Spend less on prison

By Roma Hooper

Ian Blair (July) provided a timely insight into the changing face of crime. The new government’s stated intentions to radically reform the response to crime and punishment provides a golden opportunity to create a system which is, in his words, “intelligent and evidence-based.” For both financial and political reasons, such an opportunity should not be squandered.

Read the full letter here.

Met police chief says he is ‘rather fond of villains going to prison’
Commissioner Paul Stephenson opposes Kenneth Clarke’s plans to lock up fewer criminals

By Haroon Siddique and agencies

‘Stephenson’s predecessor as Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, is taking part in an inquiry examining short-term prison sentences, set up by Make Justice Work, which hopes to find workable alternatives to locking people up.’

For the full article please click here.

Stop sticking the vulnerable in holding pens
Violent criminals are freed after half their sentences and the wrong people stay in jail

By Alice Thomson

“The campaign Make Justice Work commissioned a cost-benefit analysis last year of short-term sentencing versus community alternatives. It estimated that the country would have saved almost £1 billion had drug-using offenders been given residential treatment rather than a custodial sentence.”

To read the whole article please go here.

Alternatives to custody help to stop reoffending

SIR – Mary Riddell (Comment, June 29) rightly criticises Britain’s prison system.

Imprisonment for Public Protection prisoners account for no more than one in 15 of the prison population. Compare this to short-term prisoners who account for 66 per cent of those in jail. The most effective way to reform our justice system is to heed the calls from the National Audit Office, the Prison Governors Association and the Probation Officers Association, and abolish sentences of less than 12 months.

Alternatives to custody, which include a combination of robust community punishments, drug rehabilitation, mental health support and dedicated prolific and priority offender schemes are proven to be more effective at reducing criminal behaviour, increasing public safety and giving the taxpayer better value for money.

Such a change would also free vital space in prisons for the most dangerous criminals, from whom the public needs protection. It is an eminently sensible policy suggestion – the Government must be brave and sell it to the public.

Roma Hooper
Director, Make Justice Work
London W1

To the see letter please go here.

Clarke’s jail shake-up stirs budget doubts

By James Boxell, Home Affairs Correspondent

“Prison reformers, however, insist big savings can be made by switching to community punishment for minor criminals, particularly drug addicts. Make Justice Work, a campaign group, says that across a lifetime it is £60,000 cheaper to give a drug offender community-based treatment than to send him to prison.”

To read the whole article go here.

Clear sentences

Magistrates need community sentences to enhance public confidence and provide more opportunity to divert people away from custodySir, Lord Justice Leveson (Law, June 3) must be commended on his new approach to creating clear and consistent sentencing guidelines for judges. Inconsistent sentencing of criminals can have serious economic and social repercussions. Locking up low-level offenders contributes to the overcrowding of our prisons, draws on our already scarce resources and results in them being more likely to reoffend.

Magistrates need accessible and consistent community sentences that will enhance public confidence and provide more opportunity to divert people away from custody where possible. The public, presented with the facts, are often less punitive than the judges.

Roma Hooper
Director, Make Justice Work

Read the letter here.

Longer sentences are not the solution to preventing prisoners from reoffending

‘Community sentences are not a soft option’

SIR – Prisons should not be treated as mental asylums or long-term hospitals (Letters, March 12). The majority of those on short sentences have a complex range of issues that contribute to their offending behaviour. Longer sentences are simply not the answer.

All that does is shove the real problem under the carpet for longer, only for the prisoner to re-emerge even more damaged than before.

Community sentences need not be a soft option, as the new Intensive Alternatives to Custody has shown.

Roma Hooper
Director, Make Justice Work
London W1

Short-term jail sentences cost Britain £10bn every year
Lack of rehabilitation and work for inmates while inside means more reoffend

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

…Roma Hooper, director of the criminal justice project Make Justice Work, said: “Today’s NAO report highlights the massive cost and inefficiency of short-term prison 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.”

She added: “If these offenders were redirected to robust, community-based alternatives to custody, more money could be spent on rehabilitating them and providing vocational and training opportunities rather than wasting millions on keeping them behind bars.”

Read the article the whole here

Put paid to young offending

In response to the report that prison costs six times more than Eton (Metro, Mon) – the increasing number of short-term sentences being handed down for low-level offences is one of the biggest contributors to our prison population. Resources should be diverted into developing the existing alternatives to custody that are proven to address the root causes of offending behaviour. This would not only help to reduce reoffending and costs, it would also free up prison places for those serious offenders who should be there.

Roma Hooper, Director
Make Justice Work

‘Prisons fail to make us safer in the long term’

The report from the Commons Justice Select Committee (Alisdair Palmer, Comment, January 17) underlined the unsustainable rise in prison numbers in Britain and the vicious circle of imprisonment and reoffending that this is perpetuating. Currently 66 per cent of sentences are for less than 12 months and the majority of those sentenced have committed non-violent, low-level crimes.

The Ministry of Justice has been tasked with finding £1.3 billion worth of cuts, yet, if the trend in imprisonment continues, new places to house these offenders will cost the taxpayer a further £3 billion.

Britain locks up more people than any other European democracy and the trends in our prison system now mirror those of America rather than our European neighbours. But even in America the harsh fiscal and social reality of locking such huge numbers of people up is hitting home. “Justice reinvestment” – redirecting money away from prisons to community-based programmes – is proving cost-effective in cutting reoffending. Britain must follow this lead.

The Ministry of Justice has several pilots and preliminary results are very positive, but it is only a start. The economic crisis has added a financial imperative to the moral one which has driven the need for reform.

Roma Hooper
Director, Make Justice Work
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen
Lord Woolf
Former Lord Chief Justice
Lord Ramsbotham
Former Chief Inspector of Prisons
Humfrey Malins MP (Con)
Sir Charles Pollard
Former Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police
Stephen Bubb
Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations
Peter Tatchell
Lord Dear
Former HM Inspector of the Constabulary
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws QC
Martin Narey
Director, Bernardos
Stephen Bubb
CEO, ACEVO
Simon Woodroffe
CEO, YO! Company
Claudia Webbe
Chairman, Trident Independent Advisory Group
Harry Fletcher
Assistant General Secretary of NAPO
Neal Lawson
Chairman, Compass
Charles Fraser
Chief Executive, St Mungo’s
Rob Owen
Director, St Giles Trust
Dominic Williamson
Chief Executive, Revolving Doors
Debbie Scott
CEO, Tomorrow’s People
Ashley Walters

Read the full letter here