Annex M
Note by Mr David Fraser
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH RELATED TO
"WHAT WORKS IN REDUCING OFFENDING"
There are now 200,000 offenders subject to supervision
in the community by the Probation Service. Some are on licence
following a prison sentence, but many have been sentenced by the
courts to a period of community supervision. For members of the
public, as past and potential victims of crime, the overriding
question is do these supervision programmes work in terms of protecting
them from further criminal victimisation? An objective appraisal
of the evidence makes it clear that the answer to this question
is NO. Home Office statistics (i) consistently demonstrate that
community supervision is a calamitous failure in terms of the
number of reconvictions recorded against supervised offenders.
The latest overall reconviction rates published by the Home Office
for those placed on probation was 60 per cent. More telling is
that the majority placed under probation supervision are males
under 30; the reconviction rates for those under 21 years was
77 per cent, 21-24 years 66 per cent and 25-29 years 60 per cent.
Against a background of a 4.9 per cent detection rate (ii) the
REOFFENDING rate will be horrific. Reoffending refers to all the
crimes committed by a criminal, and reconvictions refers to the
small number of these crimes which are successfully prosecuted
through the courts. This damning evidence makes clear that the
results of Probation Service practice of persuading courts to
make community supervision orders for offenders unmotivated to
reform, in order to divert them from prison, is a licence to offend.
It is a matter of public record that in an attempt to convince
others of their "effectiveness" Chief Probation Officers
ignore this evidence when reporting on their policies in their
Annual Reports, where they frequently gloss over their failure
to protect the public from further crime with false success claims
and woolly hopes and intentions for the future.
Nevertheless the problems of how to be seen
as "effective" now dominates much of Probation Service
propaganda, and to this end probation management has embraced
uncritically the findings from a stream of research from North
America and the UK into "what works" in reducing offending.
This "what works" research purports to show that certain
types of community supervision for offenders can be effective
in reducing crime. Without carrying out any critical appraisal
of its findings the Probation Service has clutched at this so
called research as the drowning clutch at straws. It has become
their latest icon, and probation staff up and down the country
are being urged to adopt the "what works" ideology.
These researchers claim that supervision programmes which teach
offenders "thinking skills" are more successful in terms
of reducing offending than other types of supervision or prison.
The truth is that this research does not survive objective appraisal.
It is fundamentally flawed and cannot be taken seriously. There
are now a large number of "what works" research reports,
some of which have been brought together in text book form (iii)
and all share the same fatally flawed design format. Thus their
apparently positive results reported on with such enthusiasm do
not bear scrutiny.
THE
FLAWS
IN
THE
"WHAT
WORKS"
RESEARCH
FORMAT
Invalid Comparisons:
A major feature of "What Works" research
is that it compares the reconviction rates of offenders attending
specially designed programmes whilst being supervised in the community
with the reconviction rates of offenders sentenced to prison.
It concludes, as previously stated, that supervision programmes
following the "cognitive" (thinking skills) method have
better results in terms of reducing offending. This in an entirely
fallacious conclusion because courts do not select offenders at
random for different sentencing options. In general the less risky
cases are more likely to be chosen by the courts for special community
programmes, and the more high risk offenders sent to prison. Also
the offenders would have first been recommended by probation officers
as those thought most suitable for the scheme. It follows that
the more motivated and co-operative offenders, compared with those
sent to prison, are more likely to be chosen for special programmes
in the community. This is not, as many "what works"
researchers imply, a minor caveat to be borne in mind when interpreting
the results, but a fundamental flaw in the research methodology
which invalidates any comparisons between these sentencing disposals,
as any differences in reconvictions will reflect the individuals'
willingness to co-operate, and not the method of supervision.
TIME
PERIOD
USED
TO
MEASURE
RECONVICTIONS
Another reason why reported positive results
from these "what works" community supervision schemes
are false is because reconvictions are measured over a time period
frequently as short as six months, whereas the more usual time
period used by the Home Office is two years. We should be wary
of research which glosses over the influence of such major weaknesses
in the research design as inevitably they produce misleading results.
It is obvious that the shorter the follow up period the less time
there is to discover the crimes which have been committed or for
the police to process them. One of the most senior and influential
proponents of the "what works" ideology, James McGuire,
Senior Lecturer in Forensic Clinical Psychology at the University
of Liverpool, now concedes that: "It is well established
that the effects of many interventions are relatively short lived.
It is also recognised that in criminal justice settings, the re-offence
rates of any pre-selected group will be accumulated steadily with
the passage of time" (iv). James McGuire could not have provided
a more conclusive contradiction of his own "what works"
claims; clearly by his own admission "what works" doesn't!
THE
USE
OF
UNREALISTIC
MEASURES
OF
"SUCCESS"
As previously explained "what works"
research compares the reconvictions of those supervised in the
community on special programmes with reconvictions of offenders
sent to prison. It is known from the latest British Crime Survey
(ii) that only 4.9 per cent of all crimes are detected. Therefore
the reconvictions of an offender are no guide to his actual offending.
To substantiate the claims of reduced reoffending frequently made
by the "what works" school would require offenders to
be observed for 24 hours a day over 365 days a year. This stands
in stark contrast to the reality of often spasmodic and generally
limited contact between supervisor and offender, leaving the latter
copious amounts of unsupervised time in which to commit further
offences with impunity.
A RECENT
EXAMPLE
OF
A
"WHAT
WORKS"
RESEARCH
PROGRAMME
RUN
BY
THE
PROBATION
SERVICE
In addition to these fundamental flaws of methodology,
the reconviction rates of those offenders attending "what
works" programmes, do not equate with success in terms of
protecting the public. For example the results of the most recent
"what works" experiment by the Probation Service, the
STOP programme in South Wales (v) shows that the reconviction
rate of offenders on the scheme was an horrific 65 per cent[69].
Against a background of a 4.9 per cent detection rate the actual
reoffending rate will be horrendous. No distortion of the English
language could interpret this as an example of "what works
in reducing offending". Far from protecting the public these
results indicate that this programme put the public at risk. Based
on the 655 offenders who attended the scheme and the 4.9 per cent
detection rate it can be deduced that many thousands of people
were victimised by those offenders on the STOP programme and during
the follow up period. Almost unbelievably, the report glosses
over this incontrovertible evidence of failure, and resorts to
research babble to give the impression of success. As an example
it declares that the results of those who finished the course
were better than those who dropped out. This is irrelevant as
the public has to cope with the offending behaviour of all those
on the programme not just the finishers. Astonishingly, many Probation
Services, apparently either unable or unwilling to see through
the smoke screen of sophistry used in the report, are urging their
staff to adopt the STOP programme method. Sadly the STOP programme
report is but one of scores of "what works" research
papers which use "research babble" to play down the
impact of the horrendous number of offences committed by the offenders
on similar schemes, and thus gloss over evidence of the calamitous
failure of supervision in the community to protect the public
from further offending (eg vi, vii, viii, ix, x).
NB. It is worth noting in this context that many
probation orders enter the Probation Service's statistics as "successfully
terminated" because none of the offences committed by the
offender during the currency of the order were dealt with until
after the order had reached its normal termination point. Furthermore,
probation orders are included in the statistics as "successfully
terminated" where the offences committed during the currency
of the order were dealt with in such a way by the courts as to
allow the probation order to continue. Even those sent to prison,
providing their order was not terminated, would be recorded statistically
as a success. This is the basis for the highly misleading claim
by many Probation Services for a 70-80 plus per cent rate for
probation. "Pseudo success claims" are of far greater
significance than "pseudo reconvictions", because the
former obscures from the public the enormity of probation failure."WHAT
WORKS"
CLAIMS
OF
SUCCESS:
A CONTRADICTION
OF
LOGIC.
The "what works" claims of reductions
in criminality are not only meaningless, as demonstrated above,
but also contradict logic. For example, why has it taken this
research, which in many cases has reviewed programmes which took
place several years in the past, to point out their so called
"successes"—why were the "reductions"
in criminality reported in this research not noticed at the time?
Why were these so called successful programmes not replicated
throughout the country if they achieved the results claimed by
the researchers? And why, if they were so successful are they
not running now? If the Probation Service, with 200,000 plus offenders
under supervision, had achieved anything like these results then
there would have been a noticeable drop in the crime rate. Instead,
during the last decade and a half when there was a significant
drop in the number of criminals sent to prison and alternative
community programmes for offenders were used extensively, the
crime rate has rocketed.
SUMMARY
The "what works" research claims of
reducing criminality are bogus. We should not be lulled into a
false sense of security by the academic qualifications of those
"what works" research authors who, on closer inspection
have, for ideological reasons, turned a "Nelson's" eye
on fundamentally bad research techniques which have produced insupportable
results. These so-called research papers are a betrayal of true
scholarship and enquiry, which their pseudo research babble cannot
disguise. When their statistical mummery is decoded, what is revealed
is a horror story of failure in terms of the staggering numbers
of offences committed by the offenders attending these schemes,
none of which would have been committed had the offenders been
sent to prison. Far from protecting the public these supervision
programmes clearly jeopardise public safety. In a bid to create
the illusion of success, many "what works" research
reports resort to comparing the actual reconviction rate of offenders
on these schemes with their "predicted reconviction rate"
(eg v, vi). This tactic, which can divert attention from their
catastrophic failure to protect the public from criminal victimisation,
is in any case irrelevant, as it is the actual level of crime
which is of concern to the public. Likewise, the comparison of
reconviction rates of offenders released from prison with those
offenders supervised in the community, is also irrelevant to the
central question of whether supervision in the community works
in terms of protecting the public.
No one has the moral right to experiment with
the safety of an unconsenting and uninformed public with "programme
experimentation" which the evidence shows is so predictably
doomed to failure in the vast majority of cases. Courts should
more properly exercise the conscience and forbearance of the community
by reserving community sentences for those offenders who demonstrate
genuine remorse over their actions and who are motivated to change.
The recent admission by some "what works" apologists
that the motivation of offenders to change and complete the programme
is important for success (v, xi) invalidates at a stroke the "what
works" claim that particular kinds of programmes can reduce
offending; only offenders can reduce offending, not programmes!
The official Home Office reconviction rates quoted at the beginning
of this paper demonstrate that to place persistent offenders unmotivated
to reform under supervision in the community is to give them a
licence to offend. This could not be more clearly demonstrated
by the extrapolation that the official Home Office figure of 60
per cent reconviction rate for those on probation equates to millions
of offences committed by them during their period of supervision,
and it is the innocent public that bears the brunt of this catastrophic
failure in sentencing policy.
David Fraser
Retired Senior Probation Officer
November 1997
REFERENCES
(i) Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Issue
6/97, 24 March 1997
(ii) Information on the Criminal Justice
System in England and Wales: Home Office Research and Statistics
Department 1995
(iii) McGuire, J (1995), What Works: Reducing
Offending, Guidelines from Research and Practice, John Wiley and
Sons
(iv) McGuire, J (1997), Problem-Solving
Training and Offence Behaviour: A University of Liverpool publication
(v) Raynor, P, Vanstone, M (1997), Report
on the STOP Programme (run by Mid Glamorgan Probation Service):
"The Two Year Re-Conviction Follow Up"
(vi) Roberts, J, (1994), Hereford and Worcester
Probation Service Young Offender Project 1984-89: Discovering
What Works
(vii) Probation: Published by The Inner
London Probation Service, November 1997 Issue no 20
(viii) The Kent Reconviction Survey: A Five
Year Survey of reconvictions amongst Offenders made subject to
probation orders in 1991. Mark Oldfield, Research Officer, Kent
Probation Service
(ix) Wilkinson, J, Morgan, D (1995), The
Impact of Ilderton Motor Project on Motor Vehicle Crime and Offending.
Inner London Probation Service
(x) Bottoms, AE (1995), Intensive Community
Supervision for Young Offenders: Outcomes, Process and Cost. Institute
of Criminology Publications, Cambridge
(xi) McGuire, J (1997), Plenary Sessions:
Researching "what works": some implications for the
use of imprisonment, Inside Psychology, 3, 1, 3-8
Memorandum by Sybil Eysenck, Bsc PhD FBPS
It is with some gratification that I note the
proposed Crime and Disorder Bill sets out to tackle youth crime
at last.
The practice of multiple cautions by the police
was a formula for disaster, since these warnings were totally
disregarded by streetwise children who knew subsequent offences
would merely attract another caution. If the aim is to lower reconviction
rates, the limiting of cautions to one is a step in the right
direction, even if only to regain the credibility of the police
in the eyes of youngsters.
If the next step from a caution is a court appearance,
it is essential that this experience does not become the "soft
option" because of unrealistic sentencing. Unfortunately,
many of the alternatives to prison are regarded very much as a
soft option, because very often that indeed is what they are;
Intermediate Treatment (IT) was a case in point! Why reward anti-social
behaviour by a special canoeing trip? Why not send well behaved
children on adventure outings?
In psycholgy, there is a well known principle,
that adults, children and animals will respond to rewards by learning
to repeat that behaviour which is rewarded and conversely will
desist from behaviour which results in punishment. This is obvious
common sense and the method of reward and punishment is well researched
in both human and animal psychology and deserves some attention
from the judiciary. Hence we need to reward good behaviour and
punish bad behaviour, which is by no means the principle upon
which IT is practised. These sorts of alternatives to prison clearly
do not work and never will.
How can alternatives to prison work? The first
requirement is surely to obtain the offender's co-operation and
attain his motivation to change. When an alternative to prison
is suggested in court (ie probation or community service) the
offender's acceptance is largely given to avoid prison, not because
he or she wish to change their ways. Analogously, when trying
to treat drug addicts or alcoholics it is well established and
accepted by psychiatrists that if unmotivated there is no way
an addict will be cured. Temporarily it is easy to wean someone
off drugs, but try for a long term cure and therapists are up
against a strong unwillingness on the part of the addict to give
up their self-rewarding habit.
So the answer may be to make alternatives to
prison available to first offenders after one caution, rewarding
for compliance but building in strong sanctions for bad behaviour.
Thereafter, if reoffending occurs, it should be axiomatic that
there is no "second bite at the cherry" and prison should
follow. An alternative to prison should be regarded as a privilege
and if it is abused by reoffending the punishment of prison should
follow without exception.
In my experience as a Magistrate some sentencers
convince themselves that "anything is better than prison"
and often make probation orders or community sentences in totally
inappropriate cases which is a recipe for predictable failure.
My feeling is that the sentencers' prime objective should always
be the protection of the public and if an alternative to prison
is the best way to achieve this, so be it, but not to be gentle
to the offender.
Finally, it is as well to remember that individual
differences in personality mean that some, but not all, offenders
will be suitable for other than custodial sentences especially
when initially into crime.
Sybil Eysenck
Curriculum Vitae
| Name: | Sybil Eysenck
|
| Marital Satus: | Married to Professor H J Eysenck. (Widowed) 4 children
|
| Qualifications: | BSc University of London 1952
PhD University of London 1955
|
| Fellowships: | Fellow of British Psychological Society 1960. Chartered psychologist.
|
| Appointments: | 1953-67
| Research Worker then Senior Research Worker, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London.
|
| 1967-
| Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry.
|
| 1977-
| Appointed Justice of the Peace in Inner London.
Three years as Chairman of Inner London Executive Committee.
Two years on Magistrates' Council.
Chairman of Licensing Committee.
Chairman of Social Committee.
Chairman of Greenwich Crime Prevention Panel.
Vice Chairman Lambeth Crime Prevention Panel.
|
| Publications: | Over 180 articles in psychological journals. Co-Editor Personality and Individual Differences Journal with H J Eysenck (Elsevier Press).
Co-authored books with H J Eysenck in 1969 (Personality Structure & Measurement. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul) and 1976 (Psychoticism as a Dimension of Personality. London: Hodder & Stoughton).
Co-authored book with D H Saklofske in 1988 (Individual Differences in Personality in Children and Adolescents: International Perspectives. London: Hodder & Stoughton). Transaction Press 1997.
|
Memorandum by Mr David Fraser
1. Prisons Misrepresented
A review of community sentences cannot be properly
carried out without taking into account our current attitudes
towards prison as a sentencing option; it can be argued that our
current beliefs about prison influence our attitude towards alternative
sentences and impact on our readiness to support their use. It
is disturbing therefore to realise that most of the information
disseminated to the British public about prisons is highly misleading,
and frequently incorrect. The media, the main conduit for information
about crime, criminals and prisons, almost exclusively publishes
the propaganda of the well organised and vociferous anti-prison
lobby in this country, which for the last 20 years or more has
waged an undeclared propaganda war on an unsuspecting public.
As a result they have brainwashed the British people with a number
of myths about prisons, which many now accept as unquestionable
truths. For example, these myths have promoted the belief that
we have "too many" people in prisons and that courts
in the UK are over ready to use this sentencing option, that the
UK sends more people to prison than many other countries, that
prisons are "colleges of crime", that they are more
expensive than probation, that they "make people worse",
and that they offer entirely negative regimes. It is all the more
astonishing therefore to learn that not one of these ideas has
any basis in fact, and all are overwhelmingly contradicted by
objective evidence. It is clear that over recent years this propaganda
has influenced the thinking of many MPs, government officials,
as well as numerous Ministers of State, who appear mesmerised
by these anti-prison mantras, and repeat them in their public
speeches and media discussions, with little or no opposition.
Thus, to restate, it is imperative that those involved in a review
of community sentencing and other alternatives to prison, should
understand the ideological nature of these manufactured myths
concerning prison and the evidence which shows that they are lies.
2. "There are `too many people in prison'—the
courts in the UK are over ready to use prison as a sentencing
option and do not use alternative sentences enough"
Evidence from the British Crime Survey (i) shows
that only 2 per cent of all crimes committed in the UK result
in a conviction, and only a small number of those offenders who
are responsible for this staggeringly low figure of crimes successfully
prosecuted through the courts are sent to prison. Thus the statement
that there are "too many people in prison" is seen to
be groundless. However, a claim that there are "not enough
people in prison" has total validity. A visit to any magistrates'
court will dispel the myth that they are over ready to use custody
as a sentencing option. The reality is that magistrates' courts,
where 95 per cent of offenders are sentenced (i) go out of their
way not to use prison. It is a matter of public record that magistrates
are frequently persuaded by defence lawyers and probation officers
to put the freedom of persistent offenders before the protection
of the public by giving these offenders numerous chances to reform
by the imposition of alternative sentences to custody. Official
statistics published by the Home Office (i) make it clear that
alternative sentences are used far more frequently than prison
for the majority of offenders. The record of previous convictions
of those receiving their first prison sentence also shows that
the leniency of the courts has allowed these persistent offenders
to go round the alternative sentencing tariff, often many times,
before a custodial sentence is imposed. This pattern of sentencing
often takes place over a long period of time during which the
persistent offender victimises countless innocent members of the
public.
3. "The UK sends more people to prison
than many other countries"
The ideological flagship of the anti-prison
lobby is the misleading claim that `"the United Kingdom sends
a higher percentage of its population to prison compared with
any other European country except Turkey". This false premise
is one of their fundamental arguments for community sentencing.
The anti-prison groups have majored particularly on inculcating
the minds of the British people with this propaganda, because,
once this is believed to be a fact, it then becomes much easier
for the other myths concerning crime and prisons to be believed.
However, it is an entirely false claim, that is conclusively contradicted
by the evidence, in relation to Turkey as well as the UK. To begin
with, this claim, even if it were true, is irrelevant. The inference
the unwary are invited to draw from this statistical sleight of
hand is that the UK sends more of its criminals to prison than
other countries, and is therefore far more punitive. Such an inference
is entirely erroneous; the correct way to calculate how punitive
the UK is compared with others is to examine, for each country,
the number of criminals sent to prison compared with that countries
crime rate (not with the population as a whole). Meticulous analysis
carried out on this basis shows that the UK uses prison far less
than the majority of 12 other countries for which comparative
data is available (i). In addition, the distinguished criminologist,
Dr Ken Pease, Professor of Criminology and formerly Prinicpal
Research Officer at the Home Office, has constructed a scale which
compares the relative "punitiveness" of different countries
related to their treatment of criminals. In overall terms, in
a list of 23 countries, the UK is mid-stream (ii). A more detailed
analysis which indicates how punitive each country is in relation
to particular offences, shows that, apart from homicide, the UK,
for rape, robbery, assault, theft and fraud, is consistently the
least punitive, or one of the least punitive sentencers, compared
with 15 other countries (ii). Thus, this evidence demonstrates
that, compared with many other countries, far from sending more
of its criminals to prison, the UK is very lenient in the way
it deals with its offenders.
4. "Prisons fail—they are colleges
of crime and make people worse"
The acceptance of this statement by the majority
of people as an unquestionable truth represents one of the anti-prison
lobby's most successful propaganda coups. This is all the more
astonishing as it is contradicted by all the available evidence
as well as by common sense. The idea that some offenders are vulnerable
to being made "worse" by learning new crime skills from
other, more criminalised inmates is based on an entirely false
premise. (If there was credence to this idea how much more does
it apply to criminals left free in the community to corrupt the
vulnerable wherever they meet them, a fact reported on regularly
in probation reports up and down the land). The records of the
vast majority of offenders receiving their first prison sentence
show that they are already experienced and established criminals
with little new to learn. It is wrong to say that prisons fail;
it is their inmates who fail. If they do acquire new criminal
skills in prison they are not obliged to use them; this is entirely
a matter of choice for the offender concerned. If on discharge
ex-prisoners reoffend, it confirms that a custodial sentence was
right in the first place. Prisons do not create criminals or make
them worse criminals; prisons are mere bricks and mortar and therefore
cannot be held responsible for futher offending; this is solely
the responsibility of the individual who chooses to continue a
life of crime. The anti-prison lobby have frequently made the
misleading claim that the reconviction rates of those released
from prison are higher than those supervised in the community.
Again, this claim is contradicted by the evidence. Official Home
Office data shows a 53 per cent reconviction rate for all types
of community supervision (iv). On this basis, if the anti-prison
lobby carried through the logic of its own criticism, it would
have to conclude that it is community supervision that makes offenders
worse. However, in reality it is offenders who fail, not community
supervision programmes.
5. "Prisons are human dustbins—their
regimes are entirely negative"
This criticism is frequently made of our prison
system, often by those with little or no practical experience
of life in custody. More often than not, its critics have put
the Prison Service on the defensive, and as a result it has done
little to put the record straight concerning the many positive
aspects of prison regimes. It is true that some prisons are overcrowded,
and this problem must be rectified by new prison building programmes.
All prisoners are volunteers, and prison conditions, both good
and bad are well known to them at the time they risk their freedom
by committing crime. Nevertheless, offenders in UK prisons have
access to trained prison and probation staff who are available
to deal with any problems that may arise. Help is provided with
many financial and practical problems not always available to
those on the outside. Many prisons have excellent sports facilities
and trained instructors, who offer inmates free physical training
and recreational programmes in well equipped gymnasiums that would
be the envy of many in the outside community. Prisoners in need
of medical or dental help not available in the prison are taken
to outside hospitals where they receive treatment with a promptness
not enjoyed by the majority in society. Every effort is made to
help the offender mend his ways by the provision of special programmes
and courses, designed by the prison psychologists, probation and
or prison officers. In addition, each prisoner serving more than
one year has an individually designed "sentence plan"
to encourage him to reform. Advice and help is provided by staff
inside the prison and by many outside agencies on drug, alcohol
and other problems. "Life Skills" courses are run in
increasing numbers of prisons to encourage the prisoners to lead
crime free lives on release. It is a myth that prison "breaks
up families". It is offenders, who by their criminal way
of life break family ties. Prison staff frequently encourage prisoners
to re-establish family contacts broken long before they started
their prison sentence, and every effort is made to facilitate
visits by family and friends. Much effort is put into ensuring
a smooth passage from prison to the outside world. Generous financial
grants are paid to those who need them on release. Numerous organisations
such as NACRO make free job training schemes available to many
about to be released. In 1995 the "Prisoners Information
Book" was published for circulation to all inmates, which
is updated every year. Among other things it contained information
on no less than 63 organisations offering inmates help over a
wide variety of issues (ix). Prisons in the UK provide their inmates
with free laundry services, free meals, ensure free legal advice
is available, free medical and dental treatment, free training
and help from experts on a range of psychiatric, personal and
social issues, free job training, free high calibre sports and
recreational facilities, free taxi services when required, free
transport to their home, and grants of money when needed. The
effort and money (quite properly) spent on criminals in our prisons
to look after them during their sentence and to encourage them
to reform is largely obscured from the public by the misleading
propaganda of the anti-prison lobby. These facts make a mockery
of the criticism that prisons are human dustbins offering a "no-hope
negative regime".
6. "A prison sentence is more expensive than
probation or other forms of community supervision"
This highly misleading statement is only true
if offenders being supervised in the community do not commit any
offences during their period of supervision. However, it is known
that those under supervision in the community commit large numbers
of offences; for example, the majority of those placed on probation
are under 30; the reconviction rates for those under 21 years
is 77 per cent, 21-24 years 66 per cent, and 25-29 years 60 per
cent (iii). Against a background of a 4.9 per cent detection rate
(i) the actual reoffending rate will be horrific. Reoffending
refers to all the crimes committed by criminals, and reconvictions
refer to the small number successfully prosecuted through the
courts. It is known from Home Office (v) and other independent
research (vi) conducted in the late 1980's that the financial
costs of these crimes are massive. More recent Home Office estimates
(1997) (vii) put the costs of crime in the UK at a staggering
30 billion pounds per year—nearly 5 per cent of the National
Income. Prisons (i) in contrast, cost only 1.5 billion a year.
Thus locking up persistent offenders is a bargain society cannot
afford to ignore. These colossal costs of crime are a major issue
but far more important are the horrendous personal costs of crime
in terms of human misery caused to millions of victims. Some recover
after a period of time ranging from days to years, but others
are given a life sentence of fear and general loss of confidence
greatly reducing their standard of life. Thus the evidence demonstrates
that prisons, far from being expensive, are a highly cost effective
way of dealing with persistent offenders.
7. Prison Works
We should resist being bullied by fallacious
ideological argument to think negatively about prisons. As demonstrated
above, the reconviction rates for those released from prisons
are better than for those supervised in the community. However,
this is a distraction from the main benefit of prisons which is
that whilst persistent offenders are locked up the public gains
maximum protection from them. This is of inestimable value whether
or not the offender continues to commit crime after release. The
greatest value of prison to the public is the huge number of offences
that are not committed by persistent offenders whilst they are
locked up. This enormous social benefit is deliberately undervalued
or ignored by the anti-prison lobby, who unfailingly point to
those released from prison who continue to commit crime, as evidence
that prison has failed, whilst turning a blind eye to the even
higher reconviction rates of offenders supervised in the community.
If prison also reforms, then that is a bonus, but its primary
role is to protect the public from the depredations of the persistent
criminals who have failed to reform despite being given numerous
previous alternative sentences. Compared to the poor performance
of alternative sentences, prison always works as a means of protecting
society.
8. Bringing Prisons into Correct Focus
The anti-prison lobby's sustained and highly
successful propaganda campaign has brainwashed an unsuspecting
nation into adopting a "negative mind-set" in relation
to prisons. How else can we explain the community's apparent willingness
to support sentencing policies that directly conflict with its
own safety and well being by allowing unrepentant criminals their
freedom to go on committing crime? What other explanation is there
for the phenomenon whereby we knowingly follow sentencing practices
which predictably results in the misery and significant harm to
many millions of people victimised by criminals every year? It
is an illusion that we have too many people in prison. If some
prisons are crowded it is because there are insufficient prison
places even for the very small number of offenders who are dealt
with by means of a custodial sentence. In contrast to the propaganda
put out by the anti-prison lobby, objective evidence demonstrates
that the UK is, compared with other countries and its own crime
rate, very tolerant in the way it deals with persistent offenders.
Anti-prison propaganda has poisoned the public's view of prison
regimes. In reality they have much to offer prisoners, both to
enhance their life style inside and to prepare them for life outside.
If prisoners continue to commit crime after release it is in spite
of the determined rehabilitative efforts made by prison staff,
and the considerable practical and financial resources which are
committed to this objective. Custodial sentences prevent untold
crimes being committed and keep in safe conditions many who are
unlikeable, difficult, dangerous, unrepentant, and sometimes insane,
thus saving countless people from the misery of criminal victimisation.
Yet because of the success of anti-prison propaganda they are
more often vilified than praised. It is true that there are many
problems in prisons; overcrowding is being addressed by building
new prisons; bullying, baroning, drug trafficking are but some
of the problems that are unacceptable, but it is the inmates who
generate these problems by importing their criminal attitudes,
not the prison regime, which is constantly trying to overcome
them.
Prisons are our only method of guaranteeing
the public protection from persistent criminals unmotivated to
reform. The anti-prison lobby argument that there would have to
be large increases in the numbers of people sent to prison in
order to significantly reduce the crime rate is incorrect. This
argument ignores recent Home Office research which has concluded
that a minority of persistent offenders commit the majority of
crimes (viii). It follows therefore that if we could recover from
the influence of anti-prison propaganda, and follow a determined
policy to pursue and incarcerate these relatively small number
of offenders for increasing lengths of time, there would be a
significant drop in the crime rate. For many who live in the shadow
of criminal victimisation this would bring about a significant
increase in the "feel good" factor concerning their
general security and thus would result in a marked improvement
in the standard of life for a large majority.
9. The Public's Perspective
The number of offences committed each year in
the UK has now reached an alarming 18 million (i). The Home Office
Statistical Department have concluded in their Janus Studies (x)
that persistent offenders are responsible for the majority of
these crimes. Probation Service policies over recent years have
been to persuade courts to divert from custody offenders who were
otherwise at greatest risk of going to prison. This has resulted
in large numbers of persistent offenders unmotivated to reform
being allowed their freedom to serve a non-custodial sentence
in the community, such as probation and community service. The
evidence from the Home Office shows unarguably that the vast majority
of these offenders continue to commit crime, clearly demonstrating
that the trust placed in them by the courts, on the advice of
the Probation Service, is generally treated with contempt.
10. Misuse of the "tariff" of alternative
(non-custodial) sentencing options
Many of those sentenced to supervision in the
community as an alternative to prison, would have already been
given numerous chances to reform during their criminal career.
Fines, conditional discharges, supervision orders, probation orders,
community supervision orders, and suspended sentences form a tariff
system well known to persistent offenders. Home Office data (i)
shows that as many as a third of all offenders sentenced in 1994
were fined, and that other non-custodial sentences were also used
significantly more often than prison for the vast majority of
offenders. In most cases, as the reconviction evidence shows,
these alternative sentences have no influence on the propensity
of persistent offenders to commit crime. Indeed, the criminal
records of those receiving their first prison sentence attest
to the long suffering nature of the court's attitude to them over
the years. As already pointed out, these offender records frequently
show that they have been round the "alternative sentence"
tariff system many times before the courts finally decided that
the protection of the public must override the often misplaced
argument from the Probation Service for yet another "alternative
to custody" sentence. Thus the evidence leads to the inescapable
conclusion that the use of alternative sentencing options by the
courts, in an attempt to avoid imprisonment for persistent offenders
unmotivated to reform, condemns millions of innocent members of
the public to victimisation by persistent criminals.
11. The Criminal's Perspective—"crime
is a safe business"
As already indicated, evidence from the British
Crime Survey (i) shows that only 2 per cent of all crimes committed
in the UK result in a conviction, and only a tiny fraction of
those offenders who are responsible for this staggeringly low
figure of crimes successfully prosecuted are sent to prison. The
majority are dealt with by the imposition of an alternative "non-custodial"
sentence. From the criminal's point of view this makes crime a
low risk business; the persistent offender knows that he is rarely
caught, and that he can rely on getting away with the vast majority
of his crimes. If he is unlucky enough (from his point of view)
to be apprehended, he knows he can count on several hurdles which
the system can raise to prevent him even being prosecuted. If
he does become one of the tiny minority of offenders who are dealt
with in court he knows that the chances of receiving a prison
sentence are very small, and that the likelihood is that he will
receive an alternative sentence. Should he be one of the minute
percentage of offenders to receive a prison sentence the odds
are that it will not be long enough to deter him from what has
become a highly lucrative, tax free crime business, with short
working hours and few expenses, to support a comfortable and easy
way of life. Sentencing data published by the Home Office Statistics
Department (i) identifies 18 years as the peak age for offending
in this country, yet the numbers of offenders of this age dealt
with by means of a prison sentence has steadily declined since
1984 (i). It is known by the author from his seven years experience
of working in a Young Offender Prison (YOI) which catered for
17 to 19 year old offenders, that estimates of many hundreds of
offences committed a year for each persistent offender is not
an exaggeration, and that their attitude to the occasional short
prison sentence is akin to the attitude of a businessman who receives
a small but unexpected tax demand. It is no more than an irritant,
soon forgotten. Likewise, the attitude of persistent offenders
to non-custodial sentences is simply that they have "got
off"; the massive problem of unpaid fines, for example, imposed
on criminals as an alternative sentence is evidence of their complete
disregard for the sentence the court has imposed on them. The
inmates' property room in the YOI where the author worked was
not full of ragged trousers, holed shoes and threadbare coats.
The clothing rack was full of the most expensive designer jeans,
top of the range trainers, and leather jackets. This display of
criminal affluence was a fitting testament that for them, crime
not only paid well, but was easy, and almost risk free, thanks
to the numerous non-custodial alternative sentences which they
had received throughout their criminal career, allowing them to
accumulate the trappings of wealth out of the reach of many law
abiding young men of their age.
12. Conclusion
The painful conclusion is that the vast administrative
and legal costs involved in the use of "alternative sentences"
for persistent offenders is not only a waste of money, but supports
a system giving them their freedom to go on victimising members
of the public. Thus the number of crimes committed by offenders
whilst they are serving alternative sentences is the only valid
way to review their effectiveness. In the UK the evidence is horrific
and clear; for the persistent offender unmotivated to reform the
imposition of an alternative sentence to imprisonment means "business
as usual".
There are already in existence many alternatives
to prison which have a constructive role to play in sentencing,
providing they are applied to criminals who are safe to live in
the community, or to those of a more persistent nature who show
a genuine remorse and motivation to change.
David Fraser,
(Retired Senior Probation Officer)
REFERENCES
(i) Digest: Information on the Criminal
Justice System in England & Wales, (1995), Home Office
Research & Statistics Department.
(ii) Pease, K (1992), "Punitiveness
& Prison Populations: An International Comparison", Justice
of the Peace, June 27, p 405-408.
(iii) Home Office Statistical Bulletin,
Issue 6/97, 24 March 1997.
(iv) Home Office Statistical Bulletin,
Issue 5/97, 24 March 1997.
(v) Home Office Report, The Costs
of Crime, 6 December 1988.
(vi) Coad, P and Fraser, D (1987), "Licence
to Offend", Justice of the Peace, 151, 48, p 759.
(vii) Sunday Times, 23 March 1997,
"Costs of Crime Exceed 30 billion pounds."
(viii) The Offenders Index, 4th
edition, July 1994, (Janus Studies), Home Office.
(ix) The Prison Reform Trust & HM
Prison Service, (1995), The Prisoners' Information Book.
(x) The Offenders' Tale: Janus Studies,
version 2, August 1992, Home Office.
DAVID FRASER (biographical notes)
David Fraser read Social Administration and
Policy at London University in the 1960s, and was made a Master
of Philosophy at the University of Bristol in 1996, following
the successful submission of his higher degree thesis. This followed
several years of research into the factors related to the occupational
stress of probation staff based in the West Midlands and in what
was then Avon. On leaving school, he worked for a number of years
in industry, and for a short time as a teacher. He joined the
Probation Service in 1967 and worked at a number of busy Stipendary
Magistrates' Courts in the Inner London area as well as in two
large London prisons. In 1971 he spent a year as a clinical trainee
at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. In 1975 he moved
with his family to the South West and completed his 26 year probation
career in Bristol, having been a Senior Probation Officer for
22 years. His last assignment was in a Young Offender Prison for
seven years, which took 14-16 year old prisoners, and later 17-19
year olds. During this time he was responsible for the development
of a number of Probation innovations, both in the community and
in prisons. He has published a number of articles about probation
work, some of which have raised controversial questions about
UK penal philosophy and its application to the sentencing of persistent
offenders. In particular, between 1987 and 1997, he co-authored
a series of "Licence to Offend" papers which had a major
impact on the debate concerning crime, criminals and prisons.
He is currently employed as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst with
the National Criminal Intelligence Service. He is married, with
two grown up children and lives with his family in Bristol.
Memorandum by Mr Ronald Lewis
"It takes a politician of great courage to
advocate the obvious"—Churchill
1. The best alternative to prison is an
honest life! Prison may not "cure" the criminal, but
it stops his criminal activity; his victims get justice for their
loss/injuries, and those he might have victimised are spared.
If he resumes his criminal career on release, the sentences should
get longer. But is that not punishing twice? No. There is no tariff,
merely a maximum. There is no right to expect other than imprisonment
for the commission of an imprisonable offence. The person of hitherto
good character hopes for leniency on that account. Criminals do
not have their liberty taken away from them, they wager it when
they commit the crime.
2. "There are those in prison who don't
need to be there, who have not committed crimes of violence,"
declare the anti-prison lobby almost daily. This steady drip of
propaganda has done much to reduce discussion of penal affairs
to the content of a prayer meeting. The increase in the prison
population is what concerns the pressure groups not the worst
house burglary figures for the developed world (a buzz phrase
of the 80s was: "There are no innocent victims"). Parliament
determines which statutory offences are imprisonable; it is not
for pressure groups to suggest that the CJ system should itself
decide to (in effect) amend the law and only commit those for
whom prison is "necessary" (doubtless most likely to
include persons of hitherto good character who use force in defence
of their persons or property).
3. There have been plenty of alternatives
to prison; from those prison itself was developed to replace,
such as execution, torture, deportation, the stocks etc, to community
service, probation, probation day centres, parole and other early
release schemes, bail hostels, suspended sentences, fines, intermediate
treatment, decriminalisation, reclassifying juveniles as children
(majority still 21 in the criminal justice system). And there
are now about 8,000 probation officers compared with less than
500 in 1939; the sentencer faces an obstacle race of requirements
before he can imprison; yet the prison population is the largest
ever, six times the 1939 figure (reflecting a crime rate that
doubled about every 10 years).
4. The probation service was expanded to
strive against criminality in the community. But it spun out of
control during the moral and intellectual holocaust that began
in 1968. The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO),
adopted a highly anti-authoritarian posture to the criminal justice
system, and campaigned against pre-trial reports which it had
earlier striven for, and which had been an important recommendation
of Mr Justice Streatfield's Committee (Speeding business in the
Higher Courts).
5. Every major proposal for tougher probation
had to run the gauntlet of management grovelling to NAPO. The
previous Labour administration published the Younger report in
1974, which recommended a new probation order called the Supervision
and Control Order. It was denounced by NAPO even before it was
published. The subsequent Conservative administration displayed
no more courage in confronting NAPO, and this excellent report
was not implemented. John Patten's Punishment in the Community
proposals, 12 years later, contained "Younger" elements,
but became too driven by an almost hysterical wish to reduce the
prison population dramatically. As a result the 1991 CJ act made
a laughing stock of sentencing and was (rightly) called a "villain's
charter".
6. An alternative to prison must be buttressed
by a credible threat of imprisonment. This was recognised by the
Wootton Committee. But when the respite from prison-increases
turns out to be merely temporary, the authorities tamper with
the practice by (effectively) "overlooking" the default.
John Patten wanted to institutionalise this idea by using alternatives
for repeat offenders. Such surrenders in the name of reducing
the prison population are self-defeating. The more the threat
of imprisonment is weakened, the greater the level of criminal
activity.
7. The only significant reduction in the
crime rate since the war has occurred during the last four years
when the Home Secretary broke free from the "progressive"
body-lock in which his predecessors had been held by the anti-custody
establishment. In America too, punitive sentencing has at last
begun to roll back lawlessness. An important function of punishment
is that it draws attention to and clarifies the law. Increasing
mystification of the sentencing process has brought the system
into disrepute. The criminal law should be clearly delineated.
There was a practice, years ago, of probation officers making
their reports verbally. It was a good principle. If he is to advise
a non-custodial sentence, his reasons should be publicly stated,
and capable of cross examination by the prosecution. And the mitigation
process should be subject to testing by the prosecution. The defence
counsel's role is to "get his chap off", not the pursuance
of the truth.
8. It would be foolish to suggest that all
the troubles of crime can be attributed to the failure of the
criminal justice system alone. It has to operate in a society
where the old spiritual icons have weakened and been replaced
by pornographic ones. The commandments based morality which dominated
the training of the young and fostered the growth of the internal
policeman, and respect for good authority, is scorned by the culture
of trivia in the land of "Tabloidia". The traditional
behavioural influences, the family, school (including Sunday)
have been undermined by foolish philosophies. Social policies
of encouragement are needed for both, including radical measures
to reform "bandit territory" estates. The present Home
Secretary's proposals concerning disorder are much to be welcomed.
9. Reducing the prison population has been
a goal of most governments for over a 100 years. Most (detected)
crime is committed by persistent criminals. More of them are at
large today than was the case before we dismantled the controls
developed during the "century of reform" that began
with Peel and gave us the legacy of a virtually crime-free society.
They need to be locked up for longer and longer periods. Crimes
such as house burglaries, street robbery and violence against
the person should also attract prison at the second if not the
first such offence, but suspended on conditions such as probation,
community service, tagged curfews or substantial fines and compensation.
A breach of the conditions would activate the incarceration. Another
offence during the currency of the suspension would result in
incarceration which should be consecutive.
10. Bad behaviour must not be rewarded.
Horse riding lessons for girls, and scrambling motor bike activities
for boys, should never be given in response to the commission
of an offence, as they often were with Intermediate Treatment
(dubbed treats). Deprivation-needs are welfare ones. Today's welfare
state limits poverty to that self-inflicted; drugs, alcohol, and
gambling are not like cancer with which they compete for resources.
There is no treatment short of tough love, (no injections for
will power). The self abuser neither deserves compassion, nor
would it do him any good. There is no substitute for cold turkey.
That he should get in prison. But prisons need to be restored
to the drug free places they once were, and there must be harsh
penalties for those who abuse visits by trafficking. The practice
of rewarding the commission of an offence resulting in imprisonment,
by writing off unpaid fines, was wrong when the sentence, in lieu,
was imposed concurrently (by way of lodged warrant). It should
always be consecutive. If the subject has money outside he can
"pay out". Hopeful criminal punters should not be encouraged
by repeated cautions, and the Crown Prosecution Service deciding
that a charge will not succeed, a practice that usurps the role
of the jury. Accusers have the right to be heard.
11. A climate needs to be developed hostile
to the commission of offences. Since the pressure groups (sadly
including NAPO) regularly deploy bogus success claims for non-custodial
penalties, and express hostility towards respect for good authority,
they must be just as regularly challenged with the truth. Public
money supports many of these bodies, it would be better spent
on an information department delivering facts. The probation service
claims to be at the heart of "challenging/addressing offending
behaviour". It would sound more convincing if its efforts
were not continuously undermined by its NAPO spokesmen's unprincipled
compassion for the criminal whom they describe as a victim too.
Since the abolition of capital punishment and the consequential
downgrading of penalties for lesser offences, our country has
become a much more violent place. It should not be forgotten that
many people have been murdered by persons supervised by the probation
service. By all means, when it is appropriate, deal with criminals
in the community. But put down firm markers. Keep promises and
execute threats. Build a reputation for tough, fair, and consistent
handling. A healthy society must wage war relentlessly on crime.
It is war that cannot be won totally, but can be lost.
12. Criminal policy, has been the biggest
political failure since the war. Michael Howard fought hard to
break with past failures. He was demonised for his trouble, by
a coalition of opponents of criminal justice and self-serving
members of the legal profession who feared that loss of fees would
be a price they would have to pay for not only his reforms, but
those initiated by the Lord Chancellor. It is most encouraging
to see that Jack Straw has gone for continuity; he is pushing
back the social workers and returning to justice. In the long
run this policy will be good for the criminal too. Many men that
the author met in prison, wished they had been robustly dealt
with at the beginning. They regarded their early court appearances
as a "bit of a giggle" and were not intimidated. They
blamed their later criminal careers on weak authority. The probation
service should be given back the youngsters and should put a big
effort into them, for they are, potentially, tomorrows persistent
criminals. It should stop dissipating its energies on psychopaths,
aggressive, inadequate, or happy. Apart from anything else, too
much failure is bad for the morale of any organisation.
RONALD LEWIS Commentator Criminal and Social
Policy
Probation Service 30 years (22 as SPO)
Served in London and Kent, attachments to magistrates,
juvenile, crown and civil courts. Prison secondment as SPO, three
years, established the first probation department at Eastchurch
Prison. SPO Kent Crown Court and Senior Court Welfare Officer
for Kent—nine years.
Active member of the National Association of
Probation Officers for 20 years.
Held numerous offices at branch, regional and
national level. Campaigned for the establishment of joint consultative
committees in the face of managerial displeasure, and was a founder
member of the Kent one. Represented basic grade officers in their
appeals against their grades. Resigned from NAPO in 1980, following
its adoption of policies openly hostile to senior probation officers.
Was at that time a member of the National Executive Committee.
Founder-member of the National Association of
Senior Probation Officers
Was its first general secretary, serving for
nine years. Represented several SPOs in disciplinary and grievance
hearings. Presented evidence to official bodies including the
Certification Office, and parliamentary committees.
Was an active member of the Labour Party for
20 years, a borough councillor, county councillor, and parliamentary
candidate twice.
Writer and speaker on criminal and social matters.
A regular contributor to the Justice of the
Peace for over 25 years. Contributed to the 1977 Education Black
Paper "Artful Dodgers of the World Unite"—a challenge
to the marxist influence in probation training. In 1991 published
Professional Delinquency in The Salisbury Review.
Memorandum by Professor Ken Pease OBE,
Professor of Criminology, Huddersfield University
Some 25 years ago I headed the Home Office Research
Unit (as it then was) team which evaluated "alternatives
to custody" introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 1972 (see
Pease et al. 1975, 1977). Though my primary interests now
lie elsewhere, I have from time to time published work on alternatives
to prison, most recently on electronic tagging. Lengthy and often
bitter experience leads me to preface this contribution by a statement
of values brought to the analysis which follows.
1. The aspiration to reintegrate those who
offend is noble. Without that aspiration, correction programmes
become warehousing, with diminution of education and training
facilities. This was evident during the 1980s under the chilling
mantra `humane containment'. Attempts at reintegration of motivated
offenders should form part of custodial and non-custodial programmes.
2. "Treatment needs" must not
drive the generality of sentencing. This way lies injustice for
the offender and division between executive and judiciary. The
US flight from indeterminate sentence was driven by that insight.
3. Comparison of sentence effects must take
place on a level playing field, ie not one upon which ideology,
professional self-interest or kindliness gives an unwarranted
advantage to community sentences.
This paper is primarily concerned with point
3. It makes points which are simple, even self-evident. If self-evident,
they are certainly not evident in much penological literature,
and seem to surprise those to whom they are presented. At base,
I feel that legislators have not been well served by academics
and penal professionals in providing an even-handed analysis of
penal effects. A simple analysis of the calculation of reconviction
effects will suffice to make the point.
WHEN
THE
CLOCK
STARTS
COUNTING
Imagine a factory which spews out noxious fumes.
There is conflict about whether it is better to
1. close the factory
down temporarily as punishment, or
2. to allow it to continue
operation, but to require its executives to undergo re-education
in their environmental obligations.
An evaluative study, allocating delinquent businesses
randomly to the two treatments, compares level of pollution caused
by the businesses over two years. The two treatments yield equal
levels of pollution, but re-education is cheaper. The matter is
settled. Re-education is the better option. No-one notices that
the two years at risk for the closure option begins only when
the factory re-opens, whereas the two years for there-education
option begin at once. Thus clean air during the six months of
closure is factored out of the comparison. We would be unhappy
with such an evaluation. We would want to compare like with like:
emissions from the point of sanction. We would suspect that the
study had been rigged so that the cheaper option seemed equally
good. Yet the example precisely mirrors what happens when custodial
penalties are compared with alternatives to them.
What gets counted in penal effectiveness seems
odd (or worse) relative to the real world of public protection.
Measures of reconviction are conventionally used as indicators
of the relative success of different penal sanctions. These measures
are typically of the proportion of those given different sanctions
(prison, probation and so on) who are reconvicted within a two
year risk period, ie two years at liberty. When reconviction rates
are compared in this way, the differences between sanctions are
typically slight. However, what this neglects is the point at
which the risk period starts. For probation, it is immediate.
For those given custodial sentences, it only starts after release
from custody. Let us take a group serving a one year prison sentence,
and another given probation orders. [70]One
year after sentence, many of those given probation will have been
reconvicted. One year after sentence, effectively none of those
serving a year's imprisonment will have been reconvicted. Two
years after sentence, even more of those on probation will have
been reconvicted. Of the former prisoners, about as many will
have been reconvicted as probationers the year before. In short,
two years from sentence, fewer prisoners than probationers will
have been reconvicted, simply because they were locked up for
part of the time. The point here is that, by comparing two year
periods at liberty, the effect of prison in keeping people from
committing offences is completely ignored, giving probation a
massive advantage. The statistics as presented look as though
probation is as good as prison in conferring public protection
simply because reconvictions only start being counted after the
incapacitation effect of prison has done its bit. The comparison
should be from the point of sentence, ie that two year reconviction
rates for probation should be calculated from the same point as
two year reconviction rates for imprisonment, dating from sentence.
Only thus is relative public protection clear. Why is this not
done? My speculations are:
1. Because of cost and
sentiments of mercy, there is a continuing wish to reduce the
use of custody. To clarify its advantage in public protection
would not be regarded as helpful.
2. The extent of measured
effectiveness required would demoralise the probation service.
DO
COMMUNITY
SENTENCES
CHANGE
PEOPLE?
Many factors determine risk of reconviction.
They are knowable at the point of sentence. They include age at
first offence, offence type and gender. Direct comparison of those
given (for example) community service and those given custody
will show an apparent superiority for the less intrusive sentence,
simply because those assigned to it are less criminal. Respectable
studies statistically factor out such variables to yield a pure
comparison. A Home Office study (Lloyd et al 1994) did
this for prison and community penalties. The results are simplified
as Table 1. [71]This
shows that the proportion of people reconvicted after two years
is almost exactly as could have been predicted before sentence
on the basis of age, gender and criminal history. It is no worse
than expected after custody and no better than expected after
community sentences. No sentence achieves overall more than a
trivial effect on reconviction. Furthermore, it must be stressed
that these figures relate to two years at risk, ie they take no
account of the protective effect of custody.
Table 1
Two Year Reconviction Rates by Sentence
(modified from Lloyd et al. 1994)
| Sentence Group | % Reconvicted
| % Predicted | Number
|
|
| Prison | 54
| 53 | 9,615
|
| Community Penalties |
47 | 49
| 8,196 |
| Probation | 43
| 45 | 2,448
|
| Community Service | 49
| 52 | 2,394
|
What do these figures mean in terms of public
protection? What follows is an illustrative exercise. To fully
address all the technical niceties (see Blumstein et al
1986; Tarling 1993 for technical discussions) would require a
major research and analytic exercise. However the illustration
is adequate to show the order of magnitude of the net effects
of the sanctions. [72]
Incorporating the incapacitation effect means
that, after any time period, the proportion of those reconvicted
after a custodial sentence is lower than the proportion reconvicted
after a community sentence, given that the effect of sentence
is vanishingly small in both cases. The difference becomes smaller
as time goes on, but the curves will never cross, so that at every
time period some slight protection is conferred by custody in
the past. By the time a prisoner having served an average sentence
length is released, some 28 per cent of those given a community
sentence will have offended again, at least once.
The reality of the comparison is more complex.
Revictimisation of people by proxy, by friends and family of a
prisoner, is more common than we might wish. However, saying that
people will be victimised by proxy scarcely seems a valid reason
for avoiding custody for the original perpetrator. One feature
of criminal careers which would negate this argument is to say
that time spent in custody lengthens a criminal career, ie that
a criminal career lasts a fixed number of free years, with custody
serving only to lengthen that period. This does not make intuitive
sense. Neither is there any research evidence in support of the
notion.
DOES
NOTHING
WORK?
Motivated offenders can change, and reviews
of the literature suggest that some programmes can produce measurable
results (see for example McGuire 1995, Hedderman et al
1997). If the policy lesson taken from this paper is that a quantum
leap in the provision, competence and funding of change programmes
is necessary, so be it. My point is simply that the benchmark
comparison with custody leaves community sanctions a lot further
behind in terms of public protection than has typically been realised.
BRITAIN,
RED
IN
TOOTH
AND
CLAW?
Another tactic which has been used to promote
alternatives to custody has been the attempt to shame Britain
by representing it as almost uniquely punitive. Cross-national
comparisons of prison populations typically place the UK at or
near the top of the league of number of prisoners per 100k population.
The mental leap is then made to the conclusion that the UK is
punitive. This is like saying that the higher the number of people
in hospital, the more caring the society. The amount of disease
may have more to do with the number of people in hospital. Likewise,
the amount of crime and the activity of the criminal justice agencies
may have something to do with the number of people in prison.
Looking at the prison population per conviction places England
and Wales among the least punitive countries in respect of rape,
robbery, assaultive crime, theft and fraud (see Pease 1994). Shame
induced by the assertion that we are given to punitiveness is
almost certainly misconceived.
REFERENCES
Blumstein A et al (1986) Criminal
Careers and Career Criminals Washington DC: National Academy
Press.
Hedderman C, D Sugg and J Vennard (1997) Changing
Offenders' Attitudes and Behaviour: What Works? Home Office
Research Study 171. London: HMSO.
Lloyd C, G Mair and M Hough (1994) Explaining
Reconviction Rates: A Critical Analysis. Home Office Research
Study 136. London: HMSO.
McGuire J (1995) What Works: Reducing Reoffending.
Chichester: Wiley.
Pease K, P Durkin, I Earnshaw, D Payne and J
Thorpe (1975) Community Service Orders. Home Office Research
Study 29. London: HMSO.
Pease K, S Billingham and I Earnshaw (1977)
Community Service Assessed in 1976. Home Office Research
Study 39. London: HMSO.
Pease K (1994) "Cross-National Imprisonment
Rates: Limitations of Method and Possible Conclusions."
In R D King and M Maguire (ed) Prisons in Context. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Tarling R (1993) Analysing Offending.
London: HMSO.
Ken Pease CV Degrees and Fellowships MA,
PhD, C Psychol, FBPsS, FRSA
EXPERIENCE
Has been Principal Research Officer in the Home
Office Research Unit, Head of the School of Social Policy at Ulster
Polytechnic, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the
University of Saskatchewan, Consultant to the Correctional Service
of Canada, Psychologist at the maximum security Regional Psychiatric
Centre (Prairies) and Professor of Criminology at the Universitities
of Manchester and Huddersfield. Has been a member of the Parole
Board for England and Wales, and member of the Board of the Crime
Prevention Agency since its inception. He has published widely
in criminology.
69 The 65 per cent reconviction rate was reduced by
the researchers from 70 per cent by taking into account "pseudo
reconvictions". These are convictions accrued by an offender
during the currency of a probation order for offences committed
before the order was imposed. The inclusion of this adjustment,
although only 5 per cent, is misleading; it fails to take account
of those offences committed during the currency of the probation
order, but not dealt with until after the order has terminated.
The author's 26 years experience in the Probation Service indicates
that these can be substantial in number; by definition they would
not be taken into account in calculating the offender's reconviction
rate, thus even the high 65 per cent reconviction rate of the
STOP offenders is an understatement. Back
70
For ease, we can ignore remission and other early release schemes
for prisoners. Back
71
The actual reconviction rates are adjusted by the removal of convictions
which look like reconvictions but in fact relate to offences committed
before the initial conviction. Back
72
The figure shows cumulative percentage reconvictions for custody
and community penalties, assuming all prisoners spend seven months
in custody (the real figure is 0.562 years on the latest figures
given by Tarling 1993), and assuming the distribution of times
at risk to reconviction given for parolees by Tarling (1993),
and the proportion reconvicted after two years at risk as 50 per
cent, being close to the overall figure calculated by Lloyd et
al (1994). Back
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