Memorandum submitted by the new economics
foundation
INTRODUCTION
This is the response from nef (the new economics
foundation) to the Justice Committee inquiry on Justice Reinvestment.
We address the consultation's questions on the costs of prisons
and support-focussed alternatives to prison. We also illustrate
several policy options that could benefit from a "social
return on investment" (SROI) perspective, which encourages
a longer-term, systems-approach to viewing costs and benefits.
nef supports three particular aspects of the concept
of Justice Reinvestment:
(i) investing resources in the services, interventions,
and support that help people to live law-abiding lives;
(ii) redefining the offences for which prison is
an option to ensure that only those who must be sent to prison,
for genuine public protection, are sent to prison; and
(iii) reinvesting money spent on building bigger
and better prisons into developing sentences that focus on meeting
the needs that underpinned an individual's criminal behaviour
leading to more effective rehabilitation and support. nef's current
research stream into Women and Criminal Justice is focussed on
this last area.
nef (the new economics foundation) is an independent
think-tank that undertakes innovative research and thinking on
economic, environmental and social issues.
This consultation response was co-ordinated
by the Measuring What Matters team at nef. Measuring What Matters
is a research programme investigating how government policy making
could be improved by measuring and valuing what matters most to
people, communities, the environment and local economies. One
strand of the Measuring What Matters research is examining outcomes
for non-violent women offenders from different criminal sentencing
options (custodial and community sentences). This research forms
the basis for nef's response to this inquiry. The full findings
of this research will be published in the late spring of 2008.
nef's Measuring What Matters research has used
the concept of Social Return on Investment (SROI) as a method
of understanding and managing the trade offs between outcomes
sought for different stakeholders within the criminal justice
system. This analysis provides sentencers and policy-makers with
a more comprehensive and transparent framework for decision-making
that is consistent with the holistic concepts behind Justice Reinvestment.
1. AN EXAMINATION
OF CURRENT
POLICY
1.1 How cost effective are prisons?
1.1.1 Assessing cost-effectiveness
In order to determine how cost-effective prisons
are it is necessary to assess the underlying theory of change
of prison intervention: that is, the relationship between investment
and the achievement of outcomes. Penal policy has three stated
objectives: rehabilitation, public protection and retribution.
A lack of robust empirical evidence of the success criminal justice
interventions means that making any assessment of the costs and
benefits of prisons is difficult. However, even if we only use
reconviction rates as a proxy measure for the effectiveness of
rehabilitation and public protection, the imposition of custodial
sentences would not seem to be achieving the objectives of penal
policy. If prisons are effective then it is most clearly in the
third and least progressive of these aims: retribution. Given
the costs of the prison estate, not to mention the long term costs
of damaged lives and communities from the impacts of crime, a
debate is required on the extent to which we are willing as a
society to pay for achieving this outcome. We would argue that
criminal justice interventions create the most value when they
rehabilitate prisoners successfully, as this is positive for them
but also for their communities that suffer the many consequences
of high crime rates, and have applied SROI analysis to the treatment
of non-violent women offenders to quantify this value.
1.1.2 nef findings on the cost-effectiveness
of prisons
Any meaningful comparison of prison and non-custodial
rehabilitative sentences should focus on real, long-term costs.
Focusing on the immediate cost of a prison place compared with
any other intervention only provides a partial picture. To know
what we really pay, we must focus on the long-term costs to society,
to individuals being sentenced, and to their families.
1.1.3 nef's research has looked at the lifetime
costs of prison compared to support-focused community sentences
for non-violent women offenders. In order to do this we took the
number of non-violent women offenders sentenced to prison in one
year (2005) that did not have an extensive previous criminal history.
In all, 1,936 women had less than three previous convictions—accounting
for about 40% of all non-violent women offenders sentenced to
prison in that year.[26]
We first modelled a prison-only scenario, in which the only criminal
justice intervention used was the imposition of a custodial sentence.
The modelling indicates the number of expected reconvictions and
resulting prison sentences among this group of women over a number
of years. The estimated net present value lifetime cost of providing
prison places for this group of women under this illustrative
scenario is some £95.3 million. We also made a basic estimate
of the cost of care that is avoided if women are not separated
from their children by imprisonment. For the group of non-violent
women offenders we considered, we estimated that the lifetime
cost of residential and foster care under our prison-only scenario
is £6.53 million. Our research found that for this sub-group
of offenders the imposition of a custodial sentence is a costly
intervention when the long term impacts and effects on children,
family and community are taken into account.
1.1.4 In the coming months, we are attempting
to incorporate a fuller range of factors that affect the real
costs of prison compared to support focused community penalties.
These may include:
— loss of employment and employability;
— increased risk of suicide and self-harm;
— impact on mental health;
— reduced access to support;
— impact on family ties and children;
and
— costs to kinship carers.
1.3 How reliable is the evidence on which
these policies are based?
1.3.1 The evidence base
Part of nef's research has examined the evidence-base
on which policy decisions are made. We have not specifically examined
the evidence-base behind the Carter report, rather present these
findings as general observations in relation to criminal justice
policy.
1.3.2 Measures aren't sufficiently person-centred.
Measures are too narrowly focused on reconviction and reoffending.
Reoffending is an important measure, but is a result of other
factors that can and should be measured. Indicators of health,
mental health, and economic stability are essential factors, and
must be taken into account, measured and valued appropriately
in interventions- whether they be custodial or support-focused
community sentences.
1.3.3 Criminal justice measures are typically
developed with male offenders in mind. This is unsatisfactory
and often unhelpful, given that women offenders typically have
different motivations and experiences to male offenders, as well
as different drivers for rehabilitation.
1.3.4 Criminal justice measures must take
a longer term view. The effects of interventions reach far into
people's lives, and can decisively shape their futures (and those
of others close to them—eg women offenders' children). Measures
for assessing policy interventions should take a long-term view.
This would be most helpful if it were to both create an appropriate
supply of support focused, outcome-based sentences and make sentencers
aware of the longer term, aggregate effects of sentences on communities,
and society. First, there need to be places for more effective
sentences, and second, sentencers need to feel they are able to
take them up.
1.3.5 Measuring failure rather than success.
The overriding focus on reoffending, results in measures that
reflect where policy has failed rather than where it has succeeded
in enabling individuals to lead fulfilling, law-abiding lives.
A change in emphasis to focus on success factors may point toward
interventions that can be most effective at enabling individuals
to go and stay straight.
1.3.6 Government priorities on criminal
justice are out of balance. Government policy is dominated by
concerns about public protection, retribution and punishment,
effectively relegating the objective of offender rehabilitation
to second-tier status. This is the wrong approach in creating
longer-term better outcomes.
1.3.7 There is a lack of robustness in how
interventions are measured. Evaluations tend not to take account
of deadweight (what would have happened anyway) and attribution
(the extent to which benefits are attributable to the intervention
in question). Better use of appropriate benchmarks and baselines
are required to address this.
2. AN EXAMINATION
OF POTENTIAL
ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
2.1 How could resources which are currently
invested in the criminal justice system be invested more effectively
both within and outside the system eg in courts, probation, prisons
and communities?
2.1.1 In too many cases, prison is ineffective
at addressing the underlying causes of offending. Our analysis
of alternatives to prison for non-violent female offenders shows
the knock on effects of a lack of help and support, which leads
many female offenders to continue criminal behaviour, as well
as creating negative impacts on families and communuities. Support-focused,
community-based interventions, as recommended in Baroness Jean
Corston's report into the treatment of women in the criminal justice
system (2007), give women a much better chance of breaking the
pattern of offending. nef strongly supports the recommendations
of the Corston report and urges the Government to implement these-
especially those around support focused community-based alternatives.
2.1.2 Because these types of interventions are
more likely to reduce reoffending, compelling cost-based arguments
are evident for sentencing female offenders to early, support-focused
interventions rather than to prison. Based on a range of official
and academic data, we estimate that:
— The lifetime cost saving of intervening
early with focused support for 2,000 non-violent female offenders
sentenced to prison in the UK in 2005 would come to an estimated
£19.5 million, or around £10,000 per female offender.
— Of this £19.5 million, £18.4
million represents the cost of later prison places avoided, as
support-focused interventions lower the number of reconvictions
among female offenders.
— A further £1.08 million in savings
arises from avoiding the costs of further crimes and care for
the children of female offenders.
2.1.3 The argument against custodial sentences
for non-violent women offenders becomes even stronger if we factor
in the effects of women's imprisonment on their children's lives.
These include the consequences of family disruption on children's
education, employment prospects, behavioural issues, substance
misuse and their own criminality.
2.2 To what extent should additional resources
be redirected from the penal system into social, health and educational
provision?
2.2.1 In the medium term, resources would
need to be placed in both systems. Firstly, the outcomes-focus
of custodial and alternative sentences should be improved by ensuring
that social drivers of offending behaviour are addressed to the
extent possible. Secondly there is a role for a transition to
a situation where sentences of non-violent offenders can be served
in the community, partly by accessing mainstream services which
have been more effectively co-ordinated and harnessing the multi-stakeholder
and multi-service nature of third sector organisations.
2.2.2 In the longer term, prevention of certain
types of crime would be benefit from shifting resources away from
the penal system into health, social care, and education. These
are the factors that can help to prevent crime if they are sufficiently
pro-active in capitalising on individuals' assets and meeting
their needs. For example:
— Offences resulting from mental health
difficulties and/or substance misuse can be better prevented through
increased and better-focused health and mental health interventions.
— Justice Reinvestment traces the connections
between offending and economic deprivation. Another strand of
nef's Measuring What Matters programme has looked at the effectiveness
of area-based economic development programmes aimed at reducing
poverty and inequality. Poverty has become increasingly concentrated
in deprived areas, and inequality is now wider than it has been
at any time since the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978 was passed. The
report: Hitting the target, missing the point: How Government
Regeneration Targets fail deprived areas shows how a more
sophisticated approach to evaluating regeneration policy is required
if we are to reverse these trends through public investment.
— In addition, policy needs a much
greater focus on preventing those at risk of offending from entering
the criminal justice system. One example of this comes from nef's
third strand of Measuring What Matters research which has looked
at interventions for children in care (forthcoming). As a group
these are at high risk of engaging in risky or criminal behaviour.
Offences committed within children's homes are often reported
to the police which would not be considered crimes if they took
place in the family home. The overall impact of this is to fuel
a public perception of the "delinquency" of children
in care and the failures in the system. Recording in-house crimes
brings children that are already at risk of offending into contact
with the criminal justice system at a young age and potentially
increases the risk of more serious patterns of offending.
3. TO WHAT
EXTENT COULD
EXISTING STRUCTURES
AND PARTNERSHIPS
BE USED
TO IMPLEMENT
ALTERNATIVE POLICIES?
3.1 What are the barriers to adopting alternative
policies?
Barriers to adopting alternative policies include,
but are not limited to
3.1.1 The absence of leadership in the criminal
justice debate. There is a need for public education as to the
efficacy of alternative sentences. Politicians should lead a debate
on the aims of criminal justice policy, and seek to influence
as well as be influenced by the public response. The Prison Reform
Trust and SmartJustice have recently reported that most crime
victims don't believe that prison works. It is essential that
criminal justice policy become more informed and less political
if we are to build the evidence base and use public investment
as effectively as possible to reduce crime and protect the public.
3.1.2 An inadequate supply of good quality alternatives
to prison. If there is insufficient supply of alternatives to
prisons, sentencers may have no choice but to impose custodial
sentences. Government needs to enable innovation across the third
sector, including capital options like Futurebuilders, to support
new community-based sentencing options. Elsewhere nef has argued
that poor market management is negatively affecting small and
medium providers, particularly voluntary sector providers. http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=248
In the absence of good quality data about effectiveness resource-constrained
commissioners are not incentivised to think long-term about the
impacts of their decisions.
3.1.3 Underuse of alternatives by sentencers.
As outlined in a previous nef submission to the Justice Committee
Making Sentencing Clearer, sentencers need better information
on the effectiveness of alternatives and the costs of prison.
We therefore strongly recommend that cost information provided
to sentencers should not be limited to the public expenditure
costs of custodial or community sentences. It should also include
an indication of what costs and benefits individuals (and their
families and communities) are likely to bear as a result of sentencing
decisions. It would be both feasible and desirable to provide
sentencers with generic cost information on factors like, for
instance, the cost to family members or local authorities of caring
for a female offender's children if she is imprisoned. Clearly,
it would not be possible to calculate a detailed, individual analysis
for each offender, but the type of cost information we propose
could be generated and distributed as sentencing guidelines are
CONCLUSION
nef's work on Women and Criminal Justice looks
at one aspect of justice reinvestment: re-investing existing resources
within the sentencing arena towards options that are more effective
in the longer-term. The forthcoming report will add to the costs/
benefits data already published and will show a fuller range of
cost-based factors that support the creation of additional support-focused
interventions rather than prison with particular reference to
non-violent women offenders.
May 2008
26 This figure comprises the number of women received
into prison on immediate custodial sentences for non-violent offences
(theft and handling, fraud and forgery, burglary, drug offences
and motoring offences) in 2005, adjusted for the number of previous
convictions (less than three). The source for all statistics used
in these calculations is: Home Office (2006) Offender management
caseload statistics 2005, Home Office statistical bulletin 18/06,
December. Back
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