All countries have social problems and all countries have crime, the two are often closely linked. Crime is universal as are its drivers- greed, drugs, alcohol, passion or dysfunctional lives. What is different is how each country responds. It is well known that the UK imprisons more than most. UK rates are currently the highest in Western Europe at 148 per 100,000 citizens. Its not that we necessarily have more crime than elsewhere, it’s just that we choose prison as a preferred sentencing option, even for low level offending. Plans by the UK government to increase prison places will give the UK an estimated imprisonment rate of 166 per 100,000. This is a rate higher than that currently found in a number of eastern European countries. We are still a long way off the American total where it is reported that more than 1 in 100 adults are now locked up. But it’s the American system, with its giant warehouse style prisons that we are looking to copy rather than some more effective (and less expensive) options followed in places such as Scandinavia and New Zealand.

It’s not as if sending low level offenders to prison is actually effective at preventing crime or acts as a future deterrent. Far from it. Re-offending rates are around 70% after release, so it can hardly be claimed that ‘prison works’. There are alternative sentencing options to imprisonment which are more effective in terms of re offending rates and which are significantly cheaper. But unfortunately in the UK such sentences have a media fuelled public image of being a ‘soft option’. This government, keen to appear to be tough on crime, prefers to plough money into building more prison places than to invest resources in making the alternative sentences robust and consistently delivered throughout the country. This vicious circle has to change and is at the heart of the Make Justice Work campaign which was launched earlier this summer. By highlighting positive case studies and outlining the facts about prison Make Justice Work hopes to widen the debate on short-term prison sentences, proving that locking more people up for lesser offences is counter-productive.

So what do they do elsewhere? In 2001 ‘home detention’ was introduced in New Zealand as a separate sentence for lower-risk offenders. It had been identified that home detention was an effective alternative for low risk offenders who would otherwise have received a short prison sentence. Whilst it may have been considered to be a ‘soft’ approach, it has been far more successful than prison at reducing re-offending. They found that home detention cut the re offending rates by two thirds. Why does it work? Well, it allows offenders to be punished while at the same time offers them a much greater chance of being rehabilitated as employment, accommodation and family responsibilities and relationships can be maintained. Not only that but it is also an effective use of taxpayers’ money as the cost of home detention is a third of that of custody.

The cost of punishment should be an important factor, particularly now. The overall cost of the criminal justice system has risen from 2% of the UK’s gross domestic product to 2.5% over the past 10 years. In the UK much of the debate about the prison population tends to focus on the moral, political and social arguments. Relatively little has been written about the economic arguments for and against the use of prison. This is despite the substantial costs incurred by the state in building and maintaining prisons. In the UK it is estimated that each new prison place costs £119,000 and that the annual average cost for each prisoner exceeds £40,000. It would be far cheaper to send a young offender to Eton than to Feltham YOI.

So why are we using costly and less effective imprisonment for low level offenders when alternatives are more effective and far less expensive? Is it not time to focus on the economics of the issue? Cost benefit analysis has been undertaken to determine whether custody is an efficient use of public resources, or whether community sentences offer greater value for money. In particular research commissioned by the Make Justice Work campaign by Matrix has shown that two alternatives in particular – ‘residential drug treatment’ and ‘supervision with drug treatment’ produce cost savings to society when compared with custody. Diversion from custody to these interventions would result in net savings to society, including reduced victims and victim costs. Diverting just one offender from custody to residential drug treatment would save society c£200,000. Diverting just one offender from custody to supervision with drug treatment would save society c£60,000. The research highlights that society would have saved almost £1 billion had those drug-using offenders sentenced to 12 months or less in 2007 had been given residential drug treatment instead. The annual cost savings for the first six years post sentencing would have been £60-100 million, in terms of both reduced public sector costs and avoided victim costs.

A number of countries are waking up to the fact that prison is an expensive and ineffective option for low level offenders, and that imprisonment should be reserved for those who are a serious danger to the public. For example, new reforms in Norway mean that all prisoners serving less than four years will start their sentence in an open prison. This means that they are eligible for working and day release from the start enabling them to pay for the boarding and lodging. Non compliance with the rules results in being moved to a closed prison. Norway is also going to abolish the use of prison for non-payment of fines. Instead all will be converted to community service hours. Significantly the Norwegian reforms have strong public support.

Nearer to home we are eagerly awaiting the progress of reforms in Scotland. In Oct 2007 a new Prison Commission was set up within the Scottish
Government. It subsequently published a report with recommendations in July
2008. In essence the report concluded that sentences below six months
were ineffective and costly and it recommended that alternatives to custody should be the first option. Indeed it stated that ‘it is obvious that prisons can do little or nothing in that time to reduce the likelihood of offending - but, by breaking positive ties and building negative ones, the very experience of imprisonment can do a great deal to increase re offending. It could hardly be clearer that short-term imprisonment fails to end criminal careers. So, while short sentences may seem to provide welcome respite, any effect is fleeting and in the medium and longer term they clearly fail to protect the public and to safeguard communities. Short sentences are not a solution to the problem of persistent offending; they are a cause of it.’ Strong words indeed from an independent and knowledgeable Commission. So strong in fact that the Scottish parliament have taken heed of the recommendations, and of the results of successful pilot schemes, and have passed legislation that now requires a sentencing judge, who would otherwise have imposed a sentence of 6 months imprisonment or less, to impose a Community Supervision Sentence instead. Scotland has been bold in taking steps to follow the evidence which shows that short sentences are ineffective and costly and that alternatives have shown to be beneficial both in terms of lower rates of re offending and with massive cost savings.

In England and Wales we have a choice. We could continue to follow the American route by ever increasing the numbers in prison and by ever increasing the percentage of gross domestic product on our criminal justice system, with no improvement in the rates of re offending or in reducing the number of victims and future victims. Or we could divert resources into robust alternatives to imprisonment. In the first instance we could divert those with drug related offences away from custody into residential drug treatment and supervision with drug treatment, both of which have shown to be much more effective in tackling the route causes of the offending, particularly offending that feeds an expensive drug habit. The cost savings to the country would enormous. It would be a great start.

Roma Hooper and Roma Walker, Make Justice Work
www.makejusticework.org.uk

reasonably expect.
Richard de Friend
Chair Academic Board
Senior Academic Registrar
Director College of Law Bloomsbury