David Green is Chairman of Civitas.
It did not take long for the new Government’s policies to start unravelling. Sir Keir Starmer appointed James Timpson as prisons minister because he believed too many people were in jail, and that time inside did not rehabilitate offenders or deter criminals.
The riots forced a change of heart. Rioters would meet the full force of the law and harsh sentences were rapidly imposed to deter others.
But if jail time deters violent disorder, why does it not also discourage burglary, assault, rape, and knife attacks?
Timpson is no fan of harsh sentences and their deterrent effect. In February this year he told Channel 4 that “we’re addicted to punishment”, and went on to claim that: “So many of the people in prison in my view shouldn’t be there. A lot should but a lot shouldn’t, and they’re there for far too long.” He thought that perhaps as many as one-third should not be inside.
If he had troubled to examine the readily-available facts, he would have found that judges are very far from addicted to prison.
The Government publishes figures showing the sentences given to offenders with previous convictions. The most prolific offenders in the published tables have more than 75 previous convictions. Having that many previous convictions would strike most people as suggestive of a criminal lifestyle.
But in 2023 offenders with more than 75 previous convictions were given non-custodial sentences in 59 per cent of cases; taking a lower threshold, those with 26 or more previous convictions received non-custodial sentences in 61 per cent of cases.
Even if we narrow our focus down to the main violent crimes (violence against the person, sexual offences, and robbery) then 30 per cent of offenders with over 75 convictions received non-custodial sentences; and if we consider those with 26 or more previous convictions, 33 per cent received non-custodial sentences.
The Government’s own statistics, therefore, contradict Timpson: they show that even the most prolific repeat offenders are not being jailed.
The system is especially lenient towards career criminals. Giving hardened criminals non-custodial sentences in the majority of cases cannot reasonably be called “addicted to punishment”. At best, it’s addicted to naïvety and it has consequences.
His lordship seems to have confused two separate issues: the nature of prison regimes, and the number of people who deserve to be in prison.
He has been a keen provider of vocational training for prison inmates, and for offering jobs to offenders on release. His prison training academies are wholly admirable and several carefully conducted studies, here and overseas, have found that vocational training in prison helps to reduce re-offending.
Prison regimes should always be humane and designed to rehabilitate. However, the debate about the nature of prison regimes, and especially the time devoted to education and training, should not be confused with the debate about how many people should rightly be imprisoned.
Once prisoners are detained everything should be done to encourage a law-abiding life on release, but they need to be locked up in the first instance to protect members of the public.
Career criminals have got the message loud and clear, which is one reason we are a high-crime society. Critics of prison usually support their argument by showing that we imprison more people per 100,000 population than many other European nations.
But a high-crime society would expect to have more people in prison, if the police and the courts are even somewhat effective. If we look at the number of prisoners per 1,000 crimes then, compared to our European neighbours, our courts appear to be reluctant to send criminals to jail.
The latest evidence is from the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics 2024, which gives figures for 19 European countries in 2021.
Even taking the number of prisoners per 100,000 population, England and Wales are not outliers. The average number of prisoners per 100,000 population in the 19 countries was 120. Eight countries were above average, with Lithuania the highest at 190; in England and Wales it was 131, the eighth-highest total.
But the more revealing comparison takes into account the crime rate. The average number of crimes per 100,000 population in the 19 countries was 4,338. Sweden had the highest number at 14,264, and the figure for England and Wales was well above the average at 10,667.
Comparing the number of prisoners with the amount of crime (by calculating the number of prisoners per 1,000 crimes) gets us a lot closer to understanding our true predicament.
The average for the 19 nations is 59; the highest figure was for Ukraine on 155 and the lowest was five, for Sweden and Finland. The next lowest was 12, for England and Wales, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
We are a high-crime society because the system fails to lock up prolific offenders. Despite the blood-curdling rhetoric at the time of the riots, our new government appears to be intent not only on continuing the failure, but on compounding it by releasing convicted offenders early.
David Green is Chairman of Civitas.
It did not take long for the new Government’s policies to start unravelling. Sir Keir Starmer appointed James Timpson as prisons minister because he believed too many people were in jail, and that time inside did not rehabilitate offenders or deter criminals.
The riots forced a change of heart. Rioters would meet the full force of the law and harsh sentences were rapidly imposed to deter others.
But if jail time deters violent disorder, why does it not also discourage burglary, assault, rape, and knife attacks?
Timpson is no fan of harsh sentences and their deterrent effect. In February this year he told Channel 4 that “we’re addicted to punishment”, and went on to claim that: “So many of the people in prison in my view shouldn’t be there. A lot should but a lot shouldn’t, and they’re there for far too long.” He thought that perhaps as many as one-third should not be inside.
If he had troubled to examine the readily-available facts, he would have found that judges are very far from addicted to prison.
The Government publishes figures showing the sentences given to offenders with previous convictions. The most prolific offenders in the published tables have more than 75 previous convictions. Having that many previous convictions would strike most people as suggestive of a criminal lifestyle.
But in 2023 offenders with more than 75 previous convictions were given non-custodial sentences in 59 per cent of cases; taking a lower threshold, those with 26 or more previous convictions received non-custodial sentences in 61 per cent of cases.
Even if we narrow our focus down to the main violent crimes (violence against the person, sexual offences, and robbery) then 30 per cent of offenders with over 75 convictions received non-custodial sentences; and if we consider those with 26 or more previous convictions, 33 per cent received non-custodial sentences.
The Government’s own statistics, therefore, contradict Timpson: they show that even the most prolific repeat offenders are not being jailed.
The system is especially lenient towards career criminals. Giving hardened criminals non-custodial sentences in the majority of cases cannot reasonably be called “addicted to punishment”. At best, it’s addicted to naïvety and it has consequences.
His lordship seems to have confused two separate issues: the nature of prison regimes, and the number of people who deserve to be in prison.
He has been a keen provider of vocational training for prison inmates, and for offering jobs to offenders on release. His prison training academies are wholly admirable and several carefully conducted studies, here and overseas, have found that vocational training in prison helps to reduce re-offending.
Prison regimes should always be humane and designed to rehabilitate. However, the debate about the nature of prison regimes, and especially the time devoted to education and training, should not be confused with the debate about how many people should rightly be imprisoned.
Once prisoners are detained everything should be done to encourage a law-abiding life on release, but they need to be locked up in the first instance to protect members of the public.
Career criminals have got the message loud and clear, which is one reason we are a high-crime society. Critics of prison usually support their argument by showing that we imprison more people per 100,000 population than many other European nations.
But a high-crime society would expect to have more people in prison, if the police and the courts are even somewhat effective. If we look at the number of prisoners per 1,000 crimes then, compared to our European neighbours, our courts appear to be reluctant to send criminals to jail.
The latest evidence is from the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics 2024, which gives figures for 19 European countries in 2021.
Even taking the number of prisoners per 100,000 population, England and Wales are not outliers. The average number of prisoners per 100,000 population in the 19 countries was 120. Eight countries were above average, with Lithuania the highest at 190; in England and Wales it was 131, the eighth-highest total.
But the more revealing comparison takes into account the crime rate. The average number of crimes per 100,000 population in the 19 countries was 4,338. Sweden had the highest number at 14,264, and the figure for England and Wales was well above the average at 10,667.
Comparing the number of prisoners with the amount of crime (by calculating the number of prisoners per 1,000 crimes) gets us a lot closer to understanding our true predicament.
The average for the 19 nations is 59; the highest figure was for Ukraine on 155 and the lowest was five, for Sweden and Finland. The next lowest was 12, for England and Wales, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
We are a high-crime society because the system fails to lock up prolific offenders. Despite the blood-curdling rhetoric at the time of the riots, our new government appears to be intent not only on continuing the failure, but on compounding it by releasing convicted offenders early.