Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

176ZAA: After Clause 61, insert the following new Clause—
“Awareness of sentencing options
The Lord Chancellor must make arrangements to ensure that each Probation Trust provides to all magistrates in the area for which it has responsibility—(a) information about all programmes and options for which it is responsible, and(b) opportunities to observe such programmes.”

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, the amendment would insert a new clause on the subject of awareness of sentencing options. The amendments in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford come at the beginning of this very important section of the Bill for which we have been waiting, as has been pointed out, for some considerable time.

The proposed new clause would address the crucial issue of ensuring greater awareness of, and confidence in, the local programmes and provision available to magistrates when they make sentencing decisions. It would require that the Lord Chancellor should ensure that a process was established by which each probation trust liaised with its local court to inform it of the programmes that it provided and gave it opportunities to observe them. That would mean conveying the content and range of programmes, the options that were available and, importantly, their quality. It is all about communication, which informs and facilitates the decision-making processes of the court when it is sentencing. Of course, any discussion of individual sentencing decisions would in this context be entirely inappropriate and irrelevant. It is about the generality of provision and provides the statutory basis for effective communication between the magistracy and probation, which is in the interests of both and, of course, of the community.

I pay tribute to the Magistrates’ Association, whose chair, and particularly its policy officer Sally Dickinson, have worked with me in framing these amendments. They are wholeheartedly behind the objectives of these proposed new clauses, as indeed is the probation service through the Probation Chiefs Association. I am enormously encouraged by their support, which I hope will convey to the Government just how important those central agencies are in their support.

Most importantly, both proposed new clauses directly reflect the central argument of the Government’s Green Paper, which preceded the Bill—that too many people are in prison and that short prison sentences are largely ineffective and counterproductive, as evidenced by the high reoffending rates. Importantly, however, the evidence also shows that robust community-based sentences serve the purposes of justice and a safer society much more effectively because they provide targeted programmes and supervision, which result in greatly lower reoffending rates. The key to the increasing use of these sentences is the combination of understanding and, even more importantly, confidence in what is on offer. I believe that these proposals will be the way to achieve this.

The initiative that I chaired for seven years, Rethinking Crime and Punishment, which was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation—I declare an interest as a trustee—demonstrated this case unequivocally. We set up a series of visits around the country when magistrates and Crown Court judges visited the probation programmes provided in their patch. Not only were they deeply interested in what they saw but their confidence in the programmes was clearly greatly enhanced when they came together after these visits to discuss what they had seen and heard.

As a result of this work, it became absolutely clear to me that this level of working together is really important. I can say confidently that this feeling was shared by all the sentencers, including judges. Indeed, in the debriefings after the visits, the common response by many sentencers was very enthusiastic, and the phrase, “I had no idea it was like that”, was typical. While I was delighted to hear that, it demonstrated to me how little they knew about what alternatives were available to them; it made one wonder just how appropriate, given what was available, their decisions might have been from time to time. That should no longer be the case if we are successful in this amendment.

Probation’s role in providing effective alternatives to custody is key to the Government’s strategy of reducing the number of short prison sentences. The probation service is the agency with the closest working relationship with the courts in making this provision. Of course, we must bear in mind some of the shortcomings in that area where work has to be done.

Starting from providing the court’s pre-sentence report, the service is the prime provider of alternative programmes, working with offenders ranging from unpaid work to drug and alcohol programmes, domestic violence programmes, hostels and mental health provision, to name but a few. These are the sort of disposals that it can offer. The voluntary sector is of course an important provider and so, increasingly, is the private sector.

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[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.

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[Lord McNally]

Yes, I started it, but in terms of the quality of the debate, to have a sitting magistrate and a former Lord Chief Justice along with everything in between reflects the range of the debate we have had. I can only say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that providing a copy of Hansard for every judge and magistrate would, in these straitened times, be beyond the Ministry of Justice. However, it is an interesting idea, and of course magistrates can now go online to read our words, so they should certainly do that.

Where I can follow the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Ramsbotham, and others, is in paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Linklater. She invites the term “do-gooder”, and it is a proud badge to wear. She is a wise, realistic and practical do-gooder, and that is why I personally benefit from her advice, as does this House. I should also say that my own commitment to both the magistracy and the probation service is as strong as that of any Member of this House. I believe that both are very important parts of our criminal justice system.

I listened to what my noble friend said about the need for information to be shared between probation officers and magistrates and of course I agree that that is important. But coming back again to a comment made in our earlier debate, I am not convinced that this aim actually requires a legislative provision. I welcome and encourage the sharing of information by probation trusts with magistrates. This already happens in a number of ways. Some are formal and relate to individual cases. For example, when probation supplies a pre-sentence report, the probation staff will outline for the court the suitability of an offender for a particular programme or requirement and the availability of that programme in the local area. There are existing liaison arrangements at both national and local level. At national level, a forum meets quarterly, bringing sentencers, probation and Ministry of Justice officials together to allow for the sharing of information on the national picture.

I was interested to hear of the experience of noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, of local liaison meetings. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, will not mind me saying that, in private conversation, she has expressed the view that such local liaison meetings have fallen into disuse.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

Perhaps I could put the record straight. It is not that they have fallen into disuse, but that they are no longer common practice throughout the country. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is nodding his head. There are some areas where they are alive and well, and others, probably in the majority, where they are either very poor or non-existent.

[Lord McNally]

I am grateful for that clarification, because I think that such meetings are important. When we discussed this matter previously, it was suggested that a bar to the effectiveness of the meetings might be that magistrates who engage with the work of probation trusts are unable to claim expenses to attend liaison or other meetings with probation. I am happy to say that Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is already looking at, and plans to consult on, some of these issues relating to magistrates’ expenses. I suggest that a better approach, working with the Magistrates’ Association, Bench chairs and the senior judiciary, would be to come to a practical solution rather than create more statutory requirements

There are arrangements for local liaison meetings, and I hope that what I have just said helps to plug some of the gaps that the noble Baroness just referred to. The arrangements are governed by a protocol issued by the senior presiding judge setting out the parameters for any discussions between magistrates and probation. A protocol exists because there is a need to ensure that there is no suggestion that sentencers have been influenced by probation priorities or resourcing decisions. The existing arrangements therefore allow for flexibility, with due propriety, as to what should be discussed.

I am not aware of any particular problems with probation trusts supplying information to the judiciary. If any noble Lords are aware of any problems, I would be grateful for details which I could follow up. I certainly think that magistrates should be encouraged to visit both prisons and probation regularly and not just as part of their initial training. I am not aware of any obstacle to them doing so. I do not therefore consider that there is any need for a new statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor to make arrangements for magistrates to visit.

Amendment 176ZB seeks to deal with the different issue of the use of short custodial sentences. The amendment would place a duty on courts to consider all alternatives before imposing a short custodial term. It would also require the court, if imposing a short custodial sentence, to explain why alternative sentences were not considered appropriate. I understand the intention behind the amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has argued, short custodial sentences can be less effective in tackling reoffending than community sentences. They can mean that an offender during their short time in prison loses their employment and accommodation, all of which is a hindrance to their rehabilitation.

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[Lord McNally]

I am not sure what my powers are in instructing, advising or making requests of presiding judges. I suspect that the present Lord Chief Justice might start breathing down my neck. I note what my noble friend has suggested and I will take that back to think about.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this extraordinarily interesting and well informed debate, which is really important for how we will take things forward in future. I will whizz through some of the very helpful comments that were made.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is always very wise. He said such nice things about me that I could only cap them with my endless admiration for him. He pointed out how important the individual is—the hand held out to lead somebody out of a dark place where we have possibly stuck them. Sharing experiences is of unbelievable importance. I must get the Dickens quotation from him. I know exactly what he means about the press exacerbating the problems of crime.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is the voice of such wisdom and experience. The idea of a prospectus across the services is very good. Is it not interesting that we do not have such a thing? If sentences were linked to behavioural progress, that would make those kinds of targets meaningful instead of being independent of each other.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, is my hero. He said that he knew that sentencing was not working well when he was in charge. That showed great honesty and insight. Of course, we both agree that there are times when certain sentences, including custody, are the one appropriate disposal. We accept that. The idea that some of these arguments could make a difference is a wonderful and extraordinary thing. I hope that everybody heard the range of the arguments we have had today.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for what he said. I am not sure that I entirely approve of the idea of using custody as the appropriate sanction for a breach. If a community sentence is not working, maybe the community sentence could be reviewed rather than saying, “This has not worked; we must go for breach”.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

I certainly think that community sentences can be reviewed and beefed up in some way. We have very clear guidelines on that point. The only point I made was that the vast majority of short custodial sentences that I give are for breaches and maybe multiple breaches. That was my only point.

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend Lady Linklater was on the point about community sentences made by the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Ponsonby. Probation staff can take back to court offenders who have made significant progress on their requirements in a community sentence. Provision in Clause 62 clarifies the position when community orders come to an end and requirements have been completed. It is already there for community sentences. As I said, we will also consult more on making community sentences effective.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

I thank my noble friend for that and for the clarification. It is very good news that that is being taken forward.

I listened to and heard what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said on the importance of post-prison support. He suggested that the clang of the prison door might have some effect. I do not really believe that, and the evidence for it is not substantial enough to actually influence policy. I have gone into a cell and heard a prison door clang on me. Even when I have not—to my knowledge—done anything too terrible, that is unpleasant but I question whether it changes the lives of people who are probably already in a very bad place.

Finally, I respond to the Minister. I am not very happy with “do-gooder”, if he does not mind. I am glad that he is pro magistrates and probation. I reiterate that there are some places where liaison committees exist and work well. Yet, if the reality was that the provision was in place and working well, I would not be here, nor would the Magistrates’ Association, the Probation Service and all the others behind me. There is a real sense of a need to beef up and put on some statutory basis the provision that will facilitate this and make the things that we know we need to have in place happen properly. If it was adequate as it is, I would not be here; the fact is that there is a severe deficit in what we are trying to do to make this society a safer and better place, and to make the way we work with offenders more constructive, effective and cost-effective. The fact is that 67 per cent of people on short prison sentences reoffend—that is over two-thirds—and £7.1 billion a year is wasted on sustaining and dealing with the results of such offenders. That is a very important thing, which I hope that my noble friend the Minister will not forget.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I apologise for not being here for the earlier part of the debate. Would my noble friend agree that one should insert an additional factor into the argument—that the vast majority of people who are sentenced to short terms of imprisonment have mental health issues? If we had a stronger community mental health sector, they should not be in custody; they should be in residential or community mental health care.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

I thank my noble friend for that, and regard it as very remiss of me for not having mentioned it earlier.

I have listened to what my noble friend Lord McNally said, and am delighted to hear that further investigations into certain things on the justice front, such as community sentences, are being taken forward. That will be very important. I will ponder what he has said until we return at Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 176ZAA, in substitution for Amendment 176ZA, withdrawn.

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Debate on whether Clause 67 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, Clauses 67 and 75 refer to the maximum extension of curfews from 12 hours to 16, and from a maximum period of six months to 12, the first of the two referring to adults and the second to children and young people. I have a particular concern over Clause 75, which refers to children, although there are issues common to both it and Clause 67, which, as I have just said, refers to adults.

The background to this is that curfews are one of the requirements of a community order where the offender is required to remain at a specified place for a specified period and is monitored by a tag that is administered by one of two private companies. The MoJ estimates that about 24,000 people are being electronically monitored at any one time, of whom it is estimated that—this is all I can say at this point—a significant proportion are children.

The application of a curfew can be used selectively by magistrates, who have the power to split the times across the day—for example, when children are coming out of school—or to prohibit an offender from a football match, from being out in the evenings or from being with a group of troublemaking friends. It therefore gives the court the opportunity to use the sanction in a selective and targeted way. As such, we support the current curfews as having a useful role in the armoury of the available sanctions, particularly for adults.

The official reason for these clauses and the extension of hours and months is to increase significantly the punitive element of the sanction, supposedly giving the public a sense of greater security and safety, and in the expectation that this would not restrict employment unduly. All of that I find unconvincing, particularly, as I said earlier, as punishment must also have a positive purpose.

The new propositions leave many questions unanswered about the need and whether any real added value is entailed that would justify such a draconian change or the potential difficulties or damage likely to be encountered on the way, and whether there is any evidence of how it is likely to reduce reoffending.

A curfew is sometimes described as a form of house arrest. The new provision could in theory allow a person on a curfew to leave home for up to only eight hours a day for a whole year. Does that sound possible or proportionate? I think not. We need to know more before such potentially draconian measures are adopted. Without such evidence, I urge the Minister to delete these clauses from the Bill.

Proportionality is part of our system of law. It is fundamental that we do not tinker with our criminal justice system simply to be more punitive or tough for its own sake. The Government argue that a more punitive order would serve as a suitable disposal as an alternative to custody for more serious offenders, but the Ministry of Justice has not yet produced any evidence that such a disproportionate sanction—a year-long sanction—would work, what offences it might be relevant for or whether magistrates would in fact use a longer curfew as part of a community sentence for those offenders whom they could currently sentence to custody. It is much more probable that, over time, the timescales of 12 hours and six months could slide up to 16 hours and 12 months, but either way the case has simply not been made. For adults, this is likely significantly to disrupt employment opportunities or caring responsibilities, and for those with drug and alcohol issues, maintaining treatment or support will become seriously more difficult. These are the people affected by Clause 65.

I turn to Clause 75, an identical clause that applies to children. As with adults, one of the problems is that comprehensive data on curfews are not available. However, a piece of work published by the Prison Reform Trust called Into the Breach—this might have been relevant to our earlier discussions—which looked at the enforcement of statutory orders in the youth justice system, found that in one YOT 23 per cent of orders were breached and the proportion for breach of curfews was 70 per cent. That was just one sample, but breach is the clearest evidence of whether any sanction has been succeeding, so it is important.

I understand that there are some unpublished data from an electronic monitoring provider showing that from a sample of 3,902 children fewer than 50 per cent completed their curfew without breaching and, of those who breached, three-quarters had been absent from the address that they were tagged to. Also, the longer the length of the curfew, the higher the breach—thus a curfew of up to 14 days had a compliance rate of 62 per cent, but that fell to 23 per cent for a curfew of 90 days or more. This seems to be enough to suggest that much more comprehensive evidence is needed before decisions are taken to extend a sanction that we know so little about.

What we know already is that children who get caught up in the criminal justice system are those who are already dealing with a range of deficits in their lives. Their home lives are often chaotic and their performance and attendance at school is often poor, many being excluded or at risk of exclusion and finding learning problematic. Gang life in these situations becomes more likely, while drugs and drink are available. Those children who are in hostels or some sort of independent living will find a curfew particularly difficult with no support at home.

Unsurprisingly, we know that where parents are actively involved in helping, children are more likely to succeed. That might mean keeping notes about meetings, getting the children up in the morning or having their friends over when they cannot go out. The problem with curfews is that, while they remain a useful short-term sanction for the courts, they are really difficult for children whose lives are already so difficult at home, when the reason they are on the streets in the first place is to avoid home. Equally tragic is when children who are in care on a voluntary accommodated order try to visit their own home and are breached because the address for their tag is the children’s home. What an irony. Curfews do not address difficulties such as why the children have offended or, more importantly, how to help them to stop. Curfews control their movements, but there is no automatic, external support along with the tag to comply with the curfew, or any proactive involvement from youth offending teams. This is a proposal which sets them up to fail—nothing more and nothing less. In accepting it, we would be failing our children.

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[Baroness Northover]

Perhaps we should leave that to those who are curfewed. For example, a curfew period of 16 hours will enable courts to curfew offenders for 12 hours overnight, as often happens now, but also to add a further period. This is designed to ensure that the offender is at home immediately before a community pay-back session to increase the likelihood of their turning up on time. More seriously, that illustrates the point that I just made about how this could be teamed with something else that the court wishes to achieve. If the curfew is timed so that the person will be at home before the community pay-back session, that is an imaginative way of using it. A young person attending school will need less restriction during the school week but could have their movements more tightly restricted at weekends, when they are at greatest risk of reoffending. That is another point.

I am aware that the Prison Reform Trust does not share this view and believes that the courts already have sufficient flexibility to impose curfews. I know that this belief has been endorsed by the Bar Council. Both have commented on their particular concerns about the impact of these changes on children. While I understand these concerns, it should be remembered that the new curfew limits are maxima. They will be imposed only where such a requirement is, as the law requires, the most suitable for the offender and where the sentence is proportionate to the seriousness of the offence. In respect of under-18s, we expect the longer curfews to be used sparingly and that courts will take their age into account. It will be the court that decides whether and how to use this option.

My noble friend Lady Linklater makes the case for when lengthy curfews would be disproportionate. Doubtless the court would see that in the relevant cases. The kind of aspects that my noble friend mentioned would be raised in court and taken into consideration.

Compliance with curfew is normally monitored electronically through the offender wearing a tag. This will not change. Indeed, we are exploring ways of making more use of electronic monitoring as the technology becomes more sophisticated and robust. None of the existing safeguards will change. Courts will still be required by law to ensure that the restrictions on liberty imposed by any community order are commensurate with the seriousness of the offence, so longer curfews may be more suitable for more serious offenders. It will remain the case that before imposing a curfew requirement, the court will have to consider what the effect of the curfew might be on the person themselves and their individual needs and circumstances and on other people living at the curfew address. With longer curfews being available, it will be even more important that the courts take account of the needs and views of the family members before setting the curfew hours. Youth offending teams will assess the suitability of the home address for curfew purposes. They will make a recommendation to the court on what length of curfew is appropriate. We would expect that any longer length and duration of curfew would be focused on older children where the alternative might be custody.

The point was made that longer curfews would interfere with work and children’s education. The law requires that all community order requirements, including curfews, should, as far as possible, avoid interfering with an offender’s work and education. I hope that that will reassure people. We believe that giving courts the power to impose longer curfews will contribute to realising the aim of making non-custodial sentences tougher and more demanding. In doing so, we hope that they will command greater confidence among sentencers and the public.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

I thank everybody who has participated in the debate. Consensus on this issue has broken out loudly and strongly with one unfortunate exception. I understand entirely where my noble friend is coming from and I do not envy her taking that position. Graphic arguments have been put forward regarding the reality of the lives of the people we are discussing. I respectfully suggest that the people who have framed these conditions have not been able to imagine what it is like to be in a house you cannot bear to be in for 12 hours a day for up to a year. Some sort of assessment by the Government in advance of imposing such restrictions on people who are already in trouble might be a good idea. Perhaps some sort of evaluation is in place that could be looked at. I do not know whether that is the case. Of course, it is a good idea to find alternatives to custody and for more serious offending but not, I suggest, if it hastens the route to custody. I cannot imagine how this measure will not lead to more reoffending. If there are more serious offenders around, it will simply result in more serious offending because these sanctions will be almost impossibly difficult to adhere to.

Once again, I thank everybody who has participated in the debate. I say to my noble friend that I hope that the arguments that have been made this evening will be taken away and considered very carefully before we come back to the matter on Report.

Clause 67 agreed.