the liberal think tank

Enver Solomon
November 2009

The prison and probation services have been a central part of Labour's ambitious agenda to transform the criminal justice system. Labour has not only wanted to make prison work but, more broadly, has sought to make what it calls the ‘correctional services’ work more effectively.

Indeed, spending has increased faster than in the NHS. But it has happened at a time when both prisons and probation have become overburdened by the growth in the number of offenders. There are now more than 325,000 people under correctional control, the equivalent of one in every 132 adults, a third more than when Labour came to power in 1997.

 The government claims the extra money has been well spent. There is no doubt that major changes have taken place, but success has been far less clear cut than ministers claim. Despite the record increase in funding, the number of offenders who go on to re-offend remains stubbornly high.

Custody needs to be reserved for those offenders who pose a genuine risk to the public. There is now compelling evidence that, for specific groups of offenders, community based interventions will have a much greater impact at much lower cost. Alternative sanctions can cost nearly four times less than custody. Probation too needs to be reserved for those who merit it.

Finally, budgetary and other decisionmaking powers need to be devolved to Local Criminal Justice Boards. This would require them to consider the costs and benefits of different sentencing options, forcing them to consider, for example, whether money for a prison place might be better spent on a community based programme or on schemes designed to prevent crime in the first place.

The current economic recession and the resulting period of spending restraint that lies ahead provide a real opportunity to rethink how resources might best be deployed.

Ultimately, however, politicians must recognise that there is no ‘silver bullet’. The prison and probation services can make a difference to re-offending but they are not in a position to achieve major, sustained reductions in the re-offending rate. That requires coordinated action across government to address the social and economic factors that foster criminal behaviour.

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