APPENDIX 15
Memorandum submitted by the Penal Affairs
Consortium (CJSB 18)
— The Penal Affairs Consortium (PAC)
is a collaborative venture of over 40 organisations concerned
with promoting penal reform.
— It shares the conviction of the Government
that reducing crime has to be the overriding goal of the criminal
justice system. Penal reform is the means to this end, not the
end itself and the PAC does not support a lenient approach to
offending in principle It believes the evidence exists, however,
that retribution as a goal for the system, should be constrained
by the importance of adopting whatever measures can be taken to
prevent future crime
— The Consortium was well represented
in the process for production of the Halliday report both collectively
and through several of its constituent member organisations. It
also made specific contributions to the report of the Social Exclusion
Unit on Resettlement
From the list of issues in which the Committee
has identified particular interest, the Consortium wishes to submit
evidence are as follows:
— Extension of Magistrate's sentencing
powers
— Introduction of Custody Minus and
Custody Plus Sentencing Options
— Reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders
Act 1974
The Consortium is, however, also focussed on
the need to promote legislative or other change in five other
areas:
— Introduction of a Sentencing Guidelines
Council
— The need to reverse increases in
the level of the prison population which have arisen through the
increased use of longer prison sentences in the Crown Court
— The introduction of a duty upon Government
to educate the general public as to the truth about the risks
of being a crime victim and the nature of current sentencing practice
— The introduction of a duty upon Government
to take full account of the real views of the general public and
victims of crime about the way that offenders should be dealt
with
— The introduction of a Restorative
Framework within the Criminal Justice System
EXTENSION OF
MAGISTRATE'S
SENTENCING POWERS
— The key issue here is that the extended
powers are presented as a method for reducing the amount of business
transferred to Crown Courts.
— This is an objective which the Penal
Affairs Consortium would endorse.
— Although the Penal Affairs Consortium
is concerned that there has been a massive increase in the use
of short prison sentences by the magistracy, it is clear that
this in itself has had only a very slight impact upon the greatly
increased level of the prison population in the last 10 years.
The Consortium is concerned that the actual impact of magistrate's
decisions upon the level of the prison population has been wildly
overstated. It is therefore not difficult to counter opposition
to the extension of magistrates' sentencing powers which is based
upon this unfounded criticism
— There is a risk nevertheless that
increasing the length of sentence that magistrates may impose
would result in an increase in sentencing severity for offences
that would previously have been sentenced to a short period of
custody within the existing powers of the magistracy.
— Therefore the measure should not
be enacted unless there is in place an effective means of ensuring
that the longer sentences are passed only on cases where the Crown
Court would have previously had jurisdiction.
INTRODUCTION OF
CUSTODY MINUS
AND CUSTODY
PLUS
The views of the Consortium are that:
— Proposed new short custodial sentences
should be displacing the current use of longer prison sentences,
not just replacing existing short sentences.
— They must also not become used in
place of non-custodial sentences, which is a serious and grave
danger unless their implementation is carefully organised
— "Custody Minus" should
be the standard disposal to replace all present usage of short
prison sentences.
— The PAC is concerned that there does
not appear to be any mention of rehabilitation measures in the
custodial phase of the proposed sentence of "Custody Plus"
— Using the threat of custody to procure
compliance with community sentences, fines and the non-custodial
phase of "Custody Plus" and "Custody Minus"
sentences is likely to have little effect on rates of re-offending
and cause even faster growth in the size of the prison population
— An important issue is that several
of the new sentencing options proposed have been devised since
the Halliday report and have not been through a process of public
consultation. This means that their purpose and the relationships
between them have not been made clear
REFORM OF
THE REHABILITATION
OF OFFENDERS
ACT 1974
The Consortium strongly endorses the proposed
reforms.
Removal of unjustified and unnecessary barriers
to employment for ex-offenders is amongst a range of factors critical
to the future reduction of both social exclusion and re-offending.
SENTENCING GUIDELINES
COUNCIL
This is a critically essential requirement that
must also be given the power to enforce its guideline judgements
Its guideline judgements should be geared to
reversing the trend towards passing more severe sentences in the
mistaken belief that there is widespread public support for increased
punitiveness.
There is a considerable body of evidence that
the general public have been mislead into underestimating the
present level of sentencing punitiveness and, when given the opportunity,
generally support less harsh and more rehabilitative sentences
than those actually passed.
This is notwithstanding the fact that the public's
more lenient views are nevertheless based upon a grossly exaggerated
view of the risk of criminal victimisation which itself encourages
feelings of desire for greater retribution to counter a supposed
serious threat.
REDUCTION OF
SENTENCING SEVERITY
ACROSS THE
BOARD
There is widespread alarm at the rate of increase
in the prison population. This is coupled, in general, with a
misplaced belief that the way to reduce the prison population
is to displace short custodial sentences with community sentences.
The evidence is perfectly clear that the reason
for the rapid and accelerating increase in the prison population
is almost entirely due to the greatly increased numbers of people
in prison who have received sentences of 12 months and over, as
the following table shows.
| Date | Average daily Adult Male
Prison Population under
sentence
| Average daily Adult Male
Prison Population serving
sentences under 12 months
| Average daily Adult Male
Prison Population serving
sentences over 12 months
|
| 1991 | 28,000
| 3,400 | 25,000
|
| April 2002 | 45,000
| 5,500 | 39,000
|
| Sept 2002 | 46,000
| 5,200 | 41,000
|
Indeed the trend in the last 6 months has been for the rate
of acceleration in the size of the prison population to increase
whilst the numbers in prison for shorter sentences has actually
fallen
Whilst the Consortium does believe that there should be increased
use of community sentences at the expense of short prison sentences,
this is not based upon any faith that it will make any significant
difference to the level of the prison population.
Neither is there any likelihood that the agencies responsible
for managing community sentences could cope with an increase in
workload without a major increase in resourcing.
It is critical instead to focus on the need for the general
level of sentencing to reduce.
There should be increased use of discharges and financial
penalties at the expense of community sentences for minor offences,
displacement of shorter prison sentences by community sentences
and a reduction in the level of prison sentencing punitiveness.
In the view of the Consortium, several features of intended
legislation could produce exactly the opposite effects, resulting
in a massive rise in the prison population.
Such an across the board reduction in sentencing severity
will also lead to major cost savings which can be translated into
the resources which are needed to fund the range of developments
arising from the proposed new legislation. Without resources from
such cost savings, large areas of the legislation will have to
be left unimplemented whilst there will have to be more money
found for the much larger prison population. This, in turn, will
probably have to be found by abandoning planned improvements to
prison regimes, accommodation and resettlement arrangements.
This will add a further twist to the cycle of re-offending
amongst ex-prisoners leading to more crime and more use of prison.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
The Government is rightly concerned to ensure that its policies
and the actions of the criminal justice system should receive
widespread public support.
However, there is substantial and accumulating evidence that
the views of the general public are seriously and systematically
distorted by significant elements in the news media.
There is considerable exaggeration of the risk of being a
crime victim and considerable understatement of the level of the
criminal justice system response to the actual level of crime.
This is seen to inhibit the Government from pursuing those
policies which would actually attract public support by allowing
the Government to focus on the most effective ways of responding
to criminal behaviour. Instead, the Government feels compelled
to move towards an ever more harsh response.
Without a sustained and effective programme of public education
to counter the negative effects of media campaigns, it will be
difficult for the Government to retain public support for sensible
policies.
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
The Government has endorsed the principle of a restorative
dimension to the work of the criminal justice system. The Consortium
believes that the full message of the Restorative Justice movement
has not yet been absorbed and that it offers a truly effective
way forward.
Part of the problem lies in the variety of measures which
have been promoted as representative of the restorative approach.
The Penal Affairs Consortium urges the Government to work with
the Restorative Justice Consortium in the further development
of this approach.
A good start would be to seek more opportunities to introduce
restorative measure within the adult field as part of the new
legislation
November 2002
| 
