Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Baker of Dorking and Baroness Linklater of Butterstone

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Oh!

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

You are my dear. I have my hero here, so I can say that. I had better go on before I make any more silly mistakes.

In fact, the average sentence from the magistrates’ courts is a brief and unconstructive 2.5 months, which came as a surprise to me. I ought to mention that in the Crown Courts the number of all those sentenced to immediate custody went up by 20 per cent last year, which was the highest for 11 years. The killer series of facts is that the National Audit Office estimated that the overall cost to the economy of reoffending by former short-sentence prisoners was between £7 billion and £10 billion in 2007-08; that while prisoners were actually in prison, it cost us an average of £39,500 per prisoner per year; and, amazingly, that the Crown Court process of imposing a prison sentence cost an additional £30,500. Imprisonment and subsequent reoffending comes at an enormous cost.

Here I must thank the Prison Reform Trust for publishing its Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile, which is a gold-mine of statistical information and the source of my figures—when I can get them straight. By contrast, court-ordered community sentences have been demonstrated by countless projects and schemes to be more effective in reducing offending by eight percentage points overall, but with many more really dramatic and successful outcomes all over the country. For example, an assessment of the prolific and other priority offender programme showed a 62 per cent reduction in reconviction rates after 17 months. I refer noble Lords to the booklet published by the Howard League for Penal Reform outlining the work and achievements of community-based programmes, including award-winning ones, the length and breadth of the country—all of which show equally impressive outcomes.

The Government have already invested in payment by results to reduce reoffending, and Social Finance is investing in social impact bonds to finance a programme in Peterborough prison that is in its early days. Such programmes have been generated, are happening and are growing all the time. We must buy into them.

What sentencers can see and learn when they visit programmes is that for many—probably most—people on a community order this is a much more challenging experience than a few months or weeks in prison. Programmes dealing with domestic violence, drug and alcohol addiction or mental health difficulties, to name but a few, require the person to face up to these issues—a really difficult thing to do—in ways that they will never be able to in prison because such programmes are simply not available to the short-term prisoner, but this is the way that people change their lives.

The proposed new clause in Amendment 176ZB requires that sentencers, when imposing sentences of six months or less, must state in open court why a prison sentence is more appropriate than a community sentence and draw where the threshold comes, so that people can understand what is going on and why the custody threshold has been reached. This, by implication, requires knowledge of the range of available options in the community, so that there is no doubt that the disposal is appropriate and just, and the decision can be clearly explained to the defendant.

There is a jingle in the sentencing business—that it is a roof, a relationship and a job that anyone needs as preconditions when coming out of prison, if they are to have a chance of staying out. Of course, those are the preconditions for most of us if we are to have happy and fulfilled lives. At a stroke, imprisonment can take that all away, making reoffending all too likely and condemning the family to a parallel sentence of its own. Community penalties mean that the three preconditions can stay in place and something constructive can come out of the experience for the offender, the family and the community. The court must explain why, in the light of all the evidence, the decision has been made and where the threshold comes, and give the options available to it. Justice will then have been done. I beg to move.