The
Commission, whose president was Cherie Booth QC, wife of the former prime
minister Tony Blair, therefore proposes ‘a significant reduction in the prison population and the
closure of establishments; the replacement of short prison sentences with community-based
responses; and a clear acknowledgement that criminal justice is a blunt tool
which cannot in itself provide lasting solutions to the problem of crime.’
(§1.22).
The United States are held up as a
warning, though with some encouraging initiatives. New York celebrates its declining crime rate.
In Scandinavia,’ It is acknowledged in policy and practice that the problems
which bring most people to Norwegian and Finnish prisons cannot be resolved in
the prison setting ‘ (§ 2.10).
A case is made for penal moderation
: To sentence an offender to imprisonment should be a difficult action and one
which requires the most rigorous of justifications when all other options of
social control have been exhausted (§3.13).
Justice should be local, with community courts – New York’s Red Hook
court and Liverpool’s community justice centre are examples, though they depend
on the ‘charismatic brilliance of individual judges’ (p. 38).
The Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland)
Act 2005. sets up Community Justice Authorities to promote collaborative
working to reduce crime and re-offending.
Local areas should be able ‘to shift resources from the funding of
prison places to the funding of community needs’ (§4.19). In ‘justice re-investment’, funding that
would otherwise be spent on custody is transferred into community based
initiatives outside the criminal
justice system which tackle the underlying causes of much crime’. (§5.2). But the Commission says that the English
Ministry of Justice has misunderstood this concept, and is targeting individual
offenders, not communities.
In its final section
the report proposes much wider use of restorative justice, although it says
little about the actual process and the importance of doing it well. It sees restorative justice as having been mostly
used to deal with conflicts in schools, community and neighbourhoods, and with
anti-social behaviour to some considerable effect, but the Commission agrees
that there is considerable potential for it in dealing with crime. It is a complement to justice
reinvestment.
Restorative justice can
be used at various stages of the criminal justice process, or as diversion from
prosecution. The Commission is
supportive of restorative justice for more serious offences and offenders in
the context of a pared down criminal justice system (§6.5), in which restorative
justice is used in conjunction with a reduced custodial sentence.
There has been low
victim involvement in UK restorative justice schemes, because of organisational
failings. Unless resources are shifted towards improved contact, training and
support in relation to victims, restorative justice will remain a tool for the
rehabilitation of offenders rather than a process that also brings a greater sense
of justice to victims. Government
targets don’t include it.
Restorative justice also
has an important function to play in delivering penal moderation, community
safety and confidence, and offender reintegration,. but only if restorative
processes are protected by legal and ethical safeguards which ensure that the
very real risks of secondary victimisation for victims and disproportionate sentencing and
net-widening for offenders are controlled.
The report, published
in June 2009, can be obtained, price
£15, from www.howardleague.org , or
downloaded free.
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