| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith): My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) made a good case for new clause 1. He was right to focus on prevention. As the Home Office research shows, good supervision can prevent further violent offences. I sometimes get frustrated when the Government talk about getting tough with crime when they mean that they are shouting, but doing nothing. The Government have done little to prevent crime effectively. Sadly, they have allowed us to accept more easily than we should ever have done violent crime, and the threat of it, in the community. Violent crime is different from property crime. That does not mean that property crime should be tolerated, but it means that violent crime and the threat of violence pose a different problem to people, both in the street and in their homes. We should do everything possible to prevent it.
My hon. Friend pointed out that good supervision after an initial offence can be preventive. First, it reminds offenders that the court and prison system through which they have been is still there should they reoffend. If the Government want to talk about prevention and deterrence, that point is important, because it is an effective reminder to offenders and a better form of deterrence than saying, "We will lock you up if you commit a violent crime." Many violent offenders do not commit their crimes with premeditation. They do not work out in advance what their sentences will be.
Many people who use or threaten violence do not want to be like that for the rest of their lives. Often, they would like to be able to control the violence that drives them from within, but cannot. That is the second reason why supervision after a sentence, whatever it may be, can be beneficial: offenders can gain better insight into their behaviour and it gives them someone to turn to when things start to get out of control. Much of their violence is directed against people they know, including family and friends. When the pressure is increasing, either in their families or in their lives, it is beneficial to have someone to turn to for supervision.
I want to take my point further. As I said earlier, we have come to be a little too tolerant of violence in our society. The Government can be absolved of some of the causes of the rise of violence. Drug and alcohol abuse will always be major causes of crime, not least violent crime. While we could do more than we are doing, I accept that there is a limit to what a Government can do about those problems. We cannot blame the Government for the behaviour of every drug addict, but we can recognise that there is a problem.
I have a specific point for the Minister that also touches on the next group of new clauses. It is rather odd that we should spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a full inquiry when someone who is mentally ill commits a murder, but do no such thing when a conventional murder is committed by someone who is not mentally ill. It is odd, because we assume that we can learn something from an inquiry that will help prevent murders by mentally ill people, but that we cannot do so in cases involving people who are not mentally ill. That does not make sense. There is a strong case for a more effective audit of the causes that underlie extreme cases of violence.
We know that alcohol and drug abuse are major causes of violence, but the other cause that receives far too little attention in society is family problems, particularly treatment of children in the early stages of their life. We know that children who are violently treated by their parents are more likely to use violence as adults. That is one reason why I always find it bizarre that Conservative Members call for more corporal punishment, more thrashings at home or whatever. So far, the only evidence that we have shows that such treatment of a young person is more likely to increase that person's use of violence as an adult. It is one reason why we should always consider cautiously the introduction of corporal punishment or encouraging parents to hit their children. Perhaps the most disturbed individuals are those who are beaten inconsistently and harshly by one parent, while the other parent turns a blind eye or pretends to love that child, often producing what we like to call the psychopathic personality.
If we could do a little more research on that, we might achieve some prevention. It is one reason why, in considering the wider causes of crime, we should examine things such as nursery provision and truancy in schools, which would enable us to spot the child who is getting into difficulties early on.
Good supervision prevents some further criminal offences, particularly violent offences. It enables a probation officer or some other suitably qualified person to spot problems as they emerge, to offer help and to recall the person to prison if he is on parole, which must be done from time to time, to prevent an offence taking place, so the new clause is wholly appropriate. I urge the Government, however, to go a step further, and to consider the bizarre system whereby we have a full inquiry every time someone who is mentally ill commits murder. Instead of continuing with that process, the Government should consider allowing the Home Office research department to do an audit of serious violent offences, including murder, so that we can be a bit more sophisticated in spotting those problems in advance and in measuring the effectiveness of the supervision that the new clause entails.
I recommend the new clause to the House. It is a small step in the right direction and it might show people that we are trying to prevent violence, rather than just expressing outrage after the event, when the victim's life has been devastated.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean):
The new clause seeks to increase the period of post-release supervision for all violent offenders sentenced to four years or more. It would mean that, following their release from prison, all such offenders would be supervised for a period equivalent to 50 per cent. of their sentence. The court could increase that period by up to 10 years where it considered a longer period to be necessary. In broad terms, the new clause's
13 Jan 1997 : Column 35
I do not need any persuading that the law should provide greater protection for the public from the most serious violent offenders--indeed, that is the Bill's key objective--but I am not convinced that there is a case for extended periods of post-release supervision for a particular group of violent offenders, as the new clause proposes. The public are better protected by a long prison sentence, not by supervision by a probation officer in the community. That is why we have included in clause 1 provision for an automatic life sentence for people who are convicted for a second time of a serious sexual or violent offence. That is why we want to ensure that prisoners serve their full term and are not released after serving as little as 50 per cent. of their sentence.
Mr. Soley:
What about the first time?
Mr. Maclean:
I hear the hon. Gentleman's comment from a sedentary position. I remind him that for rape, serious violent offences and murder, the court can impose a life sentence on the first occasion if it wishes to do so. In the Bill, we insist merely on an important protection for the public: there will be an automatic life sentence for a second conviction.
Mr. Soley:
The sort of offence to which the Minister should direct his attention is that of a man who stabs his wife during a matrimonial dispute and although the stabbing is, by its very nature, serious, it is not immediately life threatening. He receives a fairly long sentence--probably quite a few years--and comes out on parole. There are many such cases, and I could quote chapter and verse, if the Minister wants.
Currently, the period of parole can be very short. During that period, the man can be recalled to prison if it is thought that the marriage is again becoming troubled and he is likely to be violent, but nothing can be done from the day that the parole order ends, which is usually fairly soon after the offender's release from prison.
Mr. Maclean:
The hon. Gentleman has failed to read the Bill and has not realised that, although parole in the conventional sense will be ended, we are creating a new supervision period during which conditions can be applied. If any of those conditions are breached, an offence will have been committed and the individual can be sentenced for that breach. After careful consideration of the matter, I have decided to go for a minimum period of supervision of 25 per cent. of the sentence. In the more minor cases, that will exactly equate to the present level.
Under the present system, those who have been sentenced, who have behaved well in prison and obeyed the rules and who are eligible for parole can be released early. The period that they will spend under supervision or on licence is 25 per cent. of their sentence. The really bad guys, who have misbehaved in prison and are not eligible for parole, have to be released automatically at the two-thirds point, so they currently receive supervision for a period of only 9 per cent. of their sentence.
In our original proposals, we considered a blanket 15 per cent. I shall say this again at the proper point in my speech, but it might help the debate if I say now that
13 Jan 1997 : Column 36
The main method whereby the Bill protects the public is not by insisting that a newly released prisoner should have a few more contacts with the probation officer, but through automatic life sentences for second-time serious violent and sexual offenders, including those who kill, seven years for those who deal in drugs and three years for persistent burglars. That is how to protect the public. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and his colleagues appear to be less convinced by that approach: they want longer periods of supervision for some violent offenders on release from prison, but their proposals for amending clauses 1 and 22 would lead to shorter periods in prison for certain offenders, including some of those convicted for a second time of a serious violent or sexual offence.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |