House of Commons - Crime reduction policies: a co-ordinated approach?

Crime reduction policies: a co-ordinated approach? - Justice Committee Contents

1 Introduction

Background to the Committee's inquiry

1. In the previous Justice Committee's First Report of Session 2009-10, Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment, published in January 2010, the Committee evaluated the capacity of the criminal justice system and considered whether resources and policy priorities were directed in the best possible way to improve public safety and reduce crime. Our predecessor set out the case for adopting a "justice reinvestment" approach to sentencing and penal policy. Such an approach was defined as one which channels resources on a geographically-targeted basis to reduce the incidence of crime and the factors which bring people into the criminal justice system and into prison in particular. The Committee concluded that there was an inescapable need for a longer-term rational approach to policy and the diversion of resources to prevent future expansion in the number of prison places and the size of probation caseloads.[1] It believed that a more 'prudent, rational, effective and humane' use of resources was needed to shift the focus of expenditure away from incarceration and towards rehabilitation and prevention.[2]

2. In its response to the Committee's report the then Government said that it was already investing heavily in both rehabilitative and preventative work, detailing the rise in completions of offending behaviour and drug treatment programmes and investments in education provision for offenders and prison drug treatment.[3] It reaffirmed its commitment to increasing the number of prison places to deliver an overall capacity of 96,000[4] by 2014, including replacement accommodation for old or inefficient places to reduce overhead costs. In response to the Committee's recommendations that resources should be diverted away from imprisonment into community sentencing, the then Government agreed that prison was expensive and had to be reserved for the most serious, violent and persistent offenders, and that community sentences could often be a more effective use of taxpayers' money in terms of reducing re-offending. It believed it had proven its record in using resources effectively to reduce offending and re-offending: crime was down by a third since 1997 and adult re-offending had fallen by 20.3 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Our inquiry

3. This inquiry has been conducted in the context of considering the extent to which the current Government, criminal justice agencies, and others have implemented the recommendations and principles set out in the report referred to above. It is in that spirit that we approach afresh the effectiveness of crime reduction policies. In particular, we have sought to explore:

· What is the Government's approach to cutting crime? To what extent is the approach taken cross-departmental, and how are resources for such policies—from within and outside the criminal justice system—allocated and targeted?

· How reliable is the evidence on which these policies are based?

· What impact have recent spending reductions had on the implementation of crime reduction policies, and the way in which resources for crime reduction are channelled at local level?

· What contribution do existing sentencing, prison and probation policies make to the reduction of crime?

· How cost-effective and sustainable are the Government's strategies for punishment and reform and their proposals for transforming rehabilitation?

We are grateful to the many individuals and organisations who contributed to our inquiry.[5] 44 witnesses gave oral evidence including several academics, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, representatives of local authorities and health services, police and crime commissioners, and independent consultants. We also received 40 written submissions including from the Ministry of Justice, Magistrates' Association, Criminal Justice Alliance, Centre for Justice Innovation, Howard League, Prison Reform Trust, Napo, A4E and other stakeholders. We undertook two visits to assist us with our inquiry. Our visit to the US State of Texas in July 2013 gave us an insight into justice reinvestment approaches that had successfully been implemented by the legislature to reduce the growth in the prison population. In Stockport in February 2014 we met with the key people involved in Greater Manchester's crime reduction public service reforms, justice reinvestment pilot and problem-solving courts.

The Committee's Interim Report

4. In January 2014, we published an interim report, which focused specifically on the Government's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. In particular, we said that the programme, which would see probation services opened up to private and third sector providers and the introduction of payment incentives for reducing re-offending, would radically change the probation system.[6] The report stated that we would return to two particular issues in our final report: i) the potential impact of the reforms on local partnership work to reduce crime and ii) the role of resettlement prisons. The Ministry has undertaken to respond in full to the recommendations of that report in tandem with its response to this report. In place of such a response it submitted to us an update on the following issues: agreement with the unions, transition to the new model, creation of the market, and the proposed payment mechanism, which we treated as evidence in our continuing inquiry and published as such.[7]

Other relevant Justice Committee reports

THE ROLE OF THE PROBATION SERVICE

5. In 2011, we undertook an inquiry on the role of probation service, which considered the emerging proposals for extending competition and introducing payment by results.[8] We found that offender management could be more effective if trusts were given greater discretion both operationally and financially, for example to ensure that frontline staff spent more time directly engaged with offenders, and to make efficiencies in partnership with other agencies. The movement of prisoners between establishments and the inadequate priority afforded to sentence planning also undermined effective case management. We noted that basing commissioning on payment by results in reducing re-offending provided an opportunity to put the system on a sustainable footing. Nevertheless the focus on reoffending risked overlooking the importance of the rights of victims and the obligations of offenders towards them. We proposed that the mechanism should be tested. We observed that economies can also be accrued at a local level through strategic partnership approaches. We concluded that, ultimately, the responsibility for delivering the sentence of the courts should belong to a single offender management local commissioning body, linking the commissioning of prisons and probation more closely to the communities they are designed to protect.

6. On offender management, the Government said in its response to our report that it was reviewing the offender management model but it believed that in some cases it would continue to be necessary to move prisoners to other establishments, for example, "to access an appropriate offending behaviour programme, or because the prisoner's level of risk has reduced".[9] In relation to payment by results, the Government believed that placing the focus on the outcomes that services deliver, and rewarding only those that achieve genuine success, would encourage providers to target the long-lasting rehabilitation of offenders.

YOUTH JUSTICE

7. Our Report, Youth Justice, published in March 2013, was our first examination of the youth justice system since the creation of the Youth Justice Board.[10] We acknowledged the progress made in reducing the number of young people entering the youth justice system, but noted that more could be done. In particular, we were disappointed that the Government did not plan a significant shift in resources towards early intervention. In addition, we were concerned that the Department for Education and local children's services departments were becoming increasingly disengaged from the youth justice agenda. We recommended more research into the contributory factors to the reductions in the number of young people entering the criminal justice system. The Government supported the Committee's view on the critical importance of effective early intervention.[11] It suggested that the Department for Education remained engaged in the youth justice agenda, noting its strategic role on relation to the development of the Green Paper, Transforming Youth Custody, and the establishment of the Early Intervention Foundation which would increase overall funding for early intervention, from £2.2bn in 2011-12 to £2.5bn in 2014-15.

WOMEN OFFENDERS: AFTER THE CORSTON REPORT

8. We also held an inquiry to examine current strategy and practice with respect to female offenders and those at risk of offending. We concluded that the majority of female offenders posed little risk to public safety and that imprisonment was frequently an ineffective response.[12] In relation to the Government's proposals for Transforming Rehabilitation, we welcomed the extension of through the gate statutory support to prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months. However, we were concerned that the proposals had been designed primarily to deal with male offenders. For example, funding arrangements for provision for women appeared to be being shoehorned into the payment by results programme, creating the likelihood of a loss of funding for broader provision encompassing both women offenders and those with particular vulnerabilities that put them at risk of offending. A section was subsequently added into the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, placing a duty on the Secretary of State for Justice to ensure that contracts with the new probation providers consider and identify the particular needs of female offenders.[13]

Departmental savings

9. The financial context, particularly in a period of austerity, is a very important driver of policy. Our predecessor Committee found that financial restraint in Finland led to a policy of reducing the demand for prison places.[14] Under the cumulative terms of spending reviews, since 2010 the Ministry of Justice (the Ministry) is expected to reduce its spending by over £3 billion, or 34% in real terms by 2015/16.[15] According to the Ministry's Improvement Plan, its reform programmes covering all areas of the justice system including back office functions had reduced net spend by £1.7 billion or 19% over the four years to March 2014.[16]

10. In 2012/13, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which is responsible for funding prisons and probation, spent £4.2bn, over half of which related to staffing.[17] Of this, £617 million was spent on public and private sector prisons and £853 million on probation services, which that year supervised 225,000 offenders. NOMS' net spend reduced in real terms by 19% over the four years to March 14, a figure set to reach 34% by 2015/16; this has included savings of £115m in probation and £90m in streamlining headquarters. NOMS has embarked on a benchmarking exercise to reduce the cost of public sector prisons by £450 million over six years.[18] By March 2016 it aims to have reduced the annual cost of a prison place by £2,200 compared to 2012/13.[19] The NAO's landscape review published in March 2014 details other savings, including £71 million savings by the end of 2013-14 through closing old and inefficient prisons, and investing in modern accommodation. This is planned to reach £211 million by 2015-16.[20]

11. The overall trend in central Government criminal justice expenditure since 2010/11 is downwards: over £3.2bn less was spent by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice in 2012/13 compared to the two years previously.[21] HM Courts and Tribunals Service and Offender Management (prisons, probation and the National Offender Management Service) have experienced the greatest cuts since 2010/11, declining by 29 and 18 per cent respectively.[22] As we were concluding our inquiry the Ministry announced a programme of investment in HMCTS' infrastructure to generate future efficiency savings, amounting to £100m a year by 2019/20.[23] The Public Accounts Committee has questioned the achievability of the Ministry's plans to deliver further planned savings in the forthcoming years, noting that future savings are dependent on substantial staffing cost reductions.[24] Prison staffing in England and Wales fell by 12.5 percent between 2010/11 and 2012/13, and probation staff levels by 9.8 percent over the same period.[25]