Public opinion and sentencing reform

Stephen Whitehead | nef | 14 May 2012

New research reveals a public that is more open to reform than those who claim to speak for them.

The prospect of a new crime and justice bill, heralded by last week’s Queen’s speech, is likely to re-awaken debate around the coalition’s sentencing policy. While its latest proposals around community sentences are still at the consultation stage, the bill is another step in the coalition’s programme of cutting costs and increasing transparency in the justice system.

The community punishment reforms in the consultation, and those in this week’s speech, are much more cautious however, than those that Ken Clarke had in mind when he took office in 2010. The much vaunted rehabilitation revolution has crumbled under heavy fire, most of it from his own side. Tabloids and Tory back-benchers lambasted his plans as soft on crime and out-of-touch with public opinion.

One of the key attacks was made by Tory peer, former deputy party chairman and part-time citizen of Belize Lord Ashcroft. In a 2011 pamphlet entitled Crime, Punishment and the People Ashcroft argued that increased use of community sentences ‘command woefully little support’ amongst the public. A stark opinion poll outlined the public’s verdict – 81% thought that sentencing was too lenient, while only 3% thought it too harsh.

The argument, then, was clear: the British public demand tougher sentences and to ignore them was both politically inept and undemocratic. But a more sophisticated investigation of public opinion casts doubt on this analysis. Researchers from Oxford University and London’s Institute of Crime Policy Research investigated the way in which the public made their judgements about sentencing. They found that when asked to consider a range of mitigating circumstances, respondents would often consider a community sentence even for a crime which in the real world would almost always result in custody. When given the hypothetical case of a person convicted of a serious assault, 69% of respondents thought a community penalty would be appropriate if it was a first offense, 65% if the offender was caring for small children, and 64% if the offender was remorseful and apologised.

While the hangers and floggers in parliament or Fleet Street may whip up a storm about any proposal which seeks to reverse or even slow the unsustainable increase in our prison population, this research suggests that the public are more open to reform than those who claim to speak for them. The obstacle for reformers then, is not one of public sentiment but rather of bandwidth. If they can overcome the myths around crime and sentencing and engage the public in a serious debate about who really needs to be in prison, they may find more traction than they expect.

Kenneth Clarke to 'wipe slate clean' for hundreds of thousands of ex-offenders

Alan Travis and Owen Bowcot | guardian.co.uk | 2 February 2012

Justice secretary wants to dramatically reduce the length of time ex-offenders must declare their convictions


The reform of the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act will see the period of time under which the convictions of medium-term prisoners will be 'spent' reduced from 10 years to four. Photograph: Mark Harvey/Alamy

The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, is to "wipe the slate clean" for hundreds of thousands of offenders by dramatically shortening the period during which they are obliged to tell potential employers about their criminal past.

The radical reform of the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act will see the time after which the convictions of medium-term prisoners are "spent" reduced from 10 years to four.

The convictions of short-term prisoners, serving sentences up to six months, will be spent after two years instead of the current seven.

The proposed reform will also cover hundreds of thousands of people who have recently been fined or ordered to serve community sentences. They will no longer have to declare their criminal record after one year instead of the current five.

The changes will raise the threshold for prison sentences that are never spent from two and half years to four, on the basis that sentence lengths are much longer now than when the period was fixed in 1974.

One factor that will limit the impact of the changes is that the period after which a conviction is spent will be counted from the day an offender completes their sentence rather than, as currently, from the date of their conviction. In the case of someone serving a prison term of two and a half years, this means it will become spent after six and a half years, rather than 10.

Ken Clarke: the revolution that never was

Editorial | The Guardian | 28 October 2011

It has become plain that by ducking the argument, the justice secretary is losing it

A pragmatic man in an excitable field, Ken Clarke started out determined to get a grip on Britain's remorselessly rising prison population. Between his spell at the Home Office in the early 90s and his reincarnation as justice secretary, the number expensively – and for the most part aimlessly – banged up in England and Wales had doubled to 85,000. The average annual cost of keeping each there is £41,000. With crime under control, and cash painfully tight, Mr Clarke robustly explained why the great jail-building boom must stop. But then, with some singularly ill-chosen words, he created the offensive impression that some rapes were not serious, a misstep which stirred reactionary forces on both sides of the Commons to goad David Cameron into hacking chunks out of his reforms. Ever since, the justice secretary has made his case with an uncharacteristic lack of directness. This week it has become plain that by ducking the argument, he is losing it.

The frenzy around crime often retards the policy, and there were reminders of that on Friday in the rightwing press. Labour shamelessly seized on their claims that Mr Clarke was about to set 2,500 "dangerous offenders free". This was the supposed effect of replacing David Blunkett's malfunctioning indefinite sentences with harsher definite terms, a move which will affect future and not current prisoners, and which may – if Whitehall's hazy predictions prove right – put some downward drag on the overall numbers from around 2019. In other words, the wild men supposedly about to be unleashed on the streets might be individuals who have not yet committed any crime; and their earlier freedom – or not – would depend not merely on future parole decisions, but on other policies followed by Mr Clarke and indeed his successors. This move is nonetheless to be welcomed, seeing as release from indefinite sentences is arbitrarily dependent on whether the resources to assess prisoners as fit to be freed happen to be at hand, an injustice which, as Mr Clarke says, is "a stain on the system".

But of the many questions being settled through Mr Clarke's 11th-hour amendments to his own legislation ahead of parliamentary votes next week, this is the sole point on which he has prevailed. A long-term proponent of giving judges discretion to respond to the contours of the individual case, the justice secretary was slating mandatory sentencesthat tie judicial hands as recently as Tuesday. Yet by Thursday it had emerged that he would be legislating for a presumption to imprison youths as well as adults caught wielding knives, and for mandatory life sentences, until now used exclusively for murder, to be imposed on repeat offenders of certain other crimes.

"Two strikes and you're out" is a wheeze of precisely the same stripe as Michael Howard's three-strikes policy, which Mr Clarke holds up as a case study in bad law. The fact that it has the same get-out clauses that the Lords attached to the three-strikes law may limit the direct damage – the justice secretary says it will create 20 extra lifers each year. But he is being too pragmatic for his own good here, if he imagines that is the end of the matter. The rigid mandatory term for murder has long been a problem, and it is now being extended rather than reformed: a dangerous precedent for more reactionary justice secretaries to exploit in future.

More generally, since the riots we have had another spike in prison numbers, and all the pressures are pushing the same way: from increased magistrates' sentencing powers to the new knife edicts. These things were not in the coalition agreement. They are undermining the rehabilitation revolution, and with it the serious liberal case for this government. Besides, all past experience shows that it is punitive rhetoric more than detailed policies that leads to courts getting tougher. Mr Clarke did try, but ended up settling for fudge and mudge. And that won't do the job.

Punish the feral rioters, but address our social deficit too

Ken Clarke | The Guardian | 5 September 2011

Three-quarters of the adults charged already had a conviction, which is why urgent reforms are needed

I've dealt with plenty of civil disobedience in my time, but the riots in August shocked me to the core. What I found most disturbing was the sense that the hardcore of rioters came from a feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream in everything but its materialism. Equally worrying was the instinctive criminal behaviour of apparently random passers-by. What are the lessons for the justice system?

The first is that disorder on our streets must be met with a firm, fast and sustained response. The system was briefly caught unawares, but tested like never before, and ultimately gave a quick and definitive answer to those who thought they could commit crime without consequence. It's thanks to the police officers who cancelled leave, the staff who kept courts open all hours and the judiciary who worked through the night that rioters high on violence soon found themselves facing the cold, hard accountability of the dock. I am hugely impressed by the dedication of our staff, some of whom worked 35-hour shifts to ensure the efficient delivery of justice. These are public-spirited people, doing their duty in the best traditions of public service. The criminal justice system was itself on trial and, though it's still early days, so far it has coped well. It has the capacity – whether in courts, in prisons, in prison transit or probation – to deal with those who come before it.

The second lesson of the riots is that they reaffirm the central point of any sane criminal justice policy: where crimes have been committed, offenders must be properly punished and pay back to the communities they have damaged. The scale of the violence and looting was new, but crimes like arson and burglary are not – and our courts do deal severe punishments to serious offenders.

Cameron mugging Clarke was about fear of the tabloids, not consultation

Simon Jenkins | The Guardian | 23 June 2011

The justice secretary's message on penal reform was too radical and the PM lost his nerve. So we will keep wasting money.

So what caused the car crash? It was supposed to be the first real chance for penal reform in Britain for a quarter century. For years terrified Labour home secretaries quivered before the forces of darkness. They introduced 50 criminal justice measures and imprisoned more people than anywhere in Europe. They locked up their minds and threw away the key. Last year along came Ken Clarke, apparently without a fear or an electoral care in the world. The clouds rolled back and sanity came over the horizon. Yet on Tuesday a person looking remarkably like the prime minister took the justice secretary into a dark corner of Downing Street and mugged him. Everything went black.

Clarke's proposals in a green paper last year were designed to put some subtlety into Britain's primitive justice system. Prison sentences should treat the circumstance of cases rather than parliamentary megaphones and mandatory messages. Early admission of guilt would attract up to a 50% reduction in sentence and save millions in court time and much witness anguish. There should be more plea bargaining, less incarceration of foreigners and greater emphasis on rehabilitation.

Most of this has been overturned by a David Cameron whose hand on the wheel of policy has been unsteady of late. Up to 60% of Clarke's green paper has been lost. His incentives for guilty pleas are dropped, along with his bid to increase community sentencing and reduce the prison population.

To rub home this exemplary drubbing of liberalism Cameron insisted on a return to "stupid justice", with two-strikes mandatory sentencing, automatic jail for knife crimes and a special "bash the burglar" law. At present there are 20,000 knife crimes a year, of which just 20% lead to prison. This, with a shorter remission for sex and violence crimes, should push the prison population towards the 100,000 point. This is paraded as "punishment with a purpose". It is a desperate play to the gallery.

On Wednesday Cameron got his desired reward. "Right at last," thundered the Daily Mail, hailing the prime minister's "new sense of direction". The Sun cried, "Cameron shows welcome steel," and claimed credit for stopping the "soft justice secretary", otherwise "Crackers Ken, the paedophile's pal". The Daily Telegraph welcomed "Humiliation for Clarke," as Cameron was "forced to get a grip on the government's agenda." Thus was the fatted calf prepared for the repentant hoodie-hugger.

Criminal justice: The revolution that never was

Editorial | The Guardian | 21 June 2011

After David Cameron's rewriting of the justice bill, Kenneth Clarke's rehabilitative revolution lies in tatter

The brief illusion of liberal government disappeared with the publication of the sentencing bill on Tuesday. The Rose Garden promise had been for a calm coalition animated by progressive values and guided by reason. That promise was fleetingly fulfilled by the justice secretary, Ken Clarke. Last year he stood ready to unlock 20 years of failed thinking, with a green paper which accepted that Britain's drift towards mass incarceration was imposing an unacceptable human and financial cost. Now it has been decisively breached by a prime minister who once claimed to be a liberal Conservative.

Make no mistake: after David Cameron's rewriting of this bill, Mr Clarke's rehabilitative revolution lies in tatters. Its thrust had been to end avoidable incarceration and reinvest the money in doing something more productive than making bad people worse. Its detail consisted in drug treatment, work and training, but also – crucially – in specific plans that would have had the effect of cutting the number locked up by 6,450 as compared with the inherited plans. The biggest slice of that reduction was to come from a sensible move to relieve the pressure on Britain's creaking courts, by increasing the discount available for a guilty plea.

Tory thinktank pushes for prisoners to work full-time

Alan Travis | The Guardian | 13 June 2011

Policy Exchange finds strong public backing for proposals to occupy inmates mooted by Kenneth Clarke at Conservative conference

Fresh pressure to introduce a 40-hour-a week work regime in prisons in England and Wales comes from a leading Conservative thinktank on Monday.

A Policy Exchange report, Inside Job, reveals the vast number of prisoners do very little work and any employment is often "activity for activity's sake", non-commercial and on a very small-scale.

The thinktank suggests the introduction of a new prisoner minimum wage. This would be less than the national minimum wage to reflect the costs of board and lodging but more than current inmate earnings to encourage prisoners to work and save for their release as well as pay into a victims' fund.

The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, announced his ambition to introduce a "regime of hard work" into prisons in England and Wales at the Conservative party conference last October but little progress has been made since then.

David Cameron makes prison U-turn to increase jail sentences

Hélène Mulholland | The Guardian |  21 June 2011 

PM's speech reveals plan to abandon 50% discounts for early guilty pleas and to increase terms for serious offenders

David Cameron has outlined plans to hand out a greater number of life sentences and increase the amount of time serious offenders spend in prison, in a major policy U-turn.

The prime minister outlined his tough approach to sentencing as he confirmed his decision to abandon plans to offer 50% sentence discounts to offenders who submit early guilty pleas amid media tabloid accusations that the government was engaging in "soft justice".

Cameron told a press conference that dangerous criminals will be locked up "for a very long time" as described his mission to ensure families can "feel safe in their homes" and on the streets.

Sentences would have been too lenient and criminals would have been sent the "wrong message" if plans to halve jail terms for offenders who plead guilty early had gone ahead, he told a press conference.

Savings of some £100m that would have been made through the plans will now be sought instead through "greater efficiency" elsewhere in justice secretary Kenneth Clarke's department.

Boris Johnson calls for end to 'soft justice'

Hélène Mulholland | The Guardian | 20 June 2011

London mayor attacks Ken Clarke's proposals to offer reduced jail terms to offenders who submit early guilty pleas

Boris Johnson, the Conservative London mayor, has attacked justice secretary Kenneth Clarke's plans to offer shorter sentences to criminals, insisting that rehabilitation should take place behind bars.

In an article in Monday's Sun newspaper, Johnson also called on local authorities to introduce a "payment by results" scheme which would see agencies paid to keep former offenders "on the straight and narrow" after they leave jail.

Johnson, who has made cutting crime in the capital a cornerstone of his mayoralty, waded in as David Cameron and Clarke consider the future of a proposal to halve sentences for most offenders who plead guilty at the first opportunity.

"Soft is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese but not how we should approach punishing criminals," Johnson wrote: "It's time to stop offering shorter sentences and get-out clauses".

Clarke was forced to drop paedophiles and rapists from his sentencingplans following a public backlash earlier this month.

He is expected exclude other categories of serious crime but is keen to retain the discount offer as part of his overall sentencing package to stabilise the prison population, which has reached a record 85,000 in England and Wales.

While Downing Street has made clear that Cameron would like to see the whole sentencing proposal dropped, tearing the heart out of Clarke's plans.

Kenneth Clarke: prison is a waste of money

Ben Quinn | The Guardian | 16 April 2011

Rise in prison numbers unsustainable, says justice secretary, who blames media for creating image that prison life is easy

Ken Clarke said the current prison system offered 'very, very bad value for taxpayers' money'.

The rate of jail sentencing is "financially unsustainable", the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has said, delivering a defiant riposte to critics within his own party and the tabloid press who have suggested that his plans to overhaul the penal system are soft on crime.

Clarke last year unveiled a green paper on sentencing as part of government plans to cut the £4bn prison and probation budget by 20% over four years, promising to end a Victorian-style "bang 'em up" culture and reduce high reoffending rates by tackling the root causes.

But after facing sustained criticism, he used an interview with The Times to dismiss characterisation of him as a minister who is "soft on crime."

He is preparing to publish a bill next month which will include proposals to allow for large sentence discounts in return for early guilty pleas and diverting the mentally ill away from jail. The goal is a 3,000 cut in the record 85,000 jail population in England and Wales in four years.

"[The rise in prison numbers is] financially unsustainable. That is not my principal motivation but it is pointless and very bad value for taxpayers' money," Clarke said.

He blamed the media and lobby groups for helping to create a public perception that prison life was easy, adding: "Prisons are not hotels, they are not comfortable, they are overcrowded, they are noisy. Anyone who visits a prison soon realises the prevailing atmosphere is one of stupefying boredom on the part of inmates.

"It is just very, very bad value for taxpayers' money to keep banging them up and warehousing them in overcrowded prisons where most of them get toughened up."

He said that too many prisoners sit idly in their cells when they could be doing something more productive with their time. "I would like to see prisons where there is a working environment, where people get into the habits of the rest of the population."

Private firms would be encouraged to operate in jails and help endow inmates with skills that would make them employable when they entered into free society again.

"The firms are cautious about advertising it because the newspapers write them up as 'employing jailbirds'," he said.

However, Clarke did pledge to make community punishments tougher by insisting offenders do unpaid work for eight hours a day.

"I want them to be more punitive, effective and organised. Unpaid work should require offenders to work at a proper pace in a disciplined manner rather than youths just hanging around doing odd bits tidying up derelict sites," he added.

Will Ken Clarke's prison green paper stop 'sentence inflation'?

From The Guardian, 14 December 2010:

Justice secretary Ken Clarke's Breaking the Cycle green paper was widely welcomed by prison reformers last week as a watershed that could bring to an end the 18-year punitive arms race that has fuelled the relentless rise in the prison population.

The moderate package holds out the promise of an intelligent sentencing framework and a "rehabilitation revolution" that would cut the high reoffending rates of more than 60%. The prize is a 3,000 cut in the record 85,000 jail population in England and Wales within four years, while continuing to drive down crime.