Short Prison Sentences

Debate between John Howell and Chris Evans

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effectiveness of short prison sentences.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on boxing and a steward of the British Boxing Board of Control.

I have called this debate because I was heartened by the Minister’s recent statement that he is seriously considering abolishing short-term prison sentences. Considering the many reports in the news about the apparent decline of prisons across the country— perhaps most notably HM Prison Bedford—this debate could not have come at a better time. It is my hope that the debate will serve as the beginning of a conversation with the Government, wider society, charities and other organisations that inspires confidence in our criminal justice system and brings about effective, fair punishment in the future.

According to Dr Robert Jones at the Wales Governance Centre, Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe. As of last Friday, there were more than 82,400 people serving sentences in prisons across England and Wales, 95% of them male. The current prison capacity of England and Wales is estimated to be around 85,000, which means many prisons are suffering from severe overcrowding and a massive strain on resources. This overcrowding leads to increased risk of inmate violence, and leaves resources and staff thinly stretched across the prison, which can heavily impact on the success of rehabilitating inmates.

It is clear that things have to change. I believe that there are alternatives available to the Government. If we were to see more investment in community services and rehabilitative treatment programmes, which can address an offender’s criminogenic needs, we would see a reduction in the prison population and rates of reoffending. I am aware that the Minister expressed an interest in abolishing sentences of only three months, but I believe that there is a case to extend this to sentences of up to six months. All of the evidence stacks up to show that shorter sentences do not work.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some good points about overcrowding and the state of the prison estate. When looking at short sentences, the key issue for me is whether they achieve the rehabilitation of prisoners; my judgment is that they do not. Would he agree?

[Chris Evans]

The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point, which I will elaborate on later. There are numerous examples of people in the system with substance abuse issues, who cannot get into substance abuse rehabilitation or overcome their problem, who then find themselves outside, and get back into the system. I will develop this argument more as I go on and I will be happy to take another intervention, if the hon. Gentleman so wishes.

To me, short sentences do not help to reduce reoffending and they can cause unnecessary disruption to the lives of those who could have been dealt with in ways that have seen better results.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans]

When it comes to boxing there is evidence. I could cite a huge number of champions, from both sides of the Atlantic—some famous examples—who found themselves in trouble and used boxing to turn themselves around, because of the discipline that the sport taught them. The Government need to take those ideas on board, and provide support for boxing clubs, which tend to be at the bottom of the pile when money is handed out in community grants.

[John Howell]

Does the hon. Gentleman think there is a great contradiction in the health service engaging in social prescription, by encouraging people to engage in sports activities, while the Prison Service does not?

[Chris Evans]

Yes. The trend in the past 20 years has been that prevention is better than cure. The NHS is getting success in encouraging people suffering from obesity to go on to fitness and diet programmes. There is some success from that approach, and it could be transferred to the Prison Service. If people with energy have time on their hands, sport can fill it.

In research published last year by the Ministry of Justice it was found that reductions in reoffending were associated with the use of court orders such as community sentences rather than short custodial sentences. The effect was greater for people with a larger number of prior offences, younger offenders, and people with severe mental health problems. For those with prior offences who have already served a number of short stints in prison, imprisonment is clearly not a deterrent but more of an occupational hazard. It is interesting, therefore, that those offenders are less likely to reoffend when given community sentences.

Community sentences can be a win-win for all. Taxpayers’ money is saved, local communities and projects benefit and offenders learn skills and the value of giving back to society instead of taking from it. Not only do short sentences do nothing to rehabilitate an offender or reduce their risk of reoffending; sending people to prison for a few months unnecessarily adds to the overcrowding in prisons throughout the country. As I mentioned, England and Wales are reaching peak prison capacity and many prisons are heavily overcrowded. The overcrowding means even more strain on already pressured prison staff and resources; there are not enough of them as it is. That in turn has an impact on the success of inmate rehabilitation, levels of violence in prisons and access to illegal drugs, not to mention the wellbeing of prison staff.

That overcrowding could be prevented if courts did not instantly resort to sentencing offenders to short prison terms for non-violent petty crimes. In the year ending June 2018 almost 29,000 people entered prison to serve sentences of six months or less. That was 47% of all sentenced offenders entering prison during that time. According to Ministry of Justice prison performance statistics for 2017-18, in England and Wales the cost of keeping one person in prison for a year stood at £37,543. That works out at about £3,125 per month for one prisoner. The annual figure is more than Brits earn on average each year, and is almost as much as the cost of a place at an elite public school. Think of the amount of money we could save and invest elsewhere, if we did not imprison people on short sentences. It would also save money in the long run, as those who serve a community sentence or enter a rehabilitation programme are less likely to reoffend and to be imprisoned again in the future.

The money saved could be invested into the programmes and used to create more jobs and train more staff in the skills required to work in rehabilitation and treatment services, as well as being spent on other public services. With the looming threat of a no-deal Brexit and a shrinking economy, we need to be more efficient and effective with money and resources, and invest in and utilise more efficient and effective options.

It is not just the placement in prison for a few months that is costly. Short-term sentences can be hugely disruptive to people’s lives and lead them to be more reliant on public and social services than they were before entering prison. Resettling a previously imprisoned offender back into the community uses up a lot of time, money and resources. Short sentences can disrupt employment and housing situations, which can lead to more people applying for and relying on universal credit. There is a risk of people being left homeless, particularly if they are released on a Friday, as happened to more than 25,000 people in 2017-18. The public services that people rely on upon release, such as access to benefits, medication, housing or other assistance, are closed over the weekend. That means there is a risk that they will not get their basic needs supplied and that they will sleep rough for at least three nights. Therefore they will be at increased risk of reoffending. From there the offender can fall into the cycle of offending and imprisonment, which racks up the costs in the long run.

I know that the Minister is committed to prison reform and reducing the levels of inmate violence and access to drugs, and that he recognises the virtue of rehabilitating and educating inmates. I commend him for that. I hope he would agree therefore that, if we truly want to protect the public and remove people from a life of crime, so that they become proactive citizens who make positive contributions to society, we must take heed of the research and the multitude of statistics showing that short prison sentences do not work. I mentioned earlier the Revolving Doors Agency’s #shortsighted campaign, and I urge the Minister to take on board its recommendations. It calls on the Government to introduce a presumption against short custodial sentences of less than six months, much as the Scottish Government have done. That would allow for such sentences to be given only when no other appropriate option was available. In cases where short prison sentences were imposed for non-violent petty crimes, the courts would have to give a reason why they had opted for a custodial sentence over a community one. What is more, that approach would not remove the court’s discretion, and would allow courts to deal with more serious and violent offences appropriately. What is proposed is a presumption, not a ban on short prison sentences.

The fact that an offender does not go to prison does not mean that they are escaping justice or retribution. Such offenders will serve their time in another way, whether through curfews and tags or community service that benefits the wider community. Many of them face pressing personal issues, including substance abuse, homelessness or mental illness. I believe that they should be given the opportunity to escape the vicious cycle of criminal behaviour. They should have help alongside serving their community sentence, so that they can be rehabilitated and learn skills that can benefit their local economy and wider society.

We have to ask: do we truly want our streets to be safe, or do we want offenders to be punished and thrown into an expensive cycle of petty criminal behaviour and short-term imprisonment? If the answer is the former, the only way forward is to focus on how we can help those people change their lives for the better, rather than throwing them in prison and forgetting about them for several months. By allowing the latter to happen we will only contribute to the rising level of crime on the streets, and to overstretched prison services. I hope that the Minister can agree with me on that, and that he will pursue alternatives to short-term prison sentences.

As I said at the beginning of the debate, I look forward to engaging in a constructive and robust conversation. I do not expect to get all the answers today. However, I want a real opportunity to engage, over the next few months, in bringing about a justice system that brings benefits and, above all, inspires the confidence of the whole community.

Developing Countries: Jobs and Livelihoods

Debate between John Howell and Chris Evans

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

It would be remiss of me not to congratulate the Minister on his elevation to a knighthood. I am sure that as a former Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, who is traditionally held hostage in Buckingham Palace before the state opening, he had plenty of opportunity to lobby the right people, and his lobbying has come to fruition.

It would be remiss of me, too, not to pay tribute to you, Mrs Moon. Through your membership of the Select Committee on Defence you have become an expert in foreign affairs, international development and safety and security around the world, and I pay tribute to you for all that you have done in that field. You are now a leading light in this Parliament on those issues.

I want also to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose speech taught us all a lesson. I have been a Member of Parliament for six years. So often in this place Members stand up, and we hear them read out a speech; but with his speech today the hon. Gentleman proved that he cares—and cares passionately. Throughout our debate we have seen something that we should remember in the midst of the referendum—many people try to divide us into in and out camps, but the one thing that unites us is that we are human. People in developing countries may live in places whose names we cannot pronounce, and that we do not understand; but if we care about poverty it does not matter whether it is in Blackwood or Newbridge in my constituency, Stafford or Mozambique. We all have a duty as human beings to care about those who are impoverished and who are suffering, around the world. The hon. Gentleman’s speech, and other speeches today, have expressed that.

There are many things we sometimes take for granted in the UK, which is one of the most developed countries in the world. We have fantastic infrastructure, such as our extensive network of motorways, which stretches across the country. We have the resources to put into projects such as HS2, to make a drastic improvement to rail links between the north and south. We do not have to rely on international aid for our business. Instead, we attract considerable foreign direct investment. Indeed, in 2014 the UK attracted foreign investment in a record 887 projects, which created more than 31,000 jobs in this country. Investors know that money invested in the UK is safe and will generate returns, in the main.

We are the lucky ones. For much of the rest of the world, specifically developing countries, the infrastructure and stability that we take for granted are simply not there. We have a responsibility to contribute towards the economic development of less developed countries, so those who live there become a market for us to trade with. More customers can never be a bad thing. Our assistance to developing countries in their efforts to industrialise, and to create business and thereby employment, is a moral duty. It will help to raise millions out of extreme poverty.

The United Kingdom has a long history of supporting international development. I may be partisan, but I am proud that the Department for International Development was founded by a Labour Government in the 1960s, under Jennie Lee, the widow of Aneurin Bevan. I welcome the commitment to more than double international development funding to £1.8 billion in 2015-16. We must ensure that that money is spent in the most effective way, providing the most value for money not only for our own citizens but for those we are trying to help. However, efforts so far have not been effective enough. The problem cannot be solved simply by throwing more and more money at it. We have seen over and over again that that does not work.

Although it is true to say that private enterprise contributes around 90% of jobs in developing countries, international aid must involve considerable planning and a joined-up approach in public institutions that takes a holistic view of a country. We must ask the question: what do they need, aside from money and finance, to do the business they need and to bring the jobs they need?

Businesses in developed countries rely on stability. It is simply not possible to do good business where there is war, conflict, crime and, above all, corruption. If we throw money at businesses in insecure countries, can we truly expect them to do well and ultimately provide jobs? It stands to reason that businesses will not prosper if they have to pay tributes or bribes to corrupt local politicians, or if corrupt businesspeople pocket aid money rather than invest it in their business. The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, said in 2013 that

“corruption is public enemy number one”.

In describing the effects of corruption, he said:

“Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care; or from a girl or a boy who deserves an education; or from communities that need water, roads, and schools. Every dollar is critical if we are to reach our goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity.”

[John Howell]

The point the hon. Gentleman makes about corruption is a very good one. Is he aware that the country I look after for the Government—Nigeria—has a President who has come to power to try to cure the corruption problem there and is doing a very good job on it? We are trying to help that through a number of projects, including a very exciting one: the judicial college will help to train judges to be able to deal with that sort of situation.

[Chris Evans]

I am aware of the fantastic work in Nigeria and of the election of the President, who has got to the core of the problem. As we have seen in the past in places such as Rwanda, when corruption hits, it muddies the waters for fantastic projects such as those the hon. Gentleman mentions. It also gives rise to the idea that we should cut back on international aid and affects the efforts we are making.

Our strategy for international development clearly needs to focus on supporting the security infrastructure in developing countries and ensuring they have robust legal systems that can root out corruption. Security is fundamental to stability—I do not have to tell you that, Mrs Moon, since you are a long-serving member of the Defence Committee. Without stability, it is impossible for businesses to not only thrive but, in many cases, to survive.

The joined-up approach must also ensure that aid is given to education services and health services and invested in the infrastructure and logistics capability, which facilitate trade and economic growth in developing countries. A key reason for the rapid development of industrialised and highly developed economies is the heavy emphasis on education. A good, open and inclusive education system not only gives workers the basic skills they need to become a productive member of their local economy, but allows those with the ability to develop the skills to innovate and solve their own problems by developing their human capital.

Another key point is that the aid we provide should allow developing countries to help themselves, which we know they want, as nobody truly wants to rely on charitable aid. We all know the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” In this case, that is very apt.

If we do not focus our aid on the fundamental things without which business cannot flourish—security, law and order, education, healthcare and infrastructure—we run the risk of continuing the cycle of extreme poverty and unemployment. If crime pays more than work or education, it is no surprise that many young men in developing countries turn towards it. That is yet more evidence that developing economies need balanced and simultaneous improvement, investment and aid across the board. It simply will not do to build an extensive road network if corruption is rife, just as it will not do to tackle corruption without investing in infrastructure.

Some say that charity starts at home and that we should cut away aid to developing countries. To me, that is a narrow-minded view. If we support economies in developing countries, we open up new markets where we can sell our products. Surely that is a win-win situation, as we will bring millions of people out of extreme poverty—the goal we all strive towards—and create more export and business opportunities for British companies, creating more jobs at home. We have a moral duty when it comes to international development. I am pleased to see that everyone who has spoken in this debate, from all parties, shares that goal.