10 March 2008
Law Society, London
Jack Straw has given a speech to the Guardian Criminal Justice Summit on prisons, probation and the press.
The Right Honourable Jack Straw MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice:
Good morning, it is my pleasure to be here.
When accepting this invitation I was particularly drawn to the fact that the event was 'prisons, probation and the press under examination' - I am delighted that it is not just the criminal justice system coming under scrutiny today.
The relationship between crime and justice and its position in both popular culture and the news media is a strong but complex one. Arthur Miller once wrote that a good newspaper was a nation talking to itself. But that begs quite a number of questions.
This morning I want to look at the dissonance between the reality of a 30% reduction in crime - including violent crime - since 1997, how crime is depicted and subsequently how it is perceived. One of the indirect effects of this disparity has been displayed in recent weeks by the above-projection rise in prison population which has brought particular pressure to bear on the system. I'll be considering whether a recent spate of high profile and horrific crimes has had an impact on the public consciousness and in particular on the climate in which sentencers operate. I'll then outline the steps we have taken in the immediate, medium and long term to secure stability for prison and probation.
Crime has always gripped the public imagination. We are as fascinated as we are appalled by it, by the way in which the criminal's behaviour can plumb the depths of evil in the human condition, of the tragedy, pain and courage of innocent victims. The nature of crimes, and their extent, can also help tell us about wider problems in our society. Long, therefore, has it been a feature of popular as well as media culture. Consider the vast crowds which would gather to watch public executions right up to the last in 1868, or the enduring popularity of the Newgate Calendar, or the 'Penny Dreadfuls' throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dickens, Poe and Conan-Doyle defined a genre; since then crime has topped almost every best-seller list and TV ratings chart, and almost half of all films released in Britain since the War have had crime as their central theme. Meanwhile, the coverage devoted to crime in any local or national newspaper, tabloid or broadsheet, is overwhelming. Rarely will a TV news bulletin go by without substantial proportion devoted to crime. The British media market, broadcast as well as print, is among the most competitive in the world. Crime sells because the public buys. It has always been thus. And every editor worth their salt is well aware of this.
In the last few weeks the perpetrators of several unrelated and horrific crimes have been brought to justice. The impact of such heinous crimes can not only be measured in column inches but in the fact that this precipitated calls for the return of the death penalty.
In turn, and whilst one cannot be certain, this mood appears to have had a tangible impact on the prison population. Our magistrates and Judges should be celebrated for their independence and impartiality. They are the lynchpins of our system of justice - but they do not operate in a vacuum, nor are they immune to the prevailing public and media climate.
I think that this has been particularly noticed in the recent Newlove and Weddell cases, both of which involved crimes committed whilst on bail. It would be unrealistic to think that sentencers could be completely inured against the coverage of these cases.A free press is part of any effective democracy. The criminal justice system is there to serve the public. But there is a responsibility on politicians and sentencers, and I know this sentiment is shared by the Lord Chief Justice not to overreact in such circumstances.
I do not cite these examples in any way to criticise the decisions made by independent sentencers - indeed it is my duty to protect their independence - they must always be left to come to their individual decisions separate from political interference and commentary. However, I use them to highlight how there are factors outside of our control which can affect an already crowded prison population, in this case a confluence of events which appears to have contributed to even our highest prison projections being exceeded.
But it is at this point that the particular dissonance between the reality and the perception of crime levels overall arises. In most other areas of government, what is true in general will also be reflected in most individuals' own experiences. Shifts in prosperity, employment, inflation have to be measured in the aggregate but felt pretty accurately at a personal level. There will still be people in a strengthening labour market who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, but the impact of this will be much less if there are plenty of other jobs available. The same is broadly true in areas like education or health, where despite obvious exceptions, shifts in trends will be reflected over time in individuals' perceptions.
But crime is different. We may be pleased when we wake by the sense - if true - that one's children are getting a better deal at school, or it's a lot easier to get a hospital appointment, but very few, I think, will wake with some sense of gratitude that they had not been the victim of crime the night before.
Crime is something which in an orderly society people expect to do without. And where someone is the victim of crime, it's insulting and insensitive for politicians to tell them that their chances of being a victim had been less than they were. They are 100% a victim, whatever the chances.
The problem, however, for both politicians and the media is that whilst crime is bound to be felt at an individual level, the success or failure of government, law enforcement, the criminal justice system and of communities themselves in making people safer from crime has to be measured in aggregate. And in aggregate it is now incontrovertible that our crime policies over the last decade-plus have been successful. The British Crime Survey was established early in the last Conservative administration to give as accurate as possible data of levels and trends of crime, which are not distorted by different levels of reporting, or of police activity.
It's a huge survey - more than 45,000 each year. Its scope has been criticised for not including crime committed or reported by the under 16s, but it gives a very robust picture of crime levels and trends. It's world-renowned and highly respected. The results for 2007 published in January showed that the chances of being a victim of crime were the lowest since accurate recording began in 1981. It showed that over the past decade crime, all crime, is down by more than 30%. Burglary is down 55%, vehicle crime is down 52%, violent crime is down 31%. Britain is a considerably safer place to be now than at any point in a generation, whilst this is the first postwar administration to preside over a sustained and substantial reduction in crime, rather than an increase.
The danger is that such is society's interest in the extremes of the human condition, and interest which is well fed by the popular culture and the news media, that individual incidents are taken as being symptomatic. A partial view is taken to be the whole picture - with the result that perceptions of crime far outweigh the reality. Our society is in a much better state of repair than it was 15 to 20 years ago - there is no question in my mind about that.
There is a great and well documented disparity between people's experiences of crime and their perceptions of it. A recent MORI report starkly illustrates this point, the survey finds that 57% of people think that crime is rising because that is the impression they get from TV, 48% from what they read in the newspapers. Asked who they trusted to tell the truth about what is being done about crime 87% say the TV news, 77% say the local newspaper, 60% the broadsheets. Put simply, people believe what they read. And when that story is partial - it makes for better copy to report crimes than crime reduction - it is no wonder that perceptions are out-of-kilter with the quantifiable reality.
With regards to sentencing the same pattern emerges. When asked what the most important issues are when it comes to crime the single most popular answer coming from 26% of those polled was that sentences are too lenient. But when asked what would most reduce crime - only 6% suggested that more offenders in prison was the answer. So when I hear journalists saying that they are simply reflecting the views of their readers I have to sometimes question their interpretation. Reporting of crime does not reflect the true picture, nor do calls for tougher sentences withstand much scrutiny. When presented with alternatives, very few people want to send more people to prison.
Let me here readily acknowledge that politicians themselves - not excluding myself - have contributed significantly to the dialectic of crime. Such has been the dominance of crime issues over the past 20 or so years it is important to remember that crime has not always been the same public or political priority that it is today.
But to look through party manifestos before 1960 would be a search in vain for a single mention of crime. And this was not because there was no crime - very far from it - as those of us who recall teddy boys and mods and rockers can testify, or the football violence of the 70s and 80s. But crime was much less of a partisan issue. In 1966 the Conservative manifesto had a cursory mention of 'rising crime besmirching society', but way down a list dominated by securing peace and prosperity, and strengthening employment, international/individual relations and the economy.
It was not until the 1980s and 1990s when crime and justice achieved any prominence in political manifestos. This was in response to changing public priorities and, I would venture, the result of the doubling of the crime rate under successive Conservative administrations between 1979 and 1995.
Since 1997, this Government has put far greater importance to tackling crime and strengthening the criminal justice system. 'Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime' has been our mantra. And significant progress has been made, but it is the story less often told.
These improvements are due to many factors: the police, local communities, local authorities, industry; stronger powers to deal with disorder; greatly increased investment in law enforcement, with 14,000 more police. In turn, these improvements have led to many more serious, persistent and violent offenders being brought to justice, 60% more, and being sentenced for longer.
The result has been a very rapid growth in the prison population, up by a third since 1997, from 60,000 to nearly 82,000 last Friday.
We have transformed the youth justice system, and the measures taken to tackling anti-social behaviour, before it can escalate into more serious criminality. Meanwhile, when lines are crossed we have ensured that the public are given the protection they deserve through the provision of more than 22,000 prison places with a commitment to delivering 20,000 more. Following our acceptance of Lord Carter's report, provision will rise to 96,000 net (101,000 gross). There are 65% more violent offenders in prison now than a decade ago, and they are staying there for longer. But underpinning our entire approach to criminal justice and public protection is the importance of effectiveness, balance and proportionality.
We have also transformed the culture of the criminal justice system. In prisons today, the nature of the regime is unrecognisable from that inherited in 1997. It is more decent and humane, with a far greater emphasis on addressing problem behaviour, improving literacy and numeracy, education, skills and training so that on release offenders are better able to resume their lives as constructive members of society.
To this end, since 2001 we have invested £700 million in education, skills and training in prison. Just last month I was able to announce a substantial package of measures to get more offenders off drugs and into work.
Over the past year nearly 280,000 offenders have taken part in learning programmes. And following a tenfold increase in funding there are now record numbers receiving drug treatment in prison, with drug misuse down 64%. 3,500 offenders enter drug treatment every month which has contributed to a 20% fall in acquisitive crime over the past five years.
Alongside alcohol and drug abuse, we are well aware that prisoners suffer disproportionately from mental health problems. Since the NHS took over commissioning of health services in prisons in 2003, access to care has improved considerably through the creation of 102 mental health in-reach teams. And each year we are increasing the number of severely mentally ill patients transferred from prison to hospital, up a third since 2002, and we are transferring them faster.
But it is clear that there needs to be earlier identification of mental health problems, with more thorough checks on reception in prison. To this end Lord Bradley is currently carrying out a review into filtering more offenders with mental health problems into more appropriate accommodation and sooner.
Spending on probation services has increased of 72% in the past decade, meaning that the good work begun in prison can continue in the community.
We have also acknowledged that the public is not always best served by locking up less-serious offenders. In doing so we may fail to break the cycle of reoffending. It is self-evident that prison incapacitates. It keeps offenders off the streets for a period. But short prison sentences are not necessarily effective at getting to the bottom of offending behaviour. Tough community punishments, which can include intensive supervision and mandatory drug treatment as well as physical labour, can help to give something back to the communities which have been wronged. And the evidence shows that they are more effective at reducing reoffending.
But, crucially, the public and sentencers need to have confidence that community punishments are effective, and far from an easy option. This is why I recently reminded judges and magistrates of the importance of using community-based punishments where appropriate. It is very important that the media and the public are presented with the facts so that informed decisions can be made about community punishments.
In the last ten years probation-led community penalties have become far more effective. There has been a change in culture within the probation service, and a real improvement in how much better prison and probation services work together in 'end-to-end' management of offenders. Probation officers now routinely talk of the criminals they are dealing with as 'offenders' - which is what they are, and not the euphemistic nonsense of 'clients' - when the client is the victim and the taxpaying public.
Enforcement of probation orders has improved dramatically. In 1997 around 300 offenders were sent to jail for a breach, now it is 5,000. But there is still a good case for looking at what terms we use, so that they are immediately intelligible to the public. 'Unpaid work' does accurately describe what offenders have to do, but maybe if we added that this was 'community payback' that purpose would be even clearer.
Prison plays a valuable, indeed invaluable role in securing a fair and just society, but alongside other means of ensuring justice is done. We must have effective mechanisms for ensuring that those who break our society's rules are punished accordingly. We have a duty as a government, and a responsibility to the public, to ensure that those who pose a serious threat to our society are kept apart from it.
We are also pursuing another of Lord Carter's recommendations which is to look into the feasibility of setting up a sentencing commission. In February I visited Virginia and saw it how it operates successfully there and helps provide balance, stability and predictability in managing prison capacity by establishing an overarching sentencing framework.
Conclusion
The past ten years or so have seen remarkable and sustained improvements to the criminal justice system - by any objective measure. It would be disingenuous to suggest that we have reached such a state of grace all that is required is for public perception to catch up with reality. There is more that we can do and are doing further to reduce crime, and to improve how justice is delivered.
But essential to narrowing the 'perception gap' is giving people confidence in the justice system, something that they do not always get through the media. This means, first and foremost, making their experiences better - tackling crime and reoffending so that there are fewer victims of crime. It also means giving people the information they need to make up their own minds. This is a principle which we can see in action with 'Community Justice', in which local people are involved in identifying the sorts of crimes that matter most to them and are involved in coming up with the solutions. It is not just individuals who are the victims of crime - entire communities can suffer. It is right that the community can get some payback for the wrongs that have been done to them.
I want to see a sensible, rational debate about crime and the role of prison based on the evidence. That is the kind of talking of which Arthur Miller spoke that I would like to see the nation having with itself.
Thank you.