Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 1997
MR PETER
COAD, MR
DAVID FRASER
AND PROFESSOR
KEN PEASE
OBE
Mr Singh
300. Mr Coad, apart from the Probation Service
being a lying, incompetent, pointless organisation, what is really
wrong with it?
(Mr Coad) At the nicest, I think they are misguided,
because I have never met really a probation officer, with the
exception perhaps of one, that is anything other than a very likeable
person.
301. On a more serious point, I understand that
you welcome the measures in the Crime and Disorder Bill to tackle
youth crime. Is it your assertion that we failed on youth crime
in the past?
(Mr Coad) I do not think that there has been sufficient
emphasis on youth crime, and it is back to my original thesis
that we should be tackling offending early on in their offending
careers; I think it has been passed over. I do not want this to
sound like a criticism of the Probation Service exceptionally,
but they have had to divide the amount of work they have had to
do, that they have been called on to do. Over the course of the
years it has become the custom for the social services to take
on young criminals under the age of 14 and the Probation Service
take on those 14 and upwards, with the exceptions where you get
the social services already involved in the family and therefore
they would take a 15 or a 16 year old, or the other way around.
If the Probation Service already has a 15 year old in the family
and the 13 year old comes up in court then they would take the
13 year old. With these exceptions, there has been a traditional
division in the age groups. I think that is wrong, I think there
should be a much closer working together.
302. Do you think the Probation Service should
have overall responsibility?
(Mr Coad) No, not at all, I think it should be a partnership,
which should include the education department and the youth services
and, I think, quite strongly, even churches. I have been reminded
that cautions in the past have been used very liberally, and there
have been records of someone being cautioned 14 times. The second
caution absolutely discredits the first one, because the first
one will have had no meaning. If a policeman says, "You get
into trouble again, you're going to get in the most dire trouble"
and they come up again, and get another caution, it becomes—
Chairman
303. I think that is something the Home Secretary
is going to deal with, is it not, there are plans to deal with
that, are there not, and you obviously agree with them; the Home
Secretary has repeatedly made the point that he will address that?
(Mr Coad) Yes, that is right. Michael Howard started
to address this about three or four years ago and I think it has
begun to slip back a bit, because of the pressure of work on the
police, which is, of course, another subject we have not touched
on; that is a pretty vital one.
Mr Singh
304. If we agree that there should be, and there
will be with the Crime and Disorder Bill, much more of a focus
on youth crime than there has been in the past, because it is
obviously a big problem and it is a growing problem, what do you
think, in practice, the Probation Service should be doing, in
terms of youth crime and in terms of the Crime and Disorder Bill,
how would you like to see them change their focus to concentrate
more on that?
(Mr Coad) I would like to see them involved in more
diversion schemes. I would like, for instance, for them to work
perhaps with the Youth Service in helping to divert people from
standing on street corners into some sort of community activity,
that has got to be a plus. Maybe there should be a court order,
as a part of a control order, saying "you've got to attend
X youth club" where there would be a programme to interest
them and to absorb their time, diverting them to activities which
will lead them away from anti-social peer groups. I think that
parenting orders have got some pluses. It is an optimistic proposition,
but it is not any the worse for that. I think it is just one of
the things that should be tried. It is like drug treatment orders;
I think that is a hugely optimistic attempt at trying to reduce
drug addiction, but I would not decry it, because the chances
of it working are rather slim. There are all sorts of these possibilities,
especially if you took away from the Probation Service these no-hopers,
which are the majority. It costs half a billion pounds to run
the Probation Service. They could be relieved of the no-hopers
and all their energies could be put into dealing with young offenders,
it would not cost society more money because the money is already
there: it is already allocated to the Probation Service. The Probation
Service should still do what they have traditionally done with
all age groups. If a recidivist is identified as motivated to
stop offending, judges are often sympathetic to a plea for a community
sentence. It is in the interest of all to try to break the cycle
of crime. And the Probation Service should always be available
for that sort of person to supervise, but not their current caseloads,
they are the no-hopers; we must major on younger people.
(Mr Fraser) Can I add just one more point to that,
Mr Singh. You asked whether there was anything practical the Probation
Service could do with young people vis-a"-vis crime.
The recent evidence, which I believe was quoted earlier on in
this meeting, is that children out of school, truants, equals
lots of crime, the research referred to large numbers of offences
committed by children who should have been at school but who were
playing truant.
Mr Corbett
305. And exclusions within that, not just truants?
(Mr Fraser) Yes. If the Probation Service could get
more involved with supervising juvenile offenders early on in
their criminal career and be given some teeth in their probation
order, for example, if the Probation Service were given a brief
to ensure, or make sure, or do their best to ensure, that the
child was at school, that seems to me a very practical step that
could be taken, following the recent research evidence, which
we referred to about 20 minutes ago. There would be no extra money,
or very little extra money, because the Probation Service is already
there; all it would require would be a change of emphasis.
Mr Singh
306. What do you think about ACOP proposals
for sentences which combine part custody and part community service;
do you think that is a positive way forward?
(Professor Pease) The history of alternatives to custody
is very enlightening. In the 1967 Criminal Justice Act, when suspended
sentences were introduced, the net effect was an increase in the
prison population, and it was so because they were used liberally,
and when revoked then the sentence was activated. A similar early
experience of every alternative to custody described in that name
has produced similar results, namely, that by producing alternatives
to custody you will not generate a reduction equivalent to the
numbers of the people imposed, because it does not work like that.
And, in a sense, I am slightly worried about the alternatives
to custody naming, which went away and appears to be now on its
way back, because it does have a tendency to kick back in that
sort of way, and I suspect that the sentence as you describe may
well, and this assumes you wish it not to be so, well you would
not want it to be so because if it increased the prison population
it would not be with the people whom you purposely sent to prison,
it would be people who got there by accident, almost, via a different
route, only for the length of time that they would get there if
the thing was revoked properly.
307. You have used the phrase "persistent
offender" liberally throughout this interview today but you
have not really defined it, you have said maybe one chance, two
chances, three chances, four chances, five chances; are you of
the American way of thinking, three strikes and you are in, or
out?
(Mr Coad) Certainly, I approve of three strikes and
you are out for adult offenders, I have no worry about that at
all, in fact I think it should be even more punitive; but that
is another issue. One of the dreaded questions to be asked is
how many chances do you give someone, because it is a very difficult
question. My friend David fumbled his way through one, two, three,
four, five, it is terribly difficult. I would generally say, "Well,
if you are up for the fourth time the public need protection",
and I would give that priority; but there would be exceptions,
there would be some who would come up for the second time and
I would say, "No, your crimes are bad enough that the public
should be protected from you." A persistent offender is someone
who has had everything thrown at him, he has had probation, a
conditional discharge, his mum and dad have been fined, or he
has been fined, or whatever, but nothing is stopping him from
offending. There comes a time, a fairly short way along that criminal
career, where you say enough is enough. You get the expression
used politically "petty offenders"; to victims there
is no such thing as a petty offence. My cleaner at the last office
I worked at, her husband saved up to buy a tatty old Cortina that
happened to have a radio; he left the car outside the building
and went off somewhere else, and came back and found the radio
stolen and the windows smashed in. To put the car back on the
road was just beyond his pocket, he had only third party insurance,
the very, very lowest. The impact on that family of that petty
crime was just beyond belief. And, if I may, very personally,
say that my wife's uncle had over 100 years of family portraits
stolen, going back to about the 1860s. It was an incomparable
record; although a petty offence, the descendants and the family
will pay for evermore by being deprived of that treasure. And
there could be a million other examples.
Chairman
308. On young offenders, you have mentioned
diversion; it seemed to me, and this is an issue that has come
up before, that it is almost unnoticed as a concept in Home Office
spending. We had the Permanent Secretary here two years ago and
he did not recognise the concept. Do you agree with that?
(Mr Coad) Michael Howard was not perfect, and that
was one of the many things that he did not do very well.
309. No, not the Home Secretary, I am not blaming
him for that, the Permanent Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, was
here two years ago, and we asked how much of the Home Office budget
goes on diverting potential criminals, rather than locking up
those who have actually been caught, and he did not recognise
the concept, we had to explain it to him, first of all. And the
next year he came back with his annual report and there was a
tiny little section added in, as a result of our previous conversation,
but it was still minuscule. Do you agree that that is a vast area
really that is just not looked at seriously, because that is your
best chance of intervening, is it not, at that stage?
(Mr Coad) It is a significant form of intervention
very early on, and it should not be ignored or neglected.
310. And does it strike you as odd that in some
of the poorer areas you have huge crowds of kids hanging round
on street corners getting up to no good, while schools' sports
facilities, which might serve as youth clubs, might serve as some
alternative outlet for their activities, are locked up for a third
of the year at least, and a third of the day at least every day?
(Mr Coad) It is a form of madness. If you combine
zero tolerance with the availability of alternatives to standing
around, committing crime and burglary, and whatever, it has got
to be a combination worthy of a try. I feel that you know more
about this than any of us.
(Professor Pease) I just wonder whether the Home Office
takes to itself things that are the responsibility of other Ministries,
in the sense that I guess your ministerial colleagues elsewhere
will say, "It is our responsibility to provide decent housing",
education and services, "in order that criminality be not
exhibited" and I think, once you have got that, whether it
is the Home Office's responsibility to make that is a different
matter.
311. It is usually the local authorities', actually,
and usually all the relevant officials are located under the same
roof, or within a mile or two of each other, and perhaps they
are not talking to each other sufficiently, do you think?
(Professor Pease) Possibly so.
312. It seems to me, this is a vast, unexplored
area, is it not, that diversion, and we were talking a moment
ago about the lack of positive alternatives, but here is one at
an age and a stage where a difference could be made, is it not?
(Mr Coad) I would agree with that.
313. As regards persistent young offenders,
are you aware of the research by Northumbria Police, indicating
that enormous numbers of crimes, hundreds, are committed by the
same handful of children, aged between about ten and 14, or 15,
are you aware of that research?
(Mr Coad) I am aware of it but I suspect you know
a lot about it.
(Professor Pease) It chimes with lots of other research
of different kinds.
314. But what they suggest is that it is literally
a handful, and that if you took these handful out of circulation
you would make a disproportionate effect on the local crime rate,
that is the gist of it?
(Mr Fraser) Yes.
315. One of the difficulties is that this is
precisely the age group that are not locked up under any circumstances,
unless they murder somebody?
(Mr Fraser) Exactly right.
316. And there has been a lot of talk of secure
detention centres for kids, secure units. In Sunderland, for example,
which I represent, the shortage of places for such kids is so
great that we sometimes have to send people as far afield as Brentwood
or Liverpool, where they have to be fetched back each time for
court appearances, at great expense as well. These secure units
have been announced several times, including by the last Home
Secretary, but nothing has actually happened; is that right?
(Mr Coad) That is right. They exist, but I think in
very, very small numbers.
317. To what do you attribute the failure here:
money?
(Mr Coad) Money.
(Mr Fraser) And ideology.
318. The last Home Secretary, whatever you think
of him, was not short on ideology in this department?
(Mr Fraser) I am thinking again of the prison I worked
at, which for the first three years took 14-16 year olds, and
we actually did, in those days, lock up 14 year olds. I had a
very interesting experience, insofar as that, every day, when
I drove to work, almost every day when I drove to work, along
the M5, towards the top of Avon, on the borders of Gloucestershire,
to the prison, I would listen to the radio, the Today programme,
or something like that, where almost every day I was treated to
anti-prison ideology. Some discussion or other, somebody or other,
on the radio, bewailing the fact that there were too many people
in prison, that the prisons were all overcrowded, that the courts
overused prison; and there was I, driving to a prison that was
never, ever, ever, in the seven years that I worked there, more
than half full. And we took a very large catchment area.
319. Yes, but you are talking about the past,
are you not, because I do not think you would dispute that most
prisons are now—
(Mr Fraser) You asked to what do we attribute the
fact that there are very few junior places for custody, and what
I attribute that to is, in the huge swell of anti-prison feeling
that boiled up in—
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