Western Morning News (Saturday)
Criminals are put to valuable work
Community payback is working says Ian Handford, a former magistrate
THE announcement in January that a £93 million Community Paypack Scheme had been agreed between the Ministry of Justice and the Canal and River Trust Charity, will be used to highlight in public how criminals today are made to pay for their crimes. Community Payback mirrors the stocks and dunking stools of medieval times. Criminals are put on public display as they undertake work as part their punishment regime.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, in announcing this latest investment, is reported as saying “criminals will be required to carry out “real hard graft” – removing graffiti and picking up litter etc”. In fact the legislation behind Community Payback suggests nine different projects can be used including graffiti removal, street cleaning, ground clearance, recycling projects, building maintenance, improvement to public parks or community facilities, environmental preservation projects, landscaping and gardening and finally painting and decorating work in community centres or public meeting places.
Twenty years ago a government funded group “Violence and Vulnerability” confirmed to MPs that “regular offenders are not being given custodial sentences a practise exacerbated by a lack of consistency in knife crime sentencing”. The report emphasised drug dealing and street violence was too often treated as a minimal offence, a situation which still exists today.
Theresa May’s Justice Secretary David Gauke in 2018 proposed to scrap short term jail sentences for some offences. But Lord Justice Burnett was unhappy with the idea, saying it would leave the courts with few effective penalties to deal with repeat offenders – I agreed.
On a visit to Bournemouth 20 years ago I recall witnessing “special jacketed” offenders doing community work in the Winter Gardens there. Wearing highly visible orange over-jackets displaying “Community Worker” was to me an eye-opener and later, when still on the South Devon Bench, I visited a local centre in Torquay to witness offenders repairing or repainting broken or vandalised public seating, brought in from around Torbay.
At the time it seemed most appropriate – vandalised public seats being rebuilt by those who might have even vandalised them, although they did escape public derision – some those locked in the medieval stocks could not bank on! Today schemes using a highly visible orange jackets in public carrying an even more explicit message – “Community Payback” – seems the right approach. A foreman always accompanies the offenders and is similarly clad in a hi-viz green jacket, sporting the word “supervisor” for all to read.
The DVLA have now confirmed in at least five police areas more drivers are being stopped and found to be high on drugs than on alcohol. In the City of Liverpool some 639 motorists were convicted of drug offences yet only 411 alcohol convictions were heard in the same period. One police spokesman said “drink and drug driving is completely unacceptable at any time and catching motorists who are prepared to take such a deplorable risk is now a priority for every police force in the United Kingdom.”
Sentencers are of course aware that offenders are on the increase, yet some Justice Ministers in recent years have been reported as believing short sentences do little to help reform offenders as “prison doesn’t work” - which to say the least is a very controversial viewpoint. Having to rely on community sentences or financial penalties is more risky and yet a few years ago the Sentencing Council giving guidance to judges and magistrates even suggested treatment rather than punishment for substance and drug offences might be more appropriate. As knife crime and stabbings are now on the increase – especially in London – it would seem its Mayor Sadiq Khan even wants to decriminalise cannabis and extend an amnesty to users of amphetimines and “speed.” That seems to me absolutely delusional, as if the gangs who organise peddling of drugs will ever respond to an amnesty or any rehabilitation scheme.
Magistrates meanwhile have been given additional sentencing powers to help them tackle the huge backlog of 300,000 criminal cases, in the hope of freeing up more time for those that need to go to Crown Court. That is good news, as is the final comment on Community Payback, confirming that some offenders have welcomed the opportunity of getting their lives back on track.
“It’s hard work,” said one offender.” But it made me reflect on what I had done”. Even the Justice Secretary said it was striking to see offenders taking pride in their communities.
■ Ian L Handford is a National political activist and former National Chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) who writing regularly for the WMN.