Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill]

My Lords, I wish I could wholeheartedly welcome this Bill as the way forward to reduce reoffending, encourage people to live purposeful lives and save taxpayers’ money, but I fear that in the end too little will be achieved. Instead, despite the best intentions of some in the Government, the Bill may set people up to fail, lead to longer sentences and put more people in prison. Of course, there is a pressing need to change the system whereby prisoners who have served a sentence of 12 months or less are released with £46 and typically receive no support on the outside. I welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that this cannot continue.

Prisoners sentenced to short terms often lead particularly chaotic lifestyles and have higher levels of need in relation to homelessness, joblessness and drug and alcohol abuse; 58% of people who have served a prison sentence of 12 months or less reoffend within a year of leaving custody. I am disappointed that the opportunity finally to implement the Corston report, authored by my noble friend six years ago, which called for the end of imprisoning women who pose no risk to the public and the closure of women’s prisons and their replacement by small custodial units for serious and dangerous offenders, has not been taken up. Instead the Government intend to commission all rehabilitation services under a single contract, regardless of the different offender cohorts.

Rather than wait for the promised review of women in prison expected this summer, the Government are rushing ahead before the specific needs of women have been considered. The Howard League rightly warns that the proposed payment-by-results system poses a particular threat to the continued provision of services for women. Many are small, local, holistic and gender-specific, and some could now face closure as they are not large enough to bid for contracts. However, the circumstances surrounding women in prison, as set out in my noble friend Lady Corston’s report, reveal that incarceration is not the best way to help these already vulnerable women. Most women prisoners are mothers; some are pregnant on entering prison; they are often drug users with £200 a day crack and heroin habits; many are alcoholics; and many are in poor physical and mental health. Common experiences include sexual, emotional and physical abuse leading to chaotic lifestyles and, often, to self-harming.

Women commit a different range of offences from men; they commit more acquisitive crime and have lower involvement in serious violence, criminal damage and professional crime. Relationship problems feature strongly in women’s pathways into crime. Coercion by men can form a route into criminal activity for some women. Mental health problems are far more prevalent among women in prison than in the male prison population. Self-harm in prison is a huge problem and more prevalent in the women’s estate.

Women represent just less than 5% of the overall prison population, and 20% of sentenced women entering prison serve sentences of less than 12 months. Not only do women suffer grievously by being imprisoned, but so do their families. It is estimated that more than 17,000 children are separated from their mothers each year by imprisonment. Only half the women who had lived with or were in contact with their children prior to imprisonment had received a visit since going to prison. Maintaining contact with children is made more difficult by the distance from their home area that many prisoners are held. Taking children away from their mothers and into care only creates the next generation of vulnerable youngsters, many of whom will end up in the criminal justice system, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has already mentioned. I support her call for further research into this.

However, the Government’s proposals in this Bill to address reoffending could make the situation far worse. The Howard League for Penal Reform warns that the proposals,

“are likely to result in negative and costly unintended consequences”.

Breach and return to custody may be a very real prospect for many.

I welcome the acknowledgement that prisoners should be supported through the prison gate and have argued for this in the past, along with many other bodies, especially where young offenders are released back into the community with no change in their circumstances in terms of housing, jobs or training. Often their situation is made worse by having lost relationships and contact with their families.

However, the Government are in danger of going too far by insisting that engagement with rehabilitation will become mandatory over a 12-month period for all prisoners released from short custodial sentences. Each year 50,000 to 60,000 additional people will receive support on release, but it is difficult to believe that efficiency savings will pay for it, as the Government claim. It would be better significantly to reduce the use of short-term prison sentences and invest in intensive community sentences as an alternative. A prison place costs on average £40,000 a year, whereas community sentences can be a tenth of that cost.

There is a danger that these proposals will create disproportionate sentences for minor crimes so that a two-week prison sentence becomes a year and two weeks of being trapped in the criminal justice system. All those released from short custodial sentences will first be subject to a standard licence period for the remainder of their custodial sentence, served in the community, followed by an additional supervision period. Magistrates may “up-tariff” and sentence offenders to prison, when a community sentence would have been more appropriate, in order for them to qualify for the 12-month statutory rehabilitation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, warned earlier. However, breaches while on licence could result in offenders being recalled to custody until the end of their sentence. Breaches while under supervision could result in the offender receiving a fine, unpaid work, a curfew or ultimately a return to custody for up to 14 days.

The Howard League estimated:

“If probation services are extended to those 60,000 people a year sentenced to custodial terms of less than 12 months, a substantial number will breach the conditions of their licence or fail to engage with rehabilitative services and may be sent back to custody as a result”.

The Government’s impact assessment states that there will be court costs associated with breaches, including,

“additional pressure on the prison population arising out of offenders being recalled to custody and further electronic monitoring starts. Initial estimates of these costs are of the order of £25m per year”.

I fear that the decision to extend drug testing to class B drugs and to require offenders to attend drug appointments will only increase the likelihood of breach unless there is a radical change in the way addiction is dealt with, not only in prison but on release, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle has already mentioned.

The impact assessment also states:

“We want to enable providers to tackle offenders’ drug misuse issues and to support offenders to desist from crime. We have not quantified these benefits as we cannot predict the success rate of the probation providers”.

Indeed, there is much in this Bill that is difficult to predict and the danger of unintended consequences is very real.