Cutting Crime (Justice Reinvestment)

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right about the paucity of information that is available for sentencers. It is worrying that we rely on the public spiritedness, intelligence and inquisitiveness of judges and magistrates to determine the problems in their localities and reflect them in local sentencing, but there is no system to give them access to proper objective evidence and information. I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted that point.

[Alun Michael]

We went through a period when sentencers were almost discouraged from going to see what was happening. In my time on the bench, which was quite a long time ago, I used to spend time, particularly with respect to youth justice, going to see where we were sending people. That included community as well as custodial disposals. It was invaluable. Under the previous Government, we moved back to encouraging sentencers to engage in an understanding of the places where people were to go. However, it is clear from work done by charities that more could be done, and that not enough is known, particularly by judges, who have a disproportionate influence, through the training programme, on the decisions of magistrates. They set the tone. A lot needs to be done in that area.

Incidentally, the issue of purpose arose elsewhere. The Committee also undertook an inquiry into the role of the prison officer, which overlapped with the later stages of the justice reinvestment work, and I want to draw attention to one of our conclusions:

“The aim of imprisonment should be to reduce re-offending, while treating prisoners with humanity and keeping them appropriately secure.”

That clarity of purpose should be reflected in the aims and objectives of the prison service, and in the way in which its activities are measured. If lots of other things are used as measures they get in the way of that overall objective.

It is important for us to mainstream the objective of reducing crime and reoffending. In the report on justice reinvestment we said:

“We are concerned that there has been low take-up of crime-related indicators in local areas and we believe that local strategic partnerships should better reflect the priority given to crime as a matter of public concern both nationally and locally.”

That is something that local MPs and councillors have, in my experience, always considered important, because it is important to their constituents. Therefore it is not impossible, if the information and data are adequate, to achieve coherence. There is a need for coherence across several Departments—we refer in the report to the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and others—to ensure the most appropriate allocation of resources to reduce crime. The report states:

“A considerable amount of management information about offenders is held locally by prisons, probation areas and other providers which, if captured centrally, would provide a wealth of material to support the case for cross-departmental reform.”

The idea that reform should be cross-departmental is important, because most of the resources that affect offending, for good or ill—the resources that, if applied in the right way, lead to a reduction in reoffending, or, if not properly applied, lead to a likely increase—lie outside the criminal justice system. That, too, is highlighted in the report.

One of the things that worries me most at present is the decision made in rather too much of a rush by the incoming Government to cut the support for, and the pledge to, unemployed young people. I do not say that just to be oppositional. I came into national politics because I worked with unemployed young people and saw their hopelessness. It was what led me to decide we needed to change things nationally. That is going back to the 1980s. I believe that the end of the pledge was foolish and short-sighted, but, more to the point, in relation to the criminal justice system, it may turn out to be a very expensive step. It was meant to save money, but I believe it will prove expensive. The drivers of offending and reoffending, or the things that can reduce them, are education or the lack of qualifications, basic skills and employment-related skills; drug rehabilitation or its inadequacy; mental health—we know that mental health problems are the trigger for the activities of many people who end up in prison; and housing. Those are the four drivers of the apocalypse of reoffending, so to speak. There is a need somehow to connect those four areas of provision and efforts to reduce reoffending.

If I were to include a fifth element it would be relationships. We underestimate the extent to which relationships or their lack, or failure, drive offending and reoffending. There is a connection between those things and the other four drivers. I suggest that, for instance—and this came out in the report on prisons—trying to turn prisons into learning establishments where prison officers and prisoners share the sense of the importance of learning opportunities would make an enormous difference. I heard on the “Today” programme a couple of weeks ago a reference to a protest in America, where local people objected to the fact that prisoners were being given greater educational opportunities than prison officers. The result was that educational provision for the prisoners was reduced. The obvious thing would have been to increase the educational opportunity for prison officers and turn that into a shared preoccupation. I have certainly come across prison officers with a passion for education and a wish for learning, who care about what they are doing. I suggest that that approach would make a great difference.

My other particular concern at present is last week’s announcement of the ending of the Youth Justice Board. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said that he hoped its work would continue elsewhere. He acknowledged that the work of the youth offending teams, bringing the different professions together in tackling youth offending, has been quite successful. My worry is about the fact that the expertise on youth offending and what can work in tackling it does not lie in Departments. It is not the sort of thing that civil servants do well. They are good on policy development, and so on, but from ministerial experience, I would say they do not have the professional expertise that the Youth Justice Board provided in support of the youth offending teams. We need that expertise somehow to be reinstituted, or the Minister may find that the effectiveness of work with young offenders starts to move backwards.

Justice reinvestment is not about massively increasing the resources that we put into the criminal justice system. Indeed, it is potentially about reducing them by using the available resources in a much more targeted and effective way. It is therefore an approach that should be attractive to the Government, just as it provoked a positive response from the previous Government. Does that mean that we have a boring consensus across party lines? No, I think that we had a very exciting convergence of views in the Select Committee, driven by the evidence rather than by the media. That is in the public interest, for three reasons: first, it is in the interest of good administration and governance; secondly, it makes the best use of available resources and stops demand for them getting out of hand—and we have seen how great the risk is, under successive Governments, of the demand for prison resources in particular getting out of hand; and thirdly, it delivers on the victim-centred agenda of reducing the likelihood that people will become victims a second or third time.

The Justice Committee’s report is the product of remarkable consensus among Members of Parliament in the four main parties. The members of the Committee put in a considerable amount of time. That was true not only of the Chairman but also, on the Conservative side, the new Chairman of the Treasury Committee—there should be an ally there—the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), and on the Labour Benches myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead). When we came to the writing of the report we expected we would be up against it. We expected a degree of cross-party controversy. However, perhaps it says something about the quality of the evidence and about the considerable investment of time in the inquiry over two years, as the Chairman of the Committee said, that we found ourselves in passionate agreement at the end.

I revert to comments by Professor Jonathan Shepherd, cited in paragraph 309 of the report, who

“advocated offender management schools and institutes in research intensive universities, similar to the police school model, and argued that such institutions can be cost-neutral.”

In analysing crime—what causes crime and what can drive it down—methodology is absolutely crucial. That is central, as well as a proper understanding of the actual experience of crime at a local level. The way forward is to put correct methodology at the centre, then trusting people to apply it locally, understanding the needs of their community and communicating those needs and the methods with which they are approaching them. That is precisely the approach to transparency and accountability that the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) asked me to underline. The justice reinvestment report offers an agenda that it would be wise for Government and Opposition to support in the coming months and years.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this timely debate, bearing in mind not only yesterday’s announcement but the ongoing nature of the debate on an important area of public policy.

The judiciary have had strong views about this area of public policy for a number of months, if not years. It is no secret that for some time prison governors had expressed their concerns about what they regarded as the overuse of short-term prison sentences, namely those of 12 months or less, because they are ineffective in managing offenders in the prison estate and at dealing with the all-important statistic of reoffending within six months of release from sentence. That is where the public interest lies, which is what I was delighted to hear other speakers, such as the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), Chair of the Committee on which I now serve, emphasising. The public rightly demand protection, certainty and reassurance that the system is doing everything that it can to manage out reoffending.

We are moving away from talking about targets and more towards talking about outcomes, but no matter which word is used, the reoffending figures are where it is at. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) got it almost right with his reference to the Diamond project—he was with me at an interesting session a couple of weeks ago. The preliminary evidence from the Diamond project is dramatic—“preliminary” was stressed, because the work is ongoing, with the pilot due to end in March next year. Figures of 28% reoffending are extraordinary, bearing in mind the depressing litany of statistics with which we all are familiar. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Lord Chancellor for having brought into the full glare of publicity the concerns of the judiciary, prison governors and everyone—such as me until my election—who is heavily involved in the criminal justice system.

The right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth is absolutely right: there needs to be a consensus, even at the risk of that being dull. I would go further than him and say that the old debates about toughness and softness, which have plagued the issue since about the mid-1990s, have really had their day. Instead we should be talking about whether we are being smart on crime or stupid—dumb, if preferred—on crime. That is where the debate should be, where the battle lines should be drawn and what we need to be focusing on.

I was not a member of the previous Committee, which produced the report, but I have read its recommendations and the Government response carefully. The Government response, although I accept that the current Minister is not responsible for those utterances—I am sure he is glad that I remind the Chamber of that—represented a missed opportunity. The report was from a Committee of the House that included senior Members and former Ministers, such as the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, who could use not only their experience in office but their experience of many years in the House and in their constituencies.

However, I am delighted that Cardiff was mentioned, because I practised for many years as a member of the Bar in that city, in the Crown court, and know intimately the problems and challenges facing the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman and others.

I was disappointed that, instead of a frank owning up to some of the deficiencies in the system, we had an over-defensive approach in the Government response.

[Claire Perry]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, whose constituency of South Swindon is next door to mine, for giving way.

There is so much evidence of interesting, innovative programmes, which we have discussed in Committee. Is my hon. Friend aware of the Vision Housing project in London, which aims to house ex-offenders and which is delivering the most extraordinary reduction in reoffending by providing one of the very things mentioned by the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael)—stable housing upon release for ex-offenders? What is the opinion of my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon as to why, with all this evidence for and cross-party commitment to making changes in the system, we still seem to be stuck in an old model with the National Offender Management Service and the Prison Service? We are not prepared to embrace the innovation that we all see out there every day.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend hit on an important point about NOMS. While we welcome the dedicated and hard work of members of NOMS, some of us wonder whether the synthesis between dealing with offenders in the prison estate and offenders in the community was ever achieved by NOMS. That was one of its purposes. It was to look in an overarching way at the whole system, and to provide some synthesis which, frankly, has not happened.

Tempting as it is to lament the rise and fall of various quangos—some speakers referred to this but, with respect to them, that misses the point—their best point, which the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth mentioned, is that we must not lose the expertise and knowledge of the people who worked so hard within those bodies. The Minister, I am sure, has taken that point very much on board in the case of the Youth Justice Board.

I make the point now, I hope clearly, that we must remember that youth justice ought to be treated in a discrete, separate way. It is not appropriate to meld the system of youth justice in with that of adult justice. They are two different beasts, which require two different approaches, and we must not forget that. At the same time, the issue of transition between the youth justice system and the adult system can be difficult—practically, for sentences, in terms of the gymnastics that they have to go through in remembering which particular regime fits what. My point is that the public interest is best served, when it comes to young offenders, by the sort of focused, early-intervention approach that I know everyone in the Chamber and in the wider community supports.

My point is about the public interest and how it is best served. I have talked about reoffending rates, but will now look in some detail at the part of the report that dealt with confidence in community sentences. That has been the issue about which politicians have danced for many years. They have worried about weak community sentences being poorly monitored and implemented, resulting in higher rates of reoffending.

The question of confidence is key here, but how do we achieve that? We have already been shown several important pointers, such as the Diamond project. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to the issue, but it is important that we reiterate it. Community sentences will fail if they are not properly policed, and they will be ineffective if they are not adequately monitored. There are some good examples of community sentences that work. For example, the drug rehabilitation requirement sentence, which is a high-intensity sentence, involves a regular review—it can be monthly or it can be held at less frequent intervals—by a Crown court judge or magistrate. Under such regimes, judges will see defendants on a regular basis and open up a dialogue with them. They will challenge the defendant if the requirement is not being met and assist them if a particular issue needs to be addressed, such as non-compliance because of work restrictions or requirements or problems with a methadone prescription if the defendant has been convicted of possessing or supplying a controlled drug. Such sentences are having a really positive impact on not only the individuals themselves but the communities in which they live.

The power to review sentences regularly already exists in section 178 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Government, in their response to the Committee, referred to their piloting of the use of section 178 in a range of different orders. I am interested to know—I will forgive the Minister if he does not have an answer today—the results of that pilot. I want to know the extent of it and the different types of orders that were used. It seems that if we give judges more involvement in the policing of community sentences, it will have a greater impact on the offender and go a long way towards promoting confidence in our sentencing regime.

The Diamond project used a range of mechanisms to enforce compliance with the order. Police officers or community support officers regularly knock on the doors of the homes of offenders to ensure that they attend the community project. We were looking at unpaid work in Lambeth the other day. We discussed how the scheme worked and we met offenders and former offenders who were working in the project. The input of former offenders—the euphemism nowadays is service users, which is relevant in this context—was vital, because they had gone through the system, come out successfully and were not reoffending. They were, I suppose, setting an example to those on the current order who, at times, were having difficulties or issues. It was wonderful to see people of experience assisting those who were on the order.

We spoke to some of those on the unpaid work scheme. Most of them understood the purpose of the order. They knew that it was not just about them and their rehabilitation but about their punishment. One gentleman I spoke to—I will not quote him out of court—did not quite get that point. It is important to hold such conversations because it helps us to understand the nature of punishment in our society.

For many years, the role of punishment in the criminal justice system has been hotly debated. Many protagonists say that punishment has no role in the criminal justice system, but, with respect, they entirely misunderstand where we are with punishment now. Their view of punishment comes from the 19th century, and we have moved on a long way since then. Punishment encapsulates not just custody and loss of liberty but a range of approaches that can be taken within the community. The example I would give is the one alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed when he mentioned one of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Justice Select Committee last week. The witness talked about her wish to be challenged by probation officers. Challenging people’s behaviour and facing up to them is a modern form of punishment. I am talking not about having a cuddly cup of tea but about saying, “Look, what you are doing is wrong. The way you are behaving is inappropriate. What are you going to do about it?” That is challenging the individual to face up to what they have done, to understand why they did it and to move on to be a better citizen.

It is wholly artificial to divide punishment from rehabilitation and public protection. The truth is that they all elide to. In many ways, getting the punishment right will ensure that the offender is rehabilitated and the public are protected.

I come back now to the point that I made at the beginning of my address, which is that the public interest is best served by a system that results in a lower rate of reoffending. That is why justice reinvestment is common sense. It not only saves the Exchequer massive amounts of revenue and protects the public but makes better citizens of those people who end up in the system.

The right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth made a vital point about access to information about local rates of offending, where the hotspots are and what the problems are. It is vital that sentencers—the judiciary and lay magistracy—have full access to the hard facts, because it will help them reflect local sentencing priorities. I am not saying that Cardiff has a particular problem. In fact, it is very well managed by Jonathan Shepherd, the University Hospital of Wales and the local police. There are other parts of the world in which crimes of violence are still a huge problem. The public of those particular towns or cities demand, quite rightly, that sentences be passed to reflect those problems.

[Alun Michael]

Although I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, there is another side to the coin. If people see the correct trends—what is actually happening—that can inspire more confidence, too. For example, St Mellons had very high burglary levels at one period. Much was done and there was a massive drop. If we hear that there has been a slight incremental rise in the area, and we look at it against a 10 or 15-year perspective, we see that it is only a slight ripple rather than a major increase. It is just as important to give the good news to local communities as it is to identify hotspots.

[Mr Buckland]

Absolutely. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the matter in context. I have been talking about the end result—clearing up the spilled milk—but a lot of the targeting work is all about intervention to manage out the problem. That is a very important point here. A lot of the work that the Committee did was about not just looking at the end result of sentencing but intervening at an earlier stage to get it right and to avoid having to rely on a criminal justice system that does not always deal with problems appropriately, particularly when it comes to young offenders. The restorative justice concept is a prime example of the alternative approach.

I will end by reminding the Minister of the meeting that we had some weeks ago in Birmingham with key players in mental health. It was a very productive round-table discussion, hosted by the National Centre for Mental Health. We were lucky to be joined by senior consultant forensic psychiatrists and the mother of a young man who, as a result of serious drug problems, ended up with a mental health problem and was treated inappropriately by the criminal justice system.

I make this plea—I hope that the Minister will forgive me for making it because he has heard it from me before, but I make no apology for that—that we must get the diversionary therapies and methods absolutely right when it comes to mental health, not only in the Crown court and the magistrates court, in terms of making it easier for sentencers to pass mental health treatment conditions as part of a community order, but at the police station too. That means ensuring that if a desk sergeant or even a duty solicitor or any person who comes into contact with an arrested person, an accused person or a suspect is able to have recourse to community psychiatric nursing help—[Interruption.] I do not know if the person who is in charge of the amplification system wanted me to make that point more clearly. [Laughter.] However, I am happy that it has been amplified and made more clearly.

The intervention of community psychiatric nursing at that level and the professional input of mental health services will go a long way to ensuring that people who have genuine mental health problems end up being treated appropriately rather than in a criminal justice system that far too often fails them, resulting in inappropriate prison sentences being imposed and in the alarming statistics that we are all depressingly familiar with regarding the number of people in our prisons who have mental health conditions.

At the top end of the scale, I would argue that the Mental Health Act provides very important and valuable services for those people with acute mental health problems. However, it is more towards the middle and the bottom end of the scale that the system is, I am afraid, quite simply deficient.

It is very much a question of commissioning. The Minister will agree with me that collaborative work with the Department of Health is essential if we are to get the mental health services that we need. So I urge him to do all he can as a member of the new Government to ensure that, by the time we get to the new commissioning regime next year, mental health services are at the top of the list when it comes to new provision.

On that note, I conclude my remarks, Mrs Main, and I am very grateful to you.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I want to say that we are having the sound issues tackled. I also want to say that I will call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson at 4.50 pm, followed by the Minister. Can those Members who wish to speak before then be mindful of that?