Improved community sentences can ease jail overcrowding

Today, the House of Lords justice and home affairs select committee publish a detailed analysis and call for action in restoring community sentences as a replacement for failed short prison sentences.

As a member of that committee, I have been struck by the genuine meltdown in the criminal justice system, which in many ways has been acknowledged by Alex Chalk, the new Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary. His honesty about the challenges is very refreshing. The Crown Prosecution Service has a backlog of cases awaiting a decision on prosecution of about 65,000. The prisons are at breaking point.

Publication of the new analysis is timely because the Government itself has acknowledged that it wishes to see prison sentences of less than 12 months replaced with suspended sentences. This committee report offers a much more positive vision of tough punishment alongside genuine support to avoid reoffending. The Sentencing Council – responsible for advising judges and magistrates – is in the process of a three-month consultation on this very topic, for which the House of Lords paper will be a key piece of evidence.

Concluding an eight-month inquiry, the report, titled “Cutting crime: better community sentences” found that such sentences fall way short of their potential. But with the right investment, they have the capacity to succeed where short prison sentences fail. Custody is sometimes necessary, but sentences served in the community can be demanding, contrary to public perception. They often require some form of punitive element and “treatment requirements” for alcohol and drug use and for mental ill-health – all of which can be tailored to supporting the individual out of the danger of reoffending.

While it is for the independent judiciary to make decisions on individual cases, it is for the Government to encourage judges and magistrates to appreciate what is available, and for the probation services to positively recommend alternatives to custody. For an alternative to work, the necessary support and therapies must exist. The Government should invest in the services that underpin community orders to satisfy sentencers of their efficiency and availability.

There are other problems with the delivery of community sentences. The Probation Service is responsible for delivery but it has faced many challenges in recent years, including what the Government now.

Caseloads are unmanageable and turnover has dislocated any ongoing relationship with offenders. Yet, probation officers can exert a positive influence over people on probation.

An important role of the Probation Service is to produce essential pre-sentence reports, which assist the courts by making an independent recommendation of the sentencing options. They are particularly important where an offender has multiple or complex requirements. To address these challenges, the committee recommend that recruitment and training of new probation staff should be sustained until vacancies are filled.

The committee also found that where there is wider community involvement, it is likely that alternatives to prison will work.

This “gold standard” has been demonstrated well by the wraparound support offered to female offenders and should be a model for probation services. That is why experiments with problem-solving courts (PSCS), which aim to change behaviour rather than simply punish, have such an important role in the future.