antisocial behaviour and help ex-offenders find employment.
The Centre for Social Justice’s Criminal justice and addiction green paper says that crime by ex-prisoners alone costs society at least £11bn a year.
Recommendations include scrapping the National Treatment Agency for drug addicts and replacing it with an Addiction Recovery Board, to get addicts off drugs and alcohol through greater use of pioneering rehabilitation centres.
Police should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour, with every officer given the freedom to exercise common sense and discretion and intervene immediately to stop loutish behaviour, the paper says.
It also calls for new crime and justice commissioners to devolve control of policing back to communities.
The paper says the National Offender Management Service, which administers correctional services in England and Wales, is expensive and bureaucratic and should be replaced with trusts working closely with communities and elected police commissioners.
It also says prisons should get tough on drug and alcohol use through use of sniffer dogs and drug testing and there should be legislation to assist people with a criminal record to find stable employment.
Gavin Poole, new executive director at the Centre for Social Justice, said: ‘For too long our police have been handcuffed by targets, bureaucracy and Whitehall prescription.
‘Our judicial system is increasingly disconnected from the communities it should serve and a lack of transparency in sentencing has fuelled public distrust.
‘Hard-working probation officers – undermined by the National Offender Management Service experiment – are forced to tick boxes and manage unworkable large caseloads.
‘Toothless community sentences too often leave sentencers with no option but prison. Many prisons are now purposeless and overcrowded warehouses, devoid of rehabilitation.’
