Why penal reform should be a conservative issue

The Commission – on which I was proud to serve – argues for a change
of direction. It is time, its report says, for English society to stop
bingeing on prisons, to radically scale back its dependence on
incarceration as the path to social order. To this end, the report
suggests breaking with national government interference and targets in
favour of localism in criminal justice policy. It makes a powerful case
for re-directing the prison budget towards non-penal, community-based
methods of reducing crime and re-offending – an approach known as
‘justice reinvestment’. It argues for expanding the use of restorative
justice – a justice innovation that is a proven success.

All
this is underpinned by the new public philosophy of punishment that our
society pressingly requires – what we call penal moderation. This urges
restraint in how English society talks about and delivers punishment;
calls upon us to recognize and reap the benefits of a minimum necessary
penal system, and demands a criminal justice system which treats all
whose lives are caught within it with human dignity. Moderation, we
argue, is an idea whose time has come – one that fits a dawning era of
regulated responsibility in economic and social policy.

But why should these proposals for penal change appeal to those of a
conservative disposition, or inform the policies of any future
Conservative government? Several reasons suggest themselves. Two of
them are obvious, a further three rather less so.

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