|
Article on Sentencing Policies |
|
|
|
|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Sunday, 08 June 2008 |
Sentencing Policies divorced from reality David Fraser’s response to a speech by our Chief Justice
For almost half a century the sentencing policy in the UK has been largely based on the flawed premise that the causes of crime are rooted in society. These underlying ‘structural problems’ in our communities are said to provide pressures for the offender beyond his control which make him commit crime, thus casting him as a ‘victim’. So, incredible though it may seem, the British probation service, led by the Home Office (latterly the Ministry of Justice), has worked on the naive assumption that even persistent and determined offenders can be helped to overcome these ‘pressures’ by being allowed to remain at large in the community under their supervision. As a result, the UK imprisonment rate has, since the 1960’s, plummeted and every year hundreds of thousands of persistent criminals have been subjected to countless community based supervision programmes concocted by probation and social work staff to tackle these so-called causes of crime. The results have been disastrous, as the offenders concerned have continued to commit millions of offences every year. Their high reconviction rates are beyond argument, but they have been ignored by the criminal justice elite who instead have made false and misleading comparisons with the reconviction rates of those leaving prison. At the same time they have used deception techniques to hide the failure of their policies and present them as ‘successful’ to an increasingly bewildered and vulnerable public.
Yet both a recent speech by New Zealand’s Chief Justice, and a paper written by a New Zealand university professor, indicate that they are bent on ignoring the clear evidence that British crime and sentencing policies have been an unmitigated disaster. The Chief Justice has regurgitated many of the discredited anti-prison ideas put into practice in Britain. In imitation of many British officials, much of her speech contained meaningless psycho-social babble: “I am concerned with wider values in the justice system than the ends of punishment in the particular case”. The public might reply that they are less concerned about these nebulous ‘wider values’ (whatever this may mean) and are more concerned to have sentences which properly protected them from criminals.
The Chief Justice emphasized again and again that efforts must be made to understand and treat the underlying causes of crime, that the cry for more offenders to be imprisoned should be resisted, and implied that those that argued this way wanted revenge.
Criminologists have been producing theories about crime and its causes for over a hundred years, but the problem remains: if they were going to work they would have done so by now. The British public has watched helplessly as the application of these theories has turned their country from one of the safest to one of the most crime ridden in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of criminals are allowed to roam free and commit crime where and when they like. Furthermore they have almost no fear of being caught and even less of losing their liberty if they are in the tiny minority who are.
Both the Chief Justice and the professor demonize prison. They both argue that prison is not a deterrent. In addition, sending large numbers of criminal fathers to prison, the professor argues, causes more crime. With mind boggling sophistry he maintains the father’s absence in prison disrupts his family ties with ‘education systems’, ‘labour markets’ and ‘communities’, which then creates higher levels of violence and crime. Yet there is not a shred of reliable evidence which shows that lack of education or poverty has caused post 19th century crime. In fact, the history of 20th century Britain undermines these fallacious arguments. Millions have broken away from their poor and disrupted early life by choosing to work hard, live an honest life, and postpone gratification. As a result many have prospered; others have been less successful and remained relatively poor, but have not turned to crime. The professor‘s recipe, to use prison less and instead ‘develop strategies to address the social challenges and crime that exists in identifiable ‘underclass communities’, is patronizing to those that live in poorer districts, and a denial of reality.
Both the Chief Justice and the professor raise anxieties about the ‘insupportable’ rise in prison numbers and costs. But if the UK is any guide, where the costs of crime dwarf the costs of prisons, these anxieties are a red herring. In Britain for example, a recent independent analysis has shown that it could treble its prison numbers and not spend anymore than it is doing now. In addition they also argue that prison does not work because it fails to deal with the ‘underlying causes ‘of crime. But the purpose of prison is to stop crime, which it does more effectively than any other disposal, not to solve the world’s ills, whether real or imaginary. Even those who believe in unfounded theories about the causes of crime, must surly accept that prison cannot solve what they choose to describe as the ‘underlying structural faults in society’.
In particular the professor claims that imprisonment will make no difference to murder and other violent crimes, a claim that is heavily contradicted by evidence from the real world. The Chief Justice refers to research from Canada which reports, she claims, that “imprisonment, compared with community sentences, did not reduce re-offending after release. To compare prison reconviction rates in this way with those of offenders on community programmes is highly misleading. UK statistics show that whilst offenders are locked up they commit no offences, but those under supervision commit millions during the period of their supervision. Of interest is that the same research source was quoted by the UK probation service in the late 1980’s and 1990’s to support their use of a group work programme, which even the British Home Office has subsequently admitted has failed to reduce the offending of criminals referred to them.
This attempt to blame prison for the further offending of released criminals is entirely spurious, and as stated it is a violation of common sense. Prison does not make people commit crime. Prisons are mere bricks and mortar. A huge effort is made by prison staff to encourage inmates to go straight. If offenders continue to commit crime after release it is entirely a matter of choice. No one casts a spell on offenders at the prison gate before they leave which makes them behave in ways which conflict with their free will.
The evidence for the failure of community penalties to stop crime and for the success of prisons in doing so is now so clear that there is no longer any rational argument left in this issue. The focus of the law and order debate should be changed to one that asks why the criminal justice elite is so bent on misleading the public by continuing to support discredited anti-prison ideas. What is their motive? From whom do they obtain authority to pursue a law and order agenda which is at such variance to that wanted by the majority of the public? Justice officials at every level must know about the disastrous failure rates of community penalties for offenders from Britain, New Zealand and elsewhere. So ignorance of these facts cannot be their justification for ignoring them. As previously stated the cost argument raised against enlarging the prison estate in the UK has been found to be false, and no doubt a similar argument holds true for New Zealand. The savings to be accrued from imprisoning large numbers of criminals, who are therefore prevented from committing crime, are considerable, and too obvious for justice officials not to be aware of them. Therefore if ignorance and costs are ruled out as the reason for their anti-prison agenda we are left with the possibility that what drives these ideas is ideology. It is certainly true of Britain that many of our policies, both in the field of criminal justice and elsewhere reflect the left-wing world view of those that promote them, and have little or nothing to do with an objective view of what the country needs to protect it from criminals.
Viewed in this way the arguments put forward by the Chief Justice and the university professor can be seen to be no more than a form of spin, used to present information, not in a way that conforms with the truth, but instead, to build a picture they want the public to see – one that promotes their own ideology and ultimately their own power.
The criminals justice elite, who promote these liberal sentencing policies for criminals tend not to live next door them. They enjoy generally a much higher level of security and protection from crime than the ordinary public. It is the latter who suffer the consequences of failed sentencing practices which are so obviously removed from reality.
Criminals are those who choose to commit crime in pursuit of their brutal gratification, carried out without thought or conscience for those they hurt, maim or kill as a consequence. Sentencing laws need to reflect this reality, and provide victims and the general public with proper justice. Despite the insinuations made by the Minister in her speech, justice is not revenge; it is the cement that maintains order and peace between persons and organisations in all communities and therefore it is society's first concern. It is the corner stone of stability and orderliness. Without it there is dissafection, lawlessness, anarchy and no peace.
David Fraser
Author of A Land Fit For Criminals
Former senior probation officer
Former criminal intelligence analyst with the National Criminal Intelligence Service
|
|
