Crime, Reoffending and Rehabilitation

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I too look forward to the noble and learned Lord the Minister’s maiden speech. He joins us as an expert on legal aid, an illustrious report on which he put his name to last year. I gently point out to him that his three predecessors resigned on principle, and I hope that he does not find himself in a similar position in the months to come.

I would like to open by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for tabling this debate. It has been extremely wide-ranging and a lot of expertise has been demonstrated. I also acknowledge the two reports the noble Lord has written—his 2017 review of reoffending by male prisoners, and his 2019 report on the importance of strengthening offenders’ family relationships and its impact on intergenerational crime. The two reports have been debated a number of times in several debates, and they will have an enduring legacy. For me, the statistic that summarises the conclusion, in a sense, is that 39% of prisoners who receive visits from family members are less likely to reoffend. The noble Lord quoted that statistic in his speech.

I first took an interest in criminal justice matters about 20 years ago, through the voluntary sector. I became a trustee of the Wandsworth Prison visitors’ association, which led to my becoming a magistrate and having a long-standing interest in these matters. Over the last 20 years we have seen a lot of changes to the wider criminal justice system. Some have been driven by funding cuts, others by ideological commitments to particular organisational models—for example, in the probation service. But of course, on top of that there has been a huge increase in the prevalence of drugs in the prison estate and in the mental health issues of people who are sent to prison. All this has added up to a feeling that the wider criminal justice system just is not working. It is not keeping victims safe, rehabilitating offenders or providing staff with long-term rewarding careers during which they can use their expertise to reduce reoffending.

Since this such a wide-ranging debate, I want to concentrate on particular themes and ask the Minister a couple of questions. First, offenders are more likely to come out of prison addicted to drugs than when they went in, making our communities less safe. Drug crimes in prison have leapt by 500% since 2010, while the number of inmates accessing NHS alcohol and drug treatment programmes has fallen by 12%. One-third of adults released from custody go on to reoffend within a year and, as we have heard from other noble Lords, this costs the UK taxpayer £18 billion a year. Part of the problem is that the average prison officer in England and Wales now has only four years’ experience in the job. In 2017, the median time served by a front-line prison officer was 12 years. Surely, this has an impact on the availability of rehabilitation within prison.

In today’s Times newspaper, Charlie Taylor, the current Chief Inspector of Prisons, wrote about the uneven performance of and lack of purposeful activity in the prison system, particularly in category C prisons where offenders are supposed to be prepared to be released into the community; this is simply not happening in a number of those prisons. Current prison conditions mean that inmates are not given the opportunity to engage with meaningful education, substance misuse reduction or rehabilitation programmes. Does the Minister accept that this is a failure of the Government and needs the primary concentration of Ministers to reverse the situation?

Turning to youth justice, the Government have slashed £1 billion from youth services in our communities since 2010, leaving a gaping hole in respect of the clubs and support that used to exist for young people in the community. In 2020-21, 73% of youths in custody were in YOIs, 17% were in STCs and 10% were in secure children’s homes. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons has issued urgent notifications for one YOI and two STCs where there is a significant concern about the treatment of young people in custody.

When I first became a youth magistrate some 13 years ago, about 3,000 young people were in custody; now, there are about 800. That is significant progress, but its inevitable consequence is that those young people who are in custody are more entrenched in their criminal behaviour and need more support to try to stop them reoffending when they come out of prison. Does the Minister agree that this is the situation, and extra support is needed for young people as they come out of custody?

Next, I refer to public confidence in the criminal justice system regarding rape. Some 41% of rape cases now end with the victim withdrawing their support. Does the Minister accept that this is a result of a lack of confidence in the justice system? What does he believe can be done to reduce the 1,081 days between a rape taking place and a verdict being reached by a court?

I return to community sentences. A number of noble Lords spoke about the importance of community sentences. I need to declare an interest here, as a sitting magistrate, in that I occasionally sentence women to short terms of imprisonment—although I think I can say that, in the 15 years that I have been sitting as a magistrate, I have only ever done that when the woman concerned has served multiple community sentences and, for one reason or another, those have failed.

However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester about the importance of women’s centres. They are a very important element in trying to stop women reoffending. It is worth quoting the Chief Inspector of Probation, who has described the probation service as being “in survival mode” due to staff shortages. Can the Minister say anything about the recruitment activities of the probation service? To make community sentences work as they surely must, we need to reinvigorate community sentences and the probation service.

As I have said, this has been a wide-ranging debate and all the contributions have been extremely worth while. I understand that we are talking about intractable problems that are difficult to deal with. A number of noble Lords have a decades-long interest in these matters, but I just want to reflect on the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. He opened by saying that when one walks into a prison, one walks into a shockingly sad situation. That is true in my experience of going into prisons over the years as well. The noble and learned Lord’s call was for shorter sentences and a reinvigoration of community sentences. Those two elements will do more to improve our situation in the wider criminal justice system than anything else. I urge the noble and learned Lord the Minister to listen to the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.