5 Conclusion
163. At the first evidence session we held with the
Secretary of State after his appointment, he told us his mantra
was for "more of the right people to go to prison".[356]
He further explained:
I do not want a criminal justice system, prison
system and system of community sentences where effectively the
message to the courts is, "Look, you can't actually sentence
that person to what you want to sentence him to because we don't
have the money to pay for it." That would be a disastrous
position for our criminal justice system to be in. We have to
do things in a smarter and more cost-effective way.[357]
164. We have not analysed the Secretary of State's
position explicitly in this inquiry, but several of our witnesses
stressed that the size of the prison population is to some extent
determined by conscious political and policy choices, rather than
simply a product of sentencing decisions.[358]
We have dissected these arguments in previous reports, but in
view of the continuing, and sharp, rise in the prison population
we feel it is worth emphasising again. The use of custody is a
very substantial commitment of public funds which needs to be
justified by its effectiveness in punishment, public safety and
the reduction in reoffending. During our visit to Texas we were
struck by the fact that an ever increasing prison population was
seen across the political spectrum as a wasteful and unjustified
imposition on the state's taxpayers and we saw that alternative
policies were being pursued to rehabilitate drug addicted offenders
and work with affected families so as to reduce the prison population.
165. It is possible to take steps to exercise some
control over the size of the prison population without interfering
with courts' autonomy in sentencing decisions. For example, steps
could be taken to make it easier for people to achieve release,
by for example, better resourcing of the Parole Board and ensuring
that programmes are reliably provided which are necessary for
enable prisoners to progress their sentence. The Government could
also examine why the provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and
Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 2012 to restrict the use of remand
through the "no real prospect test", have not had the
desired effect. Given the ageing profile of the prison population,
finding alternative means of dealing with older prisoners might
also be worthwhile. During our recent consideration of the draft
sentencing guideline on robbery we reflected on the possibility
that the cumulative effect of Sentencing Guidelines might have
the unintended consequence of sentence inflation. We rehearsed
again in our report Crime reduction policies: a co-ordinated
approach? the importance of having readily available community
sentences which can provide a credible alternative to custody,
and of ensuring sentencers have knowledge of that availability.[359]
166. If decisions taken by the Government tend towards
creation of a large prison population, commensurate resources
for the prison system must be found, so that people do not end
up leaving prison less able to play a productive role in society
than when they entered custody. The public safety implications
of a diminution of rehabilitative activity stemming from the lack
of capacity in the system, however unintended, have not been assessed,
and could result in additional costs to the criminal justice system
related to re-offending and subsequent returns to custody.[360]
For this reason, several witnesses were sceptical whether the
initial savings made through reducing staffing levels would translate
into a fall in net costs to the Government.[361]
Due to the time lag in availability of reoffending data it is
not possible to draw even tentative conclusions about the extent
of any such effect.
167. As we noted in Chapter Two, the Government believes
that there is sufficient capacity within its current prison building
programme for the population to grow in line with its latest central
prediction scenario of a population of 90,200 by 2020.[362]
We concluded in our report on the Transforming Rehabilitation
reforms that there was the risk of a change in sentencer behaviour
stemming from the underpinning legislation which might impact
adversely on the prison population, because the availability of
rehabilitative provision for short-sentenced prisoners might make
sentencers more inclined to give offenders custodial sentences.[363]
In addition, Andrew Neilson believed that a recent ratcheting-up
of punitive rhetoric about prisoners and the criminal justice
system had influenced the behaviour of the courts, prison governors
and prison officers in adjudications. He said: "They take
a steer from the top of the Ministry of Justice. If the steer
is that they should be punitive, that is what they will do."[364]
168. Regardless of whether there is a need further
to expand the prison estate, the Government is looking to continue
its new for old policy.[365]
While many of the oldest institutions have closed, structural
inefficiencies remain in many parts of the estate. Kevin Lockyer,
who wrote a Policy Exchange report on the future of the prison
estate, believed that it would be necessary to continue to tackle
this by replacing prisons:
…if you have a prison estate with structural
inefficiencies built in…you are still left with those structural
inefficiencies, and fewer staff. Putting all of your eggs in the
benchmarking basket, therefore, is not necessarily a long-term
solution to an estate that has those kinds of structural inefficiencies
built in."[366]
Nevertheless, the average capital cost for a new
prison place is £158,000.[367]
169. Pressure to keep modernising (and expanding)
the prisons estate thus further limits the likelihood that resources
will be found to improve the efficiency of existing public sector
establishments, for example through increasing the availability
of in-cell technology. While resources have been found within
the current spending review period to build new prisons or prison
blocks, running and maintenance costs will also need to be found
once those prison places come on-stream and thereafter.
170. Within
existing building plans the Government would find it difficult
to accommodate another unexpected increase in the prison population
that deviates from their central range of prediction and moves
towards the upper limit. Had the Government not been able to utilise
redundant capacity from the youth estate it appears quite likely
that the demand for prison places for adults might already have
outstripped supply. Unless there are significant changes in both
policy and rhetoric on sentencing, there is a continuing risk
of unmanageable growth in the prison population.
171. Insufficient
access to rehabilitative activities in prison and the backlog
in offender risk assessments are likely to impact adversely on
rehabilitative outcomes and hence the effective implementation
of through-the-gate support by new providers of Community Rehabilitation
Companies. NOMS' belief that there is sufficient headroom in the
system both for the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation
reforms and to allow for a further rise in the prison population
is difficult to reconcile with the current staffing shortages.
172. Given the
size of the prison population, and the likely need to continue
to make financial savings in the medium term, there is a real
danger that savings and rehabilitation could become two contradictory
policy agendas. The question of the sustainability of the system
cannot continue to be ignored.
173. The size of the prison budget, the fact that
it completely dominates expenditure on crime, the importance of
reducing crime, and other problems identified in this report all
indicate that we need to re-evaluate how we use custody and alternatives
to custody in a cost-effective way which best promotes the safety
of the public and reduces future crime. General Elections have
a tendency to produce the wrong kind of debate on criminal justice
policy, with a competition as to who can sound toughest, rather
than an examination of the evidence on what works. This need not
be so, and it should certainly not preclude a rational and evidence-based
discussion on criminal justice policy in the next Parliament.
That task needs to be continued by future governments, by political
parties, and by our successors on the Justice Select Committee.
356 Evidence taken before the Justice Committee, 28
November 2012, HC 741-i, Q 2 Back
357
Ibid, Q 11 Back
358
Q 112 [Mr Hardwick] Back
359
Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of session 2013-2014, Crime reduction policies: a coordinated approach? Interim report on the Governments Transforming Rehabilitation programme,
HC 1004 Back
360
PPP19 [Association of Colleges] Back
361
PPP09 [Prisoner Learning Alliance]; PPP23 [Women in Prison] Back
362
Q 379 [Mr Selous] Back
363
Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of session 2013-2014, Crime reduction policies: a coordinated approach? Interim report on the Governments Transforming Rehabilitation programme,
HC 1004 Back
364
Q 96 Back
365
Q 377 [Mr Selous] Back
366
Q 82 Back
367
National Audit Office Report, Managing the Prisons estate, December
2013. Back
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