Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment - Justice Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440 - 452)

TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2008

DAVID SCOTT AND PAUL TIDBALL

  Q440  Alun Michael: What about the impact of that type of partnership on those who have not yet been released?

  David Scott: I apologise. Perhaps you would put the question again.

  Q441  Alun Michael: What happens before somebody is released is important and can be formative. You talked about meeting people on release and so on. I was looking more to Paul

  Tidball on the issue of work prior to release, the engagement of local authorities and so on.

  David Scott: Perhaps I may respond. The more that can be done pre-release the better in terms of the pay off. One of the challenges with sentences of under 12 months is that they are not subject to what we call a statutory supervision period. For example, within the Diamond District initiative we go into prisons more and more to see people before their release and mobilise family support, mental support and so on, so there are things that can be done before release.

  Q442  Alun Michael: With respect, I am aware that there are things that can be done before release, but our questioning is directed at the disincentives for people to do that. It is a question of organisations doing things which may benefit the criminal justice system but are not necessarily part of their mainstream work. Are there obstacles to that sort of investment in pre-release work which may assist in the objectives to which we are referring?

  Paul Tidball: All I can add to what you said is that a powerful disincentive is the shrinking resources and budgets of all the agencies concerned. I suppose they would have to see some financial benefit to engage in the way that the criminal justice services would like.

  Q443  Alun Michael: I think we would agree with you. We are just looking for a bit of "how". To try to put it in a different way, if you were in control of the resources how would you refocus national investment in prisons, probation and cross-departmental resources, for example for health and education, in order to reduce offending?

  Paul Tidball: If it helps to answer that, I recall that shortly after the current government came to power in 1997 it inherited and decided to live by the previous government's spending plans, so the Prison Service and other services were subjected to the economies already planned, but to its credit extra money was made available. The women's prison that I ran at the time managed to corner about 97% of the money available in the West Midlands for new projects that could demonstrate a value in terms of preventing re-offending. I managed to get enough to build a new rehabilitation unit at a time when there was no drugs rehabilitation (in the prison) whatsoever. That is still going now and to good effect. I made myself a bit unpopular with my chiefs at the time by saying it was a shame that this money could not have been spent in the community. The £1 million spent on a new drugs rehabilitation unit in the prison did not make a lot of financial sense in terms of those women attending it who were not serious offenders in the first place and who were dragged 150 miles away from their homes in Haverfordwest to Staffordshire, or whatever the example may be, at the cost not just of the rehabilitation unit but housing them at the current cost £30,000 a year and the disruption of their home life.

  Q444  Chairman: You could make that choice and deploy that resource only within the Prison Service?

  Paul Tidball: Yes.

  Q445  Alun Michael: The point is an interesting one. In effect you suggest that if you can demonstrate that action will prevent the need for prison places to be occupied there ought to be a call on the prison budget at the very least to assist with that investment in the community?

  Paul Tidball: Yes.

  Q446  Mr Heath: Assuming we go down the road of a properly localised system where prisons talk to the Probation Service and it deals effectively with local criminals somewhere in their localities and sentencers are properly advised about them, do we generate the right data at the moment to support such a system, and is that made available to local practitioners in a form that can be used effectively for planning and resourcing?

  David Scott: The evidence we have is that there is insufficient data and we need to get better at information gathering and sharing. There is a recognition that we need to do much more with that. We also need to do much more with active research into what is effective and what works. We need to do some of that in real time. We also need a much better fit between the concerns of frontline practice and academic inquiry and so on. I was struck by some of the evidence with which I believe the Committee has been presented. In particular, in a recent letter to the Times mention was made of the contrast with the health environment where there is a much more active research curiosity about what is effective. I believe this is incredibly important for people who deal with the frontline work because very often the concerns they experience in day to day practice and the sheer complexity of the cases with which they deal are not understood and sufficiently evidenced in research. There is a feeling that too much of the system is driven by political fancy, if I can put it that way, rather than grounded in the real concerns and realities of what frontline staff, be it in a prison or probation environment, deal with.

  Q447  Mr Heath: Would you agree with that?

  Paul Tidball: Yes, I would.

  Q448  Mr Heath: If we had better research and knew what worked more effectively how could we feed that into a system that had a feedback loop? How do we ensure that that is reflected both in sentencing and public awareness of what is going on and that a particular type of disposal is being used because it is the most effective way to reduce recidivism among that class of offence?

  David Scott: Your comment about the feedback loop is the critical one. I believe that at the moment that is the one for which sentencers have the greatest thirst, because we can deal with some of the evidence about what—

  Q449  Mr Heath: Perhaps I may stop you. The critical question is: do they? Sometimes one gets the impression that once they have made their disposal sentencers have no mechanism to know at all what happens to the person before them that morning in the court.

  David Scott: I would separate out the individual person before them and wanting to know what happens to that individual. There is some evidence that judges welcome the opportunity for more review activity, for example. What you are talking about is the research base and evidence base that informs decision-making. I think it is that which is shallow and that the probation and community sentence part of it would be greatly assisted by a more rigorous, independent and trusted research base that enabled the frontline practitioner to provide advice and information to the court. That is part of what is missing at the moment. We are developing it slowly but it needs to be much more sophisticated and involve greater attention because it is critical. Without that research base we tend to operate too much on injunction rather than real evidence on what will be effective.

  Q450  Mr Heath: To put it crudely, investment decisions are based on prejudice, to use a pejorative word, rather than evidence?

  David Scott: I think there is a real risk of that, or they relate to the flavour of the moment and the latest crisis. What is critical is a patient underlying look at what is effective and what works. Surely, that is also linked to public confidence because if it is transparent the public have more understanding. The earlier questioning commented on my being an optimist. I believe that if the public understand sentencing decisions they are far more disposed to support the decisions of courts than is often reported in the popular press.

  Q451  Mr Heath: Is cost-effectiveness a leading part of that? If so, what effect would it have on the present disposals across the board?

  David Scott: It is very interesting, is it not? Once cost-effectiveness reaches the point where every pound spent on criminal justice is a pound not spent elsewhere it may start to inform public thinking. It seems to me that what the public want is value; they need to know about benefits and outcomes to make decisions about value. I cannot see how they can do it otherwise. I believe that cost-effectiveness, value and outcome are all crucial and often they are missing from the discussion about what should be done. Too often the rhetoric is just punishment. It seems to me that punishment may be part of it but surely effective outcome, value and benefit are equally if not more important.

  Q452  Alun Michael: I want to pose a question but, given the Chairman's grim look, there may not be time to answer it this afternoon. You said earlier that the answer to getting through to the media and public was to get sentencers on your side. Sentencers do not sentence statistics; they sentence people before them, so why do you not as a matter of course make sure every sentencer gets a report on what happens to each person they have sentenced? It probably needs a longer answer but I invite you to think of that in the time before you are next before us.

  David Scott: I would be very pleased to think about that. As to getting sentencers on side it is about making absolutely sure that we are transparent and clear with sentencers about what we can and cannot do and deliver what we say we will. That is why we have work to do to get our house in order.

  Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.






 
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