As the incarcerated population continues to increase, with sticking-plaster early release schemes making little dent in the overcrowded chaos of British prisons, on 21 October the Labour government announced a ‘comprehensive review of our sentencing framework’. It will be led by former Conservative Justice Secretary David Gauke. NICKI JAMESON reports.
In 1993, the prison population of England and Wales was 44,246. Over the next 30 years it nearly doubled and in June 2024 stood at 87,360. As of November 2024, following the government’s panicked reduction of several thousand prisoners’ minimum custodial period from 50% to 40% of their total sentence, the population had reduced slightly to 85,826; however the drop looks likely to be temporary.
Despite this crisis, the Sentencing Review is not actually tasked with reducing the prison population, but with ‘ensur[ing] we are never again in a position where the country has more prisoners than prison places, and the government is forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners’. The Labour government is committed to continuing the previous administration’s prison-building plans, ‘to always have the prison places needed to lock up the most dangerous offenders’ and ‘to creating 14,000 extra prison places’. Labour Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood introduced the Review by stating: ‘I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use.’
The Review’s ‘core principles’ are set out as:
- ‘make sure prison sentences punish serious offenders and protect the public, and there is always the space in prison for the most dangerous offenders;
- ‘look at what more can be done to encourage offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime;
- ‘explore tougher punishments outside of prison to… cut crime while making the best use of taxpayers’ money.’
With these concepts of continued punishment in mind, it will consider:
- the use and composition of non-custodial sentences and fines;
- the role of incentives in sentence management and the powers of the probation service in administering sentences in the community;
- the use and impact of short custodial sentences;
- the framework around longer custodial sentences, including the use of minimum sentences;
- the administration of sentences, including release from prison, supervision on licence and recall to prison, plus ‘how technology can support this’;
- whether the sentencing framework should be amended to take into account the specific needs or vulnerabilities of young adults, older people, women or other groups;
- the sentencing of prolific offenders;
- sentencing for offences primarily committed against women and girls;
It will not consider reform of the life sentence or anything to do with the invidious Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, the use of remand in custody prior to trial or conviction or the framework for sentencing minors.
Playing to the tabloid gallery
The Review is currently collecting evidence and submissions. This phase will last until 9 January 2025. While any proposal adopted by Gauke and his team will still be a long way from becoming law, prisons are already awash with rumours of imminent positive outcomes – in particular a reversal of the 2020 and 2022 changes brought in by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, whereby the minimum period served by anyone sentenced to four years or more for violence, sex offences or terrorism was increased from half to two-thirds of their total sentence.
The reversal of those measures was indeed proposed by a group of senior judges in a briefing paper published in September 2024 by the Howard League for Penal Reform. However, even if Gauke does recommend such a change, the government will have to weigh up whether it can actually adopt it in the face of the inevitable attack from the baying hounds of opposition politicians and the likes of the Daily Mail.
Labour cabinet members are, of course, familiar with this scenario as in opposition, they were the ones vociferously decrying any minute reform which could be construed as ‘soft on crime’. Gauke too is well aware of the dynamics, having failed in 2019 while in government to get through his ‘smart justice’ proposals to convert short sentences into GPS-monitored probation terms, due to exactly this type of backlash.
Gauke’s failed plans from 2019 are likely to be revived now, although it is clear that it is the use of ever-longer sentences which is causing the prisons to be so congested, more than the revolving door of the short ones. However, even allowing for tabloid condemnation, it is easier to get approval for tinkering at the lower end of the scale than it is for suggesting any reduction to the terms given to ‘serious offenders’.
Attractive as they may sound, ‘diversion from custody’ schemes do not necessarily deliver any actual reduction in the prison population. Firstly, previous experience tells us that rather than be routinely used by courts on people who would otherwise have gone to prison, so-called ‘community punishments’ are more commonly used on those who, if such a scheme were not in existence, would not have been formally punished at all. Secondly, community payback, tagged bail, probation terms etc all function on the premise that people cooperate with them as if they fail they will be sent to prison – which inevitably many do. Such schemes could only have any actual impact on crime and imprisonment rates if accompanied by the provision of decent housing, meaningful employment or benefits payments which correspond to the cost of living, and proper provision for drug rehabilitation and mental health support – none of which is in place.
Nothing on the agenda of the Sentencing Review will address the fundamental inequalities inherent in capitalist society. The entire British criminal justice system continues to be a mechanism for punishing and disciplining the working class, and in particular the most impoverished and disenfranchised sections of the class.
Nicki Jameson
Submissions can be made by email to [email protected]
or via letter to the Independent Sentencing Review Secretariat, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AH.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 303 December 2024 /January 2025
