Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, called today for a range of measures to make greater sense of sentencing – in order to improve public confidence and make the criminal justice system more effective.
“We need to make greater sense of sentencing, so that it achieves all the things which it is designed to do: that it punishes offenders and protects the public; that it reduces and deters crime; that it makes offenders make reparations to those affected by their crimes; and that it reforms and rehabilitates offenders.”
Lord Woolf’s comments came during the Leon Radzinowicz lecture, which he gave at Cambridge University this evening. He concluded his speech with a recipe for achieving this goal:
- “developing a consensus as to what resources should be available to the criminal justice system and ensuring those resources are used in the manner which is most likely to provide the best protection for the public
- using the platform that Parliament and the Government have now provided to halt the continuing rise in the use of imprisonment and instead confining imprisonment primarily for the most serious offences and in particular, for violent and dangerous offenders
- making the broad range of community punishments really meaningful so that they prevent re-offending and inspire confidence in the public
- providing drug and other substance abuse testing and training
- relying more on properly enforced fines and the confiscation of the proceeds of crime
- avoiding further legislation except when it is absolutely necessary so as provide the courts and NOMS (National Offender Management Service) with the opportunity they need to absorb the changes that have been made and deliver an effective criminal justice system.”
The Lord Chief Justice pointed to a number of factors that were pre-requisites for these measures to succeed.
One element is restraint on legislation on sentencing, to allow the criminal justice system to concentrate its efforts on making existing reforms work to the fullest extent.
Lord Woolf also emphasised the need for resources to be available at each stage of the Criminal Justice process, so that there was investment in preventing re-offending and rehabilitation as well as in detecting and deterring crime.
He also commented on the need to bridge the gap between public perceptions of the severity of sentencing and the more severe sentences in fact imposed.
“14 years ago the prison population was 42,000 and falling, while today it is 76,000 and forecast to rise. This is apparently wholly contradictory to public perceptions who believe that courts are unduly lenient.
“What perhaps should come as a shock to the public is how unsuccessful we have been at preventing reoffending. The cost of re-offending by ex-prisoners is £11 billion per year and the incidence of reoffending after the completion of a sentence is at an unacceptably high level.”
The Lord Chief Justice also emphasised that prison overcrowding meant inmates were less able to earn reasonable sums from paid employment or pursue educational courses. This reduced their ability to pay compensation to victims of crime or to turn away from re-offending.
“If an offender is returned to society at the end of his sentence with increased skills, a job to go to and accommodation, the risk of that offender re-offending is significantly reduced.”
Lord Woolf stressed that the prospects of breaking the cycle of reoffending were better now because of a number of improvements that has taken place:
- the recognition that short prison sentences for less serious offences are not constructive and should be regarded as a last resort
- the improvements in the approach taken to under-18 year old offenders had been a success, and similarly targeted measures could be employed to equally good effect on other groups of offenders e.g. women, 18-20 age group and people with mental health problems
- pursuing restorative justice, where offenders take responsibility for their crimes and make amends to victims
- new technology is opening up new sentencing options – the electronic tagging of offenders being a good example.
Notes for Editors
- The full text of the Lord Chief Justice’s speech is available on the DCA website.
- Lord Woolf was giving the Sir Leon Radzinowicz Lecture – Sir Leon was a highly distinguished criminologist who died in 1999. The Lecture marked the opening of the new Institute of Criminology building within Cambridge University.
