
On 15 October WPIC's Liz Bridge spoke at an impressive forum ‘Transforming criminal justice: People, Prevention, Prisons' organised by CityForum.
The range of speakers included Nick Hardwick (former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons), Martin Jones (HM Chief Inspector of Probation), academics (Lawrence Sherman, Anthony Goodman and Francis Pakes), and practitioners Szilivia Booker (barrister), Max Dennehy (NHS Release Engagement Practitioner), Penny Parker (Standout) and Fiona Sample (The Oswin Project). We also heard from technology companies about the potential for technology to monitor offenders and protect victims as well as enabling agencies to cooperate more effectively.
We heard a consistent message about the need to reduce the ever expanding prison population and find ways to keep first time and minor offenders out of the prison system. Programmes for Out of Court Resolution, and programmes for Restorative Justice both avoid prison sentences and are approaches that we must all explore and support to avoid the damage done to people by a prison sentence. Liz spoke about the appalling conditions in Wandsworth, and probably all the old remand prisons, and the need for cleanliness, courtesy and occupation to be offered from day one inside. Liz also stressed that prisoners are often victims. One theme of the day was that justice is not always binary so there is scope for other forms of resolution beyond a verdict of guilty or not guilty.
Several speakers, including Liz, said that leaving ‘rehabillitation’ till the last years or even days of a sentence was unlikely to be useful and we heard some great examples of work by Standout .and The Oswin Project. But support after leaving prison is just as important. It is clear that the probation service is under the most amazing pressure but that even so work must be done to reduce the number of recalls to prison (which have doubled in the last 10 years), the vast majority of which are for breaches of licence conditions and not reoffending. Reducing the number of prisoners who have been recalled would make a significant difference at Wandsworth.
It was clear that the Government's sentencing review needs some radical thinking. Dealing only with short term sentences will not be enough on its own as the increase in the prison population has been driven by an increase in the number of people serving 10 years or more. We need a clearer understanding of what works and what we want from our criminal justice system.