Politicians may well be right that many of their constituents believe that the criminal system has gone “soft on crime”. But the way we exact retribution for the serious sexual and violent crimes that most often grab the headlines is actually much tougher than it has been in living memory, according to a briefing paper by the charity the Prison Reform Trust.
The Trust says that the new UK Government faces an immediate operational challenge. Further increases to the prison population are projected by the Ministry of Justice in the next five years, placing further pressure on places, its report says: “Rapid and large scale police recruitment will certainly increase the flow of cases brought to trial—and just as certainly deplete the ranks of newly recruited prison officers who decide to swap one uniform for another. Any significant change in sentencing legislation will then cement in a long term increase in the prison population.”
According to the report, the growing number of prisoners serving such long sentences virtually guarantees that UK prisons will remain overcrowded for the foreseeable future, regardless of any changes in sentencing practice for less serious offending or improvements in re-conviction rates.
As for safety in prisons, that has deteriorated rapidly during the last seven years, the report says. “People in prison, prisoners and staff, are less safe than they have been at any other point since records began, with more self-harm and assaults than ever.”
Comment
Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said: “Following almost a decade of deterioration, the government is right to want to restore confidence in our justice system, but so far it is looking in the wrong places. Longer sentences haven’t improved public confidence or safety before, and they won’t now. But they have helped produce a prison system that fails to deliver either safety or rehabilitation. Good soundbites don’t always make good policy – a coherent plan for reform is long overdue.”
For the report in full visit http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/.
