30 June 2010
Advocates of judicial reform have welcomed the clearest indication yet that the government is committed to reducing the prison population and finding more effective ways of dealing with criminals.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced a review of sentencing policy in a speech in London on June 30, condemning the current ‘costly and ineffectual approach’.
Clarke said the prison population of 85,000 – which has doubled since he was home secretary in 1992 – was ‘astonishing’.
He also said three-month sentences, given to 60,000 offenders a year, are not productive.
‘More and more offenders have been warehoused in outdated facilities,’ he said. ‘We spend vast amounts of public money on prison – but no proper thought has been given to whether this is really the best way of protecting the public.’
Clarke promised a ‘rehabilitation revolution’, based around voluntary and private organisations that would be paid for every criminal they worked with who did not reoffend shortly after leaving prison.
The remarks signal a significant change of tone from the previous government, which planned to build five new 1,500-place prisons as part of a £4.2bn programme to increase total capacity to 96,000 by 2014.
Sir Alan Beith, chair of the Commons justice select committee, welcomed the shift but noted that it was only a broad policy statement, and that the ‘nuts and bolts are yet to be put into place’.
However, he is optimistic that progress can be made, telling Public Finance: ‘This is first step to reconsidering the prison building programme, and I’m quite sure he’s got that in mind and is developing the alternatives.
‘Sometimes the need to reconsider expenditure can trigger thoughts about what you should have been doing in the first place.’
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said Clarke’s announcement was ‘not unexpected’. She added: ‘Up till now we have just lurched from one crisis to another and the solution has always to build more prison places.
‘The previous government got trapped in a very negative kneejerk reaction and someone coming in with a fresh vision is quite invigorating.’
The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, which has long been arguing for offenders with mental health problems, including drug and alcohol addictions, to be diverted from prison, also hailed Clarke’s announcement.
‘We are delighted that the secretary of state has signalled the government’s intent to begin a “rehabilitation revolution”,’ said director Sean Duggan.
