10/05/2023
Police Oracle
“We over-use prison and under value alternative sentences”
Yesterday evening the former Prime Minister, Sir John Major delivered a speech at the Old Bailey in which he set out his case for penal reform. In a Prison Reform Trust lecture, Sir John acknowledged that the problems now being faced within the penal system have intensified over many governments, and that he, his predecessors and his successors should all share responsibility for this.
Sir John made it clear that his speech was based on his own long-held views which he was now putting into the public domain.
Comparisons
Sir John started by laying out the key facts familiar to many penal campaigners and Work with Offenders readers. He questioned why we send a much larger proportion of our citizens to prison than our Western European neighbours when the following are verifiable facts:
The people we send to prison
The former premier went on to provide more detail on who we send to prison. He pointed out that many people have poor life chances:
“Two-fifths of those in prison were either expelled or excluded from school; three fifths were frequent truants; many were taken into care as a child; or observed violence in the home; or suffered abuse; sometimes even all of the above.”
He shone a spotlight on women in prison, sharing the fact that over two-thirds of women sent to prison have committed a non-violent crime: at present more are imprisoned for theft alone than for criminal damage, arson, drug offences, possession of weapons, robbery or sexual offences.
Key failings
Sir John went on to lament the conditions and high levels of overcrowding in our antiquated prisons and pointed out the ongoing chronic staff shortages which mean that many people in prison are still experiencing the same limited regimes which operated throughout the pandemic.
He also took aim at the ever-growing remand population, repeating the aphorism that “Justice delayed is Justice denied”. There are currently 14,500 people on remand in prison with only half of those awaiting trial subsequently given a prison sentence.
Parole
Sir John was particularly critical of the last Justice Secretary’s desire to interfere in the parole process. The respected legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg reports Sir John’s saying that he could not see how or why the justice secretary would be able to reach a “more just decision” than the Parole Board — the independent body that currently decides whether a prisoner can be safely released. He also reported that Sir John said:
“Any single government minister — however able or well-meaning — would be far more vulnerable to public campaigns and under pressure to make a harsher decision to appease them. This is a very slippery slope.
"I do not think that any politician should have that power and I hope the new justice secretary will reconsider or — if he does not — that parliament will deny it.”
Conclusion
In calling for reform, Sir John acknowledges that it is not politically comfortable for politicians in office (or in active opposition) to plead the case for people convicted of crime. In a timely comment – given the current political competition to be the toughest on crime in the lead-up to next year’s general election – he described how “compassion and consideration can too easily be derided as “soft” or “weak”.
He finished his speech by summarising seven main points:
We must wait and see to find out whether new Justice Secretary Alex Chalk pays any attention to Sir John’s pleas.