Lord Phillips offered a condensed history of the punishment of criminals in England and Wales, as well as some lessons which might be learned.
Starting with the barbaric penalties of the Middle Ages - the stocks, flogging, or most likely, death - he looked at the long processes which led to their abolition, and the often-fierce opposition to this (sometimes from the judiciary themselves).
Next, he moved on to imprisonment and the steady rise in the numbers of those incarcerated.
“I am well known as supporting community sentences as an alternative to imprisonment in the appropriate cases. I have witnessed ‘community payback’, drug treatment and domestic violence courses. They are not a panacea, but I believe they offer a better chance of preventing re-offending than short spells of imprisonment and can leave room in the prisons for effective intervention for those whose crimes require detention.”
