New Clause 4
Offender Management Bill
12:00 pm
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Harborough, Conservative)
The new clause is designed to encourage the Government to be more open about what they want the Bill to achieve in relation to the providers of probation services.
First, we accept that the new clause might create an administrative burden for the Government. If we move beyond one provider of probation services, namely the probation service, to a regime in which probation services are provided by a host of private companies—charities, Church groups and so forth—the Secretary of State will be writing out a lot of targets for a lot of people. None the less, the underlying principle is sound.
One of the things to concern me and, I suspect, the wider public is the appalling rate of reoffending among those who have been released from custody. The reoffending rate for adult prisoners within two years of release is 67 per cent. or thereabouts and, for young offenders, is nearer 80 per cent. That is a huge waste of public money. Housing each adult prisoner per year costs £37,500 or thereabouts, and about £70,000 to house each young offender. If we put those people in custody and they come out in exactly the same condition in terms of education, drug addiction or social aptitude, and then they reoffend, we have wasted the public’s money. I want to the Government to deal with that. Prisons and young offender institutions are getting fuller and fuller, but the reoffending rate is not decreasing. It is high time that the Government set a target for themselves—let alone for anyone else—on reducing the numbers of people who are offending and reoffending and of people who are cautioned.
One of the points that the Council of Circuit Judges made to the Secretary of State—about three or four weeks ago, I think—was that so many youngsters nowadays are introduced to the criminal justice system time after time, but without going to court and, as a consequence, the fear factor of the punishment system within the criminal justice system does not apply. The deterrent value of the court system simply existing,let alone sending youngsters to do community punishments or into detention, has gone by the time many get to the point of being sent into custody.
I think one of the less bright Ministers—I cannot remember which one, which is perhaps just as well—said that that was because judges are unduly lenient and that if judges did their job properly and did what Parliament required of them, they would bang those youngsters up much earlier. Actually, judges do their very best to comply with the law as Parliament directs them and that is why the prisons are overcrowded. The present Government have required more people to be sent to prison for longer. Surprise, surprise—more people are sent to prison for longer. Surprise, surprise—prisoner numbers have gone up. The only surprising thing—although I have given up being surprised by it— is that the Government failed to anticipate the consequence of their policy and failedto provide sufficient places to put those additional prisoners in.