Prison Sentences

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Judd

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

On the basis of figures from research in 2016, it is suggested that if offenders received a prison sentence of up to 12 months, they were something like four percentage points more likely to re-offend than if they had received a community sentence. However, noble Lords must bear in mind that those receiving a prison sentence of up to 12 months are very frequently those who have already received a community sentence and then re-offended.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is a very important question. It is absolute economic nonsense to put so much concentration on short sentences when the money could be used much more constructively towards rehabilitation. The reconstituted probation service will have a key role to play, but do the Government accept that, apart from establishing that crime is crime and cannot be tolerated, the task overall is to rehabilitate? Many of these short sentences are dealing with people whose lives are in chaos. Without proper rehabilitation facilities, their lives become more chaotic; it does not help towards rehabilitation.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Rehabilitation is of course an important aim, but it is not the sole aim in the context of criminal justice. At present there are no plans to end short-term prison sentences. Of course, short sentences do not help some offenders turn their backs on crime, but protecting the public has to be our priority.

Prisons: Overcrowding

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Judd

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

First, we have made provision to ensure that we did not come up to capacity in our prisons, but we did not commit to releasing a set number of prisoners. In the event, given developments in jury trials in Crown Courts and magistrates’ courts, since mid-March we have seen a significant fall in the number of prisoners. As regards the emergency release provisions that were announced and to which the noble Lord referred, the position as at 12 May this year is that 21 pregnant women or mothers have been removed from mother and baby units, five extremely vulnerable prisoners have been released, and 57 prisoners have been released under the end of custody temporary release scheme, giving a total of 83 releases under the scheme.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that the central plank of government penal policy is rehabilitation because it makes economic sense, while the cost of not successfully rehabilitating becomes very heavy to society? In that context, will he explain how keeping prisoners in humiliating and degrading conditions can possibly assist in the process of rehabilitation? Is getting these things right not urgent if we are sincere about saving the nation money by not having a high rate of reoffending?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The noble Lord is quite right: rehabilitation is one of the central pillars of our policy with regard to prisons. That has been made extremely difficult by reason of the Covid pandemic. It has been necessary to limit the movement of prisoners within prisons in order to contain the Covid threat. It has been necessary to curtail rehabilitation schemes and education schemes. That is extremely unfortunate, but we hope that, as soon we are beyond the Covid issue, we will be able to return to the schemes we have in place for rehabilitation.