Judges in the criminal courts should be given powers to monitor non-custodial interventions and short sentences should be abolished, an 18-month parliamentary inquiry has recommended.
The Justice Committee report, Prison Population 2022, backs justice secretary David Gauke’s calls, made in a speech in February, for an end to short prison sentences, and suggests the government consider abolishing sentences of 12 months or less. It also points out that the judiciary is entitled to expect that those who are subject to probation supervision have good quality interventions and an opportunity to move on with their life. The government, it says, should consider the value of judicial monitoring as a medium-term priority.
The committee’s report found the government’s current approach to prison funding unsustainable in the medium to long-term. The prison population has nearly doubled in size in the past 25 years, from 44,246 in 1993 to 82,384 in December 2018, and many prisons are now overcrowded. This is because proportionately more offenders are being given a custodial sentence and custodial sentences are becoming longer.
The inquiry heard how staffing shortages and other disruptions have severely undermined the delivery of rehabilitative services in prisons, including education, mental health treatment, substance misuse treatment and offending behaviour programmes. The committee concluded that this creates wasted costs.
Moreover, the nature of the prison population has changed―a higher proportion of offenders are in prison for serious violent or sexual offences. The average age is rising, and many prisoners have mental health problems, such as psychosis, or learning disabilities.
Chair of the Justice Committee, Bob Neill MP, said: ‘The Ministry of Justice and Treasury are guilty of a crisis management approach to prisons that has been failing for the past five years.
‘Throwing money at the prison system to tackle multiple issues takes funding away from external rehabilitative programmes that could stem or reverse many of the problems. Proper investment in rehabilitation services would really work.
‘Better access to support and opportunities for offenders would reduce repeat imprisonment, save money, and start to alleviate pressures on jails. Poor access to rehabilitation while in prison creates boredom and frustration, with a cyclical impact on the degradation of regimes and safety.’
