Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 199)
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 1997
MR PETER
COAD, MR
DAVID FRASER
AND PROFESSOR
KEN PEASE
OBE
180. And that this organisation, which you consider
to be the source of much evil, the Penal Affairs Consortium, they
co-ordinate this anti-prison conspiracy?
(Mr Coad) Yes. I wonder if perhaps, David, you would
like to answer that.
(Mr Fraser) I think generally that is our view. It
is not a view that is based on any ideology, counter-ideology,
of ours, but it is based on the evidence, because we have watched
very carefully over the years the claims made by the organisations
that we term the anti-prison ideology, we have paid great attention
to the things that they have published and to the research which
they have published, and none of it holds water, the research
claims are embarrassingly flawed. They make claims that the research
which they publish from time to time, for example, they say that
this research shows that these particular methods of supervising
people in the community can reduce reoffending; well, it simply
does not stand up to commonsense. Nobody knows, no-one can say
how many offences an offender is committing or not, he would need
to be supervised for 24 hours of the day. They are simply unable
to make the very simple distinction between reoffending and reconviction.
That is one objection that we have to some of their statements.
They refer to particular kinds of work, which they have published
in a rather triumphal way, saying that particular kinds of work
in the community can produce better results in the form of reconvictions
than people who are released from prison; and, again, this research
is so flawed that it is embarrassing. And the Probation Service
has embraced many of the statements made by the Penal Affairs
Consortium, so much so that, only recently, the Home Office had
cause to warn the Probation Service not to make claims based on
bad research. I will give you just one or two examples that come
off the top of my head, if I may. One scheme that was run by the
Hereford and Worcester Probation Service claimed that their particular
scheme, when they compared the people that they worked with in
the community with those that had been released from prison, was
a success; but when one read the small text one found that the
reconviction rate of the offenders on the Hereford and Worcester
Community Scheme was 68 per cent. Now if that is success then
please protect us from failure; it just does not hold water. If
I may be allowed to say, what they do is they present their research
in the form of `research babble' in an effort to hoodwink people
to thinking it is a success, when, plainly, by any objective appraisal,
it is not. And, let me ask this question, if it were a success,
why does it not show up in the reconviction rates.
181. So what would you say, Mr Fraser, is the
motive of the organisation, of those involved in the Penal Affairs
Consortium; is it to so undermine the rule of law to give every
possibility to the criminal, and the rest of it, is that what
you would say is their motivation?
(Mr Fraser) It is a difficult question to answer,
because I have often wondered myself what their motivation is.
182. The very fact that you find it difficult
to answer the question demonstrates, does it not, that there is
an element, at least, in your thoughts and those of your colleagues
that it does, as such, want to subvert the rule of law?
(Mr Fraser) Yes, that has crossed my mind from time
to time. Certainly, I would say that their motives are ideological,
they have an ideological view of the world, I would say; that,
as a matter of principle, prison is wrong, and the ideology puts
the interests of the individual offender before the protection
of the public, and I think that is what I would say is to be mistrusted
about it.
183. They are political revolutionaries?
(Mr Fraser) Yes, absolutely. I would agree with that,
yes.[1]
184. That is your view?
(Mr Fraser) That is my view.
185. As far as the prison population is concerned,
Mr Coad conceded that it would be somewhere in the region of 300,000
if your views were accepted, but there is no limit, is there?
Mr Coad gave an illustration of 1942, that you said if German
prisoners could not be found accommodation no-one would have suggested
they be sent back to Germany; presumably not. So you would be
presumably of the view that if it were necessary the prison population
should go well above 300,000?
(Mr Coad) I think the prison population should go
as high as is necessary to protect the public from persistent
offenders. In the United States they have engaged in an incarceration
policy, and they have the lowest rise, if I can put it in that
funny way, of crime compared with places in this country. Zero
tolerance has been very successful and it has cost the American
nation billions because they have had to house so many people.
Now I would not go as far along the road as sending someone to
prison for 25 years for stealing a piece of pizza, and that is
why, in the Crime Sentences Act there is a caveat that
says, unless in exceptional circumstances; and I think the Labour
Party insisted another caveat saying in the interest of
justice. I do not think the two things are different, actually.
But I am glad that we do have that in the Crime Sentences Act.
I think it is very sad that Mr Straw has decided not to implement
the bit about mandatory sentences for burglars, but he says he
has not got enough prison space. I think we should use Ministry
of Defence buildings that are being abandoned, because I think
people can be very easily contained, and it is cheaper to keep
them in prison than out vandalising society, in financial terms.
And the most important thing is making the lives of many, many
people, of our citizens, innocent citizens, a total misery and
frightening elderly people so that they listen at night to every
noise.
186. So there is no limit to the numbers in
prison, as you have said. I have noted that you would not wish
someone to go to prison for 25 years for stealing a pizza. I hope
you are not going down the liberal road otherwise your colleagues
may be somewhat disturbed. Perhaps Mr Fraser would think you are
too part of a conspiracy, you must be a little careful. But in
one of the papers submitted to us, by Mr Lewis, reference is made,
on page 3, to capital punishment. Do you have a collective view,
the three of you, on this subject, capital punishment?
(Mr Fraser) My view is, I am against it.
(Mr Coad) I cannot remember what he said, but we are
against it, absolutely and totally.
187. You are opposed to it?
(Mr Fraser) Absolutely.
(Mr Coad) Absolutely, without any reservations at
all.
188. And that applies to the Professor, does
it?
(Professor Pease) Yes.
Mr Winnick: I see. Because if you look at the
paper I have mentioned, there is a passing reference to capital
punishment, on page 3 of Mr Lewis' paper. I just wondered if that
was your view at all.
Mr Allan
189. Could we talk about the reoffending rates,
and, Professor Pease, you state in your evidence that, by the
time a prisoner has served an average length sentence and is released,
some 28 per cent of those given a community sentence will have
reoffended again, at least once. I am just interested in knowing
what the background is to that?
(Professor Pease) I would not go to the stake for
the 28 per cent, because it is extrapolated from Home Office data
published by the former Head of the Home Office Research Unit,
Professor Roger Tarling, who is now at the University of Surrey,
in his book published by HMSO, called Analysing Offending in 1993,
so it was extrapolated from that data. It is, simply, offending
is swiftest and reconviction is swiftest after release or after
sentence, in other words, things happen quickly and tail off thereafter.
Therefore, the delay of the average sentence length, which is
some seven months, is seven months in which there is considerable
offending, by those not incarcerated, against the public.
190. We are talking about people who have been
convicted and sentenced at that point?
(Professor Pease) We are.
191. We are not talking about the remand period?
(Professor Pease) We are not.
192. So you are suggesting that, if an individual
is placed on the community sentence, or if 100 individuals are
placed, by the end of the period of supervision 28 of those 100
will have offended, and presumably setting that against the fact
that none of the 100 who are incarcerated will have offended,
as long as they did not get out?
(Professor Pease) That is the case. If I may put a
slight background statement about why I am here, and why, if you
like, an academic criminologist sticks his neck out in this context,
particularly one who still holds membership of the Howard League,
it seems to me that this Committee, as is evident in the tenor
of its questions, has been persuaded by things which look objective
but, in fact, include conventions which operate against a proper
recognition of the value that custody has. And I think this is
incorporated in a variety of very specific things, of which this
is one example. Namely, that the evaluation literature in criminology
will compare unlike with unlike, namely, it takes then the time
at risk and ignores the incapacitative effect of prison, or tagging,
or other things which are partially incapacitative. Therefore,
what I seek to do by being here is to start with the conventions
in criminology, or intend to start with the conventions in criminology,
and the reporting, to be partial, so that the Committee can make
its own view about this issue.
193. That is clearly one of the motives for
inviting people today, who submitted evidence along your lines,
and one of the areas we are keen to look at is the issue of protecting
the public, and with incarceration it is quite clear that, as
you refer to, the incapacitative effect is protection. The Probation
Service have also asserted that they are now extremely keen in
their National Standards to set a priority on the protection of
the public, and the Chair of ACOP, who is my own probation officer,
was very pleased to tell me that his priority is protecting the
people of South Yorkshire, which includes myself. But if we take
Mr Coad's evidence, where he is suggesting that it is no exaggeration
to conclude that the actual reoffending rate for those on probation
will be over 90 per cent, if, in terms of the way you have argued
for the success or failure of community sentences, that holds
true, then are you asserting that those 90 per cent presumably
have no desire to rehabilitate themselves, because they are carrying
on offending?
(Mr Coad) Yes.
194. And then, if we draw the conclusion out
from that of, say, the 130,000 that are on probation orders, are
you then suggesting that only 13,000 of those, in other words,
the 10 per cent who do not reoffend, are appropriate, and the
other 117,000 should have been incarcerated?
(Mr Coad) That is right.
195. So we are talking about a rise in prison
population then to nearer 200,000?
(Mr Coad) Oh, absolutely.
(Mr Fraser) To begin with.
196. To begin with?
(Mr Fraser) Yes.
197. And then, if we can move on to the deterrent
effect you have talked about, you referred to the United States
example, do you accept that there is any linkage between the state
of the economy and crime rates and that there may be a coincidence
between the boom in the US and their drop in crime, which may
be a factor as well as the prison population rising?
(Mr Coad) Yes. I could not rule out any factor, I
just do not have the knowledge to be able to do that. And I am
sure that, although I have fought against the proposition that
unemployment causes crime, because I believe, at the end of the
day, people make their own decisions and most people who are unemployed
do not, in fact, turn to crime, it must have an adverse effect
on some people's determination to do better rather than do worse,
I would accept that. But I am not aware of any of the recent reports
that I have been reading about the American situation where anyone
has majored on the issue of it is a prosperous situation over
there and that has had an effect, I am not aware of that link.
198. Just to skip back then to the issue of
the numbers. In your ideal world, the Probation Service would
be a very small service, focused on that very small number of
offenders wishing to rehabilitate, and the prison population would
be, as I said, significantly higher, more than double what it
is now, and you would see that as having a beneficial effect over
time?
(Mr Coad) Not quite like that, because that would
presume that you would be cutting down the Probation Service,
and I think that should be anything but true. What I would be
suggesting is the Probation Service should go back to its original
brief, and that is to supervise people identified as wanting to
reform, and whatever else probation officers fail at they have
a long tradition of doing that very, very well indeed. And I would
like them to be taking up people very much earlier on in their
criminal careers, instead of targeting people who have endless
numbers of previous convictions, if I may put it this bluntly,
simply to stop them from going into prison because they think
that prison is bad for people. And I think they should move back
in the earlier ages of people's offending period, back to ten
year olds even, and link up with social services, link up with
the education department, and link up with the Youth Service,
and link up with perhaps churches as well, to put all their efforts
into preventing people from becoming criminals, rather than trying
to fight a battle that is known to be a losing one, with people
who, in the ACOP evidence, was it 50 per cent had had previous
supervision and were presumed to have failed, and 34 per cent
had already been in custody, and the presumption is that they
must also have failed supervision previously.
Mr Allan: I do not think there is any disagreement
over getting in earlier, we can all agree on that, and the issue
we are trying to deal with is what you do with them once you have
caught them offending and they are into that pattern.
Chairman
199. What do you say to the argument that prisons
are universities of crime and that you may come out a rather tougher
criminal than you went in?
(Mr Coad) I prayed someone would ask me that. This
is an old chestnut that has been pushed around by the anti-prison
lobby for a long, long time, and I am very glad to say that they
have almost stopped doing it. Over the past 20-odd years there
have been so many persistent and active criminals released back
into the community without having gone to prison, you do not have
to go to prison today to learn how to commit crime in a more skilled
way; in pubs, clubs and on street corners there are plenty of
willing teachers. It is just an ideological argument, and it has
no real validity. Maybe 2 per cent could be adversely affected,
but it is not enough to destroy the notion that prison is for
the people who keep committing crime.
1 Note by witness: I do not know if the Penal
Affairs Consortium are "political revolutionaries"-
these were words put into my mouth by Mr Winnick. The answer I
gave him was given in the heat of the moment, and was not what
I intended to say. My answer to the question-did I think that
The Penal Affairs Consortium were "political revolutionaries"
is that I simply do not know, but whether they are or whether
they are not the effect of their campaign is just the same
as if they were, ie by successfully campaigning for:
the rights of the offender as opposed
to the protection of the public
for more non-custodial sentences
for the reduction in prison populations,
by the distribution of misleading and
sometimes untruthful anti-prison propaganda-
-they weaken the sense of justice enjoyed
by the community which fuels resentment because members of the
public see offenders getting away with their crimes. Thus people's
confidence in the justice process is undermined, they are encouraged
to take the law into their own hands, and so the general regard
for and confidence in "law and order" is weakened. A
weakened sense of law and order can create the climate where extreme
political solutions might thrive, hence my point that whether
or not they are "political revolutionaries" doesn't
matter, because the effect of their ideological campaign can produce
similar results. Back
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