Response to crime doesn’t have to be punishment

Labour has got itself trapped in the punishment vortex

A justice minister, Heidi Alexander, gave a long and discursive interview on Sky News that only talked about how to punish people, by imposing longer prison sentences or placing people in the community on highly restrictive terms. The word she kept using was punishment. Whilst she mentioned victims, it was always in the context of increasing and imposing punishment. She is an experienced politician, a returning MP, so it was not a mistake but a deliberate and considered policy of government.

What was missing was any reference to the evidence of what works to prevent future offending or help for victims. There is a substantial body of academic and practice evidence showing that indiscriminate and increasingly nasty punishments do not work to reduce individual offending, nor do they deter others from crime and they certainly do nothing to assuage the misery that crime can inflict on victims. Yet this is being ignored. The government seems to be an evidence-free zone.

Meanwhile the government is squandering billions on building more and more prisons when all the evidence is that new prisons simply replicate the infestation of criminality within their walls and feed the problem when people are released.

Take a step back. Two thousand years ago laws were introduced based on proportionate revenge: you hurt me so I will impose a penalty of pain that equals it. We have a criminal justice system based broadly on this principle ever since, except that in many cases the penalty is more extreme than the offence. It is time to do things differently as this system is not working.

Restorative justice, or transformative justice, whatever terms are preferred, are based on different principles aimed at trying to make things better for everyone - society, the victims(s) , the taxpayer, justice workers and of course, the person who has wronged. It is probably the most researched part of the justice system and this shows that, when carried out properly, is effective and popular.

We know also that olden days probation based on helping an individual to find a stable life, a home, something to do all day and people to care, is the most effective at preventing future anti-social behaviour and crimes.

All the evidence and experience is there. Yet it is being ignored. The conversation being led by politicians is profoundly wrong-headed, based on leading a lynch-mob and will not lead to good outcomes for anyone. Labour has history of doing this, having presided over an explosion in the use of prison and community punishments for the vulnerable, the poor and children during its last administration. I had hoped that this time it would be different and it would use evidence to turn things round. My hope, ironically, lies with a former Conservative justice secretary, David Gauke, who is leading the sentencing review. Things can get better, but they need to be done differently.