Channel 4 documentary yet again highlights the poignant problem of drugs in our prisons

18.08.10

Angus Macqueen’s “Our Drugs War” exposes many of the complex issues around the drugs trade.  Well worth watching again if you can.

I sat in on his live chat room debate for an hour afterwards and managed to get one comment over which was no mean feat as he was inundated!

One very serious point made by someone in Afghanistan was that they, as suppliers, were simply responding to demand…… comes back to the issue of what we are doing in this country to reduce people’s dependency on drugs, particularly those who get caught up in the criminal justice system.  What are we  really doing to invest in  critical community solutions which are so badly needed  to  reduce the likelihood of  disaffected youngsters getting involved with crime?

National Enquiry Launch in Manchester Town Hall

04.08.10

Make Justice Work has just launched its National Commission of Enquiry in Manchester.  Our panel – Lord Ian Blair, Paul McDowell (CEO of Nacro), Owen Sharp (acting CEO of Victim Support), John Thornhill (Chair of the Magistrates Association) and Peter Oborne (the new political columnist for the Telegraph) – visited the Intensive Alternative to Custody programme in Manchester.  This was followed by anevidence giving session with the panel and a wider debate with the audience.  It was a very successful and lively event and we were delighted at the discussions that came out of the Enquiry.  We are now planning our next event which will be late October and we intend to raise the stakes by broadening out our audience base and media coverage. Our role is to inspire confidence in the public and particularly decision makers, that intensive community sentencing can be tough, challenging and most importantly, reduce crime.  The programme in Manchester did just that.  The evidence is there – we just need to get it out into the public domain for all to see.

A growing consensus

12.07.10

Britain is gripped by the unprecedented  coverage in the media around short prison sentences and the need for government to look very seriously at the cost and ineffectiveness such sentences have on the majority of offenders has never been more important.    Now is the time for ministers to take courage and rethink how we use punishment in this country – to look at  real and genuine punishments in the community  which can reduce crime and the number of victims suffering from lower level criminal activity.  Locking someone up for three months may provide temporary respite – but it goes no way to reducing the continuing offending  behaviour once an offender is back on the streets – back into the same community from whence they came, having, more often than not, learnt new tricks of the trade and still having drug, alcohol and mental health issues

Finally a welcome turn in criminal justice policy debate

2.7.2010

This week marks a major shift in the real reducing re-offending arena. Finally, the beginning of a more open debate around how to reduce crime without building more prison places. But let’s be clear – this is only the beginning. It is therefore crucial that every one of us, who believes  that rehabilitation for lower level offenders can  be successfully achieved by appropriate investment in community sentencing, resulting in safer communities, must continue to make our voices heard and that politicians and policy makers are held to account should there be any “slippage” in their intentions. Common sense and economic prudence must prevail – and justice ministers will need to be courageous and not allow some parts of the media to derail the potential for the most major criminal justice reform we have seen for decades.

Criminal justice is the hot topic for all parties this election

30.04.10

As the political parties remove their boxing gloves, criminal justice joins the ring. The media this week has provided some interesting insights. The Liberal Democrats have shown some courage by expressing their rational and sensible views, particularly about the pointlessness of short prison sentences (with a typically classic response from the Sun and the Mail)

The Independent provided a really interesting case study. The story of Kenneth Brown (A big issue: what should we do about Kenneth?, 28 April 2010) shows how little chance of turning their lives around ex-offenders have in our broken criminal justice system. For a first time offender, even one short-term prison sentence could mean a future in and out of jail, as the high re-offending rate proves.  Offenders need not just punishment but also rehabilitation particularly support like that mentioned in the article and simply locking them up cannot do the job. Our new government should stop sending low-level offenders to our overcrowded prisons and concentrate on community sentences that do actually reduce crime.

And if Cameron really means that he wants to bring “some Conservative common sense and rigour to our social problems” then he could do worse than phase out short term prison sentences and use that money to reinvest in community programmes which really can address those social problems.

Alan Johnson flags up the power of neighbourhood policing as a way of improving public perception of crime in this country, yet the public remain unconvinced that crime, particularly violent crime, is actually reducing. But what is clear is that the endless criminal justice acts and bills over the last 13 years have detracted from a more strategic and sensible approach to crime reduction, and whether by design or  as a result of unintended consequences, has led to the excessive use of imprisonment for women and those lower level offenders who are now clogging up an overcrowded system who are strapped for cash when it should be concentrating its resources on those violent and difficult offenders who really need to be kept locked up. How daft is that….?

So if you were going to vote just on criminal justice policies, who would you vote for?

When it comes to punishment, one size does not fit all

14.04.10

“Well, the race has begun. How long will it take the parties to start playing the ‘let’s be tough’ on crime game? And it won’t be difficult to guess how some of the media will respond to the mantra. Freudian slip today – was skipping through the Guardian and had a quick look at what I thought were the main points of the Tory manifesto (the crime bit) to discover it was Labour’s… whatever the result, our field is going to have a challenge ahead.  At a seminar at the National Gallery yesterday around arts in prisons we discussed the very real concerns expressed by the voluntary sector in particular about budgetary cuts. But also arts in prisons, like community sentencing, must not be seen as a soft option and we must all take shared responsibility to get a clear and positive message out to the public and politicians that offenders, like all of us, do not just simply respond to one kind of diet. We absolutely must not see excellent work discredited simply because it does not suit the ‘one punishment should fits all’ brigade.

Last week’s NAO report highly critical of short term prison sentences

15.03.2010

The National Audit Office report “Managing offenders on short custodial sentences” quite clearly demonstrates the urgent need to consider the cost benefit and effectiveness of locking up offenders for short sentences. As the evidence mounts against short-term prison sentences the next prospective government should not shy away from addressing the issue and looking at more productive ways of dealing with low-level offenders. The harsh truth is that even the most effective rehabilitation given to those on short sentences really cannot work. It is inconceivable to expect these offenders – who are often repeat offenders with chaotic lifestyles and multiple needs – to turn their lives around in just a matter of weeks or a few months in prison only to be released back into the community. They would be released back to the same chaotic community from whence they came where there is very little or absolutely no post release service. Without properly funded programmes in the community to deal with the wide range of issues which compound continued offending behaviour, we can only expect this problem to continue to get worse.

Policy makers have to grasp the economic reality – short-term prison sentences cost the state millions, if not billions, and are utterly ineffective. If any other public service was so profligate while being so inefficient there would be a national outcry. It is now time for politicians to stand up to corrosive media headlines which only serve to derail their ability to develop sensible policies which genuinely can do justice to victims and the public.

The public needs to understand what is really going on around criminal justice today

05.03.2010

This has been a really interesting week starting with, rather bizarrely, sitting in the Empire, Leicester Square, watching the screening of the Fear Factory. Very decadent for a Monday morning. However, an interesting and challenging new documentary that exposes the history, mechanics and extent of fear mongering that has led to the UK’s criminal justice crisis. The film has given rise to a coalition of over 40 organisations, including Make Justice Work, which calls for an end to the political arms race on law and order. 

I then attended a seminar hosted by BT and Alan Duncan to explore the key recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry into Primary Justice.  This remains a hot topic which needs lots of fleshing out. Do check out the report: Primary Justice: an inquiry into justice in communities www.lgiu.org.uk.  

The main thread which has run through my week is that those of us involved in communicating to the public around the issues of prison overcrowding, lack of public confidence in community sentences and simple straightforward information about how the criminal justice system works for them, should be pooling our knowledge and ideas to try and seriously improve the level of public understanding about what is really going on today around criminal justice. We need to work together.

Effective rehabilitation lies beyond short term prison sentences

22.02.10

Just in case anyone should think going to prison for a couple of months is of more use than building bird boxes (see Bird-brained Justice, Daily Mail, 20^th February 2010), then they should think again. There is no evidence that a short time in prison has any rehabilitative effect on young offenders. Sadly, the reporting of the new Making Good programme failed to explain that it is the public who are invited to choose suitable programmes for these youngsters to pay back to their community for what they have done.  As we all know, young “criminals’ are notoriously difficult to steer away for yobbish behaviour but at least the public are now being given a chance to be involved with the type of punishment they see as appropriate and see the results of their involvement. In fact looking at the testimonials so far with this new programme, it looks pretty positive.

So perhaps this suggests that the public are not as punitive as the papers might like to think they are and that as usual we are being thrown outlandish headlines like titbits to the crowds at the Roman Colosseum. I had rather hoped that nowadays the way we punish people is more just and humane…

The case for restorative justice grows stronger

08.02.2010

The Restorative Justice Consortium’s conference on Thursday was insightful and encouraging. The range and depth of knowledge exhibited by the speakers was very impressive and the case for restorative justice is becoming increasingly more persuasive – as if we could ever have doubted it. If a new government can grasp the economic and efficacy rationale behind mainstreaming restorative justice, there can only be a win win situation. It really is time for the policy makers to start taking on board much of the common sense evidence based approaches which are being presented by the criminal justice experts to support the needs of victims – for the sake of the public and the public purse.