Ten-minute read
The government is looking to recoup billions of pounds through cuts to public services even after Jeremy Hunt’s reversal of the September mini-budget at the weekend. He has asked all government departments to identify where savings can be made and arms-length agencies that might be cut or abolished. Initially, the priority is capital expenditure where savings of 15% are expected. A good starting point would be to stop prison building and to close some existing prisons.
While it may be impossible to eradicate imprisonment in its entirety and its annual cost to the exchequer of £3.8bn, the government could cut imprisonment substantially and still maintain public safety.
Prison costs
In the year 2020/2021 the government spent £3.8bn on prisons of which two-thirds (£2.6bn) was spent directly on incarceration; the remainder was spent on national prison service expenditure, some of which would still be required if prisons were closed. This compares to £3bn and £2bn respectively for 2010/2011. The direct cost per place for 2020/2021 was £48,162 (£28,728 in 2010/2011) while the direct cost per person imprisoned was £48,409 (£26,978).
The difference between ‘place’ and ‘per person’ figures reflects the ‘processing costs’ of those being admitted or released. These figures do not include capital expenditure. Five Wells, which accommodates 1,680 prisoners, opened this year at a cost of £253mn. Prison building is big business.
Not included in these costs is the cost of supporting families while a breadwinner is in custody or children are looked after by the state.
Prison numbers
As of 7 October there were 83,684 prisoners in English and Welsh jails and a further 2,083 on ‘home detention’. Increasing prison capacity leads to more imprisonment. In the last year prison capacity increased by 2,790 and prisoner numbers by the same amount. Additional prison building was also intended to improve prison conditions and efficiency by taking some older Victorian prisons out of circulation, which it has done – six old prisons have been decommissioned but 20% of prisoners remain in overcrowded conditions.
Figures (2018) show that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world at 655 prisoners per 100,000 of the general population, having peaked at over 750 in the late 2000s. The latest UK government statistics (2020) show England and Wales imprison at a rate of 167 prisoners per 100,000 of the population.
In 2018 when the last set of international comparisons were made by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research the rate was 140. Even then it was much higher than comparable EU countries: Ireland (78), France (100), the Netherlands (61), Germany (75), Italy (98) and Spain (126). There are no indications that UK citizens are more criminal or dangerous than their European cousins.
Public perception
In 2000 the average length of a custodial sentence was 11.4 months. This rose steadily year on year to 19.5 in 2020. It dropped to 18.6 in 2021 but this may have been an unusual year due to Covid. Mandatory and discretionary life sentences have doubled since 1993.
In spite of year on year increases in sentence length, when questioned about attitudes towards crime and sentencing, the general public thinks that prison sentences are much shorter than they are, and that prison conditions are much better than they are. Many assume that people convicted of rape can be put on probation whereas, under sentencing guidelines, the starting point is four years imprisonment and many offenders are serving life sentences.
Similarly, most respondents think that prison is a lot easier than it is and that access to a TV somehow makes up for 23 hours a day in a tiny cell shared with two others, a few rats, and a toilet. This lack of understanding and the occasional, well-publicised, aberration (or comment made by a judge about the victim’s behaviour, when sentencing) leads to the press calling for harsher sentences.
Yet, even though the public underestimates the severity of sentencing, and its knowledge of the criminal justice system is very limited, it does not think imprisoning more people is likely to reduce offending. The majority wish to see better parenting (and support), more police on the streets and better resources for young people. Only 11% think that greater use of imprisonment would reduce crime.
Victims
Victims’ attitudes (following a conviction) towards punishment and the criminal justice system is complex, often informed by how they were treated by the system, the behaviour of the offender, the expected or hoped for sentence and if it is fulfilled (for example if compensation is ordered), and how relevant they consider the sentence to be to the harm caused. For most victims, such considerations do not apply as there will be no prosecution, finding of guilt or sentence. In rape cases, about 1% result in any form of criminal justice disposal.
The needs of victims are rarely served by imprisonment. In rape accusations longer sentences can lead to more not-guilty pleas with brutal questioning of victims in court and the trial of victims on social media. Only 1.6% of sexual assaults result in a court hearing.
The overly punitive approach leaves women reluctant to report their partners, or partners to take steps to acknowledge the harm they are causing – the price is too high. The government (and Labour) is deceiving women when it says it will be tougher on crime, particularly sexual and violent offences; and more money spent on the criminal justice system and prosecutions comes at the expense of effective crime prevention and victim support.
Driving up imprisonment
After centuries of reducing punishment severity, the harsher sentencing climate emerged in the 1990s with the Conservative Party’s ’prison works’ philosophy. Between 1900 and 2018 the prison population quadrupled, the biggest rise (50%) being in the 1990s while Michael Howard was home secretary. Since then, a number of new laws have been passed that have created more crimes, permitted prison to be imposed in more cases, increased the length of imprisonment, reduced the period of automatic and discretionary release and legislated to recall more offenders to custody if they breach their licences. Sentencing guidelines have also been introduced which set sentencing ‘norms’ for offences and these tend to be much more severe than those imposed in comparable western democracies (other than the US).
This harsher climate coincided with or was driven by the Conservative Party’s privatisation agenda. Of the 122 prisons in England and Wales, 87.7% are still publicly owned but accommodating only 85% of inmates, as private prisons tend to be bigger and newer. The private sector’s market share has primarily come from the expansion of the prison estate, rather than replacement, a sector that is ‘booming’ for private investors and contractors. The incarceration market is extremely profitable, and providers have every incentive to promote the need for more prison places and longer sentences.
In 2016 the government looked set to build ‘super-prisons’ both to expand the prison estate and to take some of the oldest prisons out of circulation. Only one super-prison has been completed to date though others are in development. The development model – design, finance, build and operate – cost hundreds of millions of pounds that can only be achieved through private sector investment. It also requires full occupancy to recoup costs and make a profit for investors.
Prison failure
The latest statistics show that the ‘proven’ reoffending rate for released prisoners within one year after release was, in July 2022, 38.4% for adults. This figure is low due to Covid restrictions that applied over the period of measurement. Longitudinal studies indicate a general reoffending rate of about 70% over five years.
Even on simple measures, such as ensuring offenders return to the community better equipped to stay out of trouble than when they went in, prisons fail. Only 9% of prisoners have accommodation on their first night of release and only 1% have employment six weeks after release.
Sentencing impact on crime
Rising and falling crime rates have almost nothing to do with the efforts of the criminal justice system although ways of responding to crime can have a positive or negative impact on some offenders. Increases in criminal activity are largely driven by changing demography such as the increase in crime during the late 1950s and 1960s following the war as ‘baby boomers’ were reaching adolescence. Sometimes particular social conditions or events may lead to increased crime or public disturbance, for example, race and poll tax uprisings/riots. The factors that impact most on crime levels, including economic, social and psychological factors and even weather, are independent of the criminal justice system.
Efforts by the Home Office to justify its prison-centric approach to criminal justice include the Halliday Report which estimated that a 15% rise in the prison population would be required to reduce offending by 1% in the community. Civitas, a right wing (Tufton Street) thinktank, estimated a 12.5% increase in sentence length would achieve a 1% reduction in crime but this reduction was predicated on targeting known offenders for intensive police activity and prosecution. Focussing police activity on persistent offenders and subsequent imprisonment has reduced their crime but it has also opened up a space in the market for new offenders, a pattern that we have seen in the drugs market, where ‘county-lines’ are largely fed by young people with no previous criminal record; and in environmental and other protests.
Of equal concern, offending in prison is not included in crime statistics, yet, the level of assaults and drug misuse is a serious problem in prisons and may even be higher than that committed outside the prison gates.
Purpose of punishment
Punishment is largely symbolic. It reinforces the power of the state and censures wrongdoing. People are hurt by crime and have a desire for retribution and we cannot return to a time when sexual offending or domestic abuse were considered minor crimes for which imprisonment was unduly severe. While various prison rehabilitation programmes have had some success over the years, they are not usually sustained longer term and are the first thing to be abandoned when expenditure is cut. Most of the UK’s prisons are too poorly funded and equipped to meet even basic needs let alone programmes of rehabilitation. We should not pretend that we expect prison to rehabilitate, prevent offending or deter others; it is solely a punishment, and its length should be the absolute minimum required to ensure justice is done.
Just as increasing sentence length and frequency has had no impact on offending, we can expect that substantially reducing the length of prison sentences and reducing the capacity of the courts to send people to prison will have a negligible impact on crime. This hypothesis is borne out by the lack of impact on offending rates brought about by the short-lived provisions of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act which brought down prison numbers by about 5,000 shortly after its implementation and before it was rescinded. Or the overnight closing of all juvenile detention facilities in Massachusetts in 1971, or ’justice reinvestment’ approaches in the US in the 1990s that transferred criminal justice money to education and community services. Scandinavian countries have managed perfectly well with a very low imprisonment rate.
In determining where the public service axe should fall the government should consider who benefits from the service. Excepting the few cases of dangerous offenders who are not safe to be released, the only people who benefit from incarceration are those profiting from it. The rest of us – victims, offenders and their families, and the communities starved of resources to prevent offending – suffer.
