Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
300-311)
MS FRANCES
CROOK
24 FEBRUARY 2009
Q300 Mr Russell: Can I pursue this
point because to my mind knife crime is a serious issue and your
answers have left me feeling that the Howard League of Penal Reform
is more on the side of the aggressor rather than the victim. So
tell me I am wrong by telling me what alternate penalties should
be introduced, if not custodial ones—and I am coming from
a liberal viewpoint, bear in mind.
Ms Crook: I am on the side of
trying to prevent and deter young people from carrying knives;
I am on the side of preventing knife crime completely. That is
what I want to happen, and we can do that by working with young
people who at the moment are carrying knives. I am not on their
side, I am not on anybody's side; I am trying to make it work
better to make society a safer place. If you think of it in terms
of one side or another then that may be part of the problem and
not the solution. It is not that simple; it is much more complicated
than that because often they are the same people—the victims
of knife crime are likely to be the people who carry the knives
and be the perpetrators too. It is not you or I who are likely
to be victims; it is other young men who are carrying the knives
who are likely to be the victims. So we need to work with them
as both victims and perpetrators.
Chairman: Thank you. A quick supplementary
question from Ann Cryer and then Karen Buck.
Q301 Mrs Cryer: You mentioned "caddies"
briefly—very young boys carrying knives for an older person—who
then, you later said, may have been bullied into it. But in addition
to being caddies would you say that they are also apprentices
in that they are learning street credibility from that older person
who they possibly admire. Is the criminal justice system doing
anything about these younger boys? I am not suggesting for a minute
that they should be sent into institutions, but is anything being
done to protect them from going further down that path which they
are being set on at the very early age of eight or nine?
Ms Crook: I do not think that
the criminal justice system can do anything; I think it goes back
to the question that Martin Salter asked, which is about the important
people in these children's lives. If they are going around with
older young men who are grooming them and they are being looked
up to, then they become important protectors and adults.. It is
a problem of elders. So I think it has to be local authorities,
it has to be voluntary agencies and police; it has to be everybody
working together at a local level to put into place more appropriate
adults and to give these young people hope and a life. It is not
just a question of putting in a skate park or putting in one hour
a week at a youth club; it has to be a whole life approach to
these young people so that they can see a vision of themselves
which is an alternative to that being offered by the groups and
the gangs of older young men. That is expensive and complicated.
Q302 Ms Buck: You made an important
point a moment ago about young people sometimes seeing the gang
structure as an alternative family. Last week I was in Hammersmith
Police station acting as an appropriate adult for a young man,
which was a horrendous experience—horrendous. The police
told me there that "most"—and this was their word—most
of the time parents refuse to go into the police stations to collect
the young people who have been put in this police station. How
do we start to respond to that absence of practical parenting?
It is no good us just saying that it is not there because it is
a problem in these categories of young people—it is not
a universal problem. What on earth is the practical ladder of
solutions that gets us away from that kind of scenario?
Ms Crook: I think it illustrates
even more strongly that the criminal justice system is not the
way to respond because if your mum or your dad is not there at
the police station then that really is a scream for help. But
it may well be that the parents are crying out for help too; that
you have a mum who has a teenage boy and who does not know what
to do and is at her wits' end. The important thing there is to
give her a whole range of support,; it could even include making
sure that she knows how to cook a meal—as Jamie Oliver found,
a lot of mums do not know how to do that. Support could include
budgeting help so that there is some pocket money for the boy—I
have found that incentives tend to work better than punishments.
We could get someone to make sure that the lad is getting to school;
that there is someone there to help him with his homework. It
all adds up to a lot of help and support for the family. This
would all be cheaper than the criminal justice system which is
the most expensive blunt instrument we have in this country and
the most ineffective. We are spending a lot of money on courts
and police and and custody, but would it not be better to put
in a multi-agency approach earlier into family support, not as
part of the criminal justice system, but as soon as that child
fetches up in the police station. I understand this happens in
some parts of Germany, for example, where the whole city is geared
around massive support for families.. We can do it, it can work;
and then hopefully we will not have a victim at the end of it.
That is what we are aiming for.
Q303 Mr Winnick: Ms Crook, whether
the problem is worse than it was previously you agree that it
is a continuing problem. Indeed, last Thursday night two teenagers
were murdered—a 19-year old was knifed to death in Willesden,
North West London; and a 17-year old was stabbed and died from
his wounds and the incident happened at Maryland Railway Station
in Stratford. You argue, do you not, that criminal sanctions are
not likely to work because those involved in such crimes are not
mature enough to consider the consequences of their action—that
is your viewpoint as an organisation.
Ms Crook: In some cases.
Q304 Mr Winnick: Are you saying,
in effect, that those who committed the two recent crimes, which
I have mentioned, did not realise what was likely to happen if
they were apprehended and brought to justice?
Ms Crook: I do not know about
those cases because I do not know whether anybody has been apprehended,
so it would not be fair to comment on it. I think the very young
people involved in this sort of tragedy do not always understand
the consequences. They do not understand the complexity of what
is going to happen to them—sometimes they do, sometimes
they do not. I think to try and get them to understand empathy
for another person who is suffering pain, that if you inflict
pain on them what that means, is actually quite sophisticated
and requires perhaps a restorative justice approach—in some
circumstances that can work very well. It is interesting that
restorative justice approaches to quite serious crime have been
proven to work very effectively with victims and their families
and with offenders at preventing it from happening again. Sometimes
a criminal justice response may well be appropriate. I am not
trying to get out of the question; I am just saying that it is
a range of responses. The trouble is that at the moment our response
tends to be blunt, automatic, expensive and ineffective and it
is always the same. What we need is a much wider range of responses
to different events.
Q305 Mr Winnick: The Howard League
has a long reputation and a very honourable one in arguing alternatives
to prison—it would no more argue for prison sentences in
the main than, say, Liberty would be arguing for various measures
which restrict civil liberties—so we know where you come
from and, as I have said, it is an honourable tradition and I
am not criticising it. But let us get the position quite clear
as regards knife crime. Am I right in saying that as an organisation
you take the view that for those involved in such crimes, whether
the person has been stabbed to death or indeed seriously injured,
once brought to justice custodial sentences and rather stiff custodial
sentences would be quite appropriate?
Ms Crook: I think there will be
occasions when somebody requires custody for public safety reasons
because they have taken a life or because they are themselves
very dangerous.
Q306 Mr Winnick: If those brought
to justice for the more recent crimes are found guilty—no
one is guilty until proven so by a court of law—and in fact
two lives have been taken in separate incidents—
Ms Crook: And in some circumstances
custody is an appropriate response but I want to say something
about the nature of that custody. It is completely pointless to
say that because somebody has taken a life they go to prison for
10, 20 years or however long and then they just lie on a bunk
for 10 or 20 years, which is what happens at the momentAt best
they may do a three-week or a six-week offending behaviour course.
If you think that is justice, it is not. I do accept that some
people who have committed very serious offences must go into custody
but that period in custody should be much more useful than it
is at the moment. I know that a lot of these young people will
spend four, six, 10 years in custody and come out more dangerous,
more violent and more frightening than when they went in, and
that I do not want either.
Q307 Mr Winnick: But is that not
an argument that if you are going to have, as most people will
agree—certainly the parents and the closest relatives of
the victims of such terrible crimes where a life has been taken,
a 17-year old, a 19-year old, a whole life in front of them and
their lives have just been taken away in such circumstances—surely
the point you have been making is an argument that there should
be a different sort of machine in prison, not that prison sentences
should not occur?
Ms Crook: Absolutely, yes; I am
saying that, but I think it has to go together and there must
be some responsibility. If you are just imposing prison sentences
you have to do something about the way that they are enacted.
It is no good saying, "You will go to prison" and then
holding your hands up and saying, "We have done our bit.
As a government we are just going to impose longer and longer
sentences and automatic sentences and that will solve the problem"
because that is telling a lie to the public; and, more importantly,
it is telling a lie to the families of the victims and I feel
very strongly about that.
Q308 Martin Salter: I think you and
I have debated this before but can I get you to go the extra mile
on this one because it is about the nature of the sentence, but
it is also about the nature of the first time sentence, given
that we have 70% reoffending. We know that that first time experience
of custody is not positive for anybody, given the appalling failure
rates. I am hearing it loud and clear from people in the young
offenders' institutions that there is no point in putting a young
person into custody for a small period of time like three months;
and actually if you are going to help kids turn their lives around
you need a reasonable length of time in a stable environment—they
should not be moved around the prison estate—and they need
six months at least, possibly a year if we are going to deal with
detoxification, literacy problems, self esteem problems and really
addressing offender behaviour. There is a big issue for you people,
is there not, on this, in actually support a call for possibly
longer first time sentences but better first time sentences. I
want to know where you have got to in your thinking.
Ms Crook: I think instead of a
short sentence for whatever offence it would be much better to
look at community-based sentences. We have a very wide range of
community-based sentences and many involve restorative justice
working with families and victims, even in the more serious offences.
This has a a good track record. Restorative justice is the most
over researched sentence and the most under-used sentence.
Q309 Chairman: I am sorry, what was
that?
Ms Crook: Restorative justice—over-researched
and under-used. But interestingly—and I keep stressing this
because it is very important—it works best for the more
serious end of offences, and that is worth looking at particularly
involved in knife crime. So instead of prison sentences of three,
six, even 12 months we could look at restorative justice interventions,
which involve victims and their families, when it is appropriate.
The evidence shows that victims and their families like it because
they want to be involved, they want to participate; they want
to be engaged.
Q310 Tom Brake: Ms Crook, you have
set out some policy proposals which would address some of the
conclusions of Why Carry a Weapon report, such as community-based
sentences, restorative justice and a multi-agency approach when
someone turns up at a police station. Are there any other policy
proposals that you have, such as trying to address one of the
issues identified, for instance elders not playing a pivotal role
or policy proposals around perhaps education for very young children—much
younger, perhaps, than the group currently being educated?
Ms Crook: I think anything that
can help to create positive social bonds for the younger age group
is valuable—there is some evidence that it is getting younger
and so we are looking at eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 year olds—and
supporting them in those positive bonds. My background is in inner
city school teaching and I know that the transition—and
we all know this—from primary to secondary school can be
very traumatic. So practical support during that transition for
children at that pivotal age and for families can be helpful..
So it is for local authorities, schools, police, families, voluntary
agencies to work together to identify and help those children
to make the transition and creat the social bonds. This would
set a foundation so that when something starts to go wrong they
know where to go for help, they can talk to someone; they will
be listened to—they will not be shouted at and threatened—and
some kind of solution and protection will be offered to them.
I propose arange of policies at that critical age that could make
a real difference in preventing the next victim.
Q311 Tom Brake: Any policy ideas
in relation to getting elders more involved than is currently
the case?
Ms Crook: This might be a problem
for men! I am not being facetious, but it really is an issue about
male elders taking responsibility and being more involved with
their family members. So perhaps we could encourage and support
policies which help, if for example father is not around, other
males in the family to take responsibility—uncles, grandparents,
to take on an increased role within the family. But that requires
voluntary agencies, local authorities and families to work together.
Chairman: Ms Crook, thank you very much
for giving evidence today. As usual, if there is anything that
you feel you have missed then please do not hesitate to write
to us. Our inquiry will conclude at the end of March, so there
is plenty of opportunity if you have other things you want to
say to us to put it on the record. Thank you very much for all
your help.
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