Systemic Failure Of The Criminal Justice System.

One of the first duties of the State, one of the most potent arguments for the very existence of government, is providing safety for the citizenry. In an attempt to create that, the State has developed a criminal justice system whose explicit aims are - the deterrence of crime, the detection of crime, the punishment of crime, and the rehabilitation of the criminal.

If this system of connected agencies functioned correctly, it would be simply demonstrated by the merest glance at crime statistics. Alas, any criminologist will happily tell you of the many deficiencies in such data, and how they invariably require unpacking. Many factors play into crime numbers, and perhaps the least important part is the actions of the criminal justice system. Population growth, population ages, economic conditions, social mores and conditions, cultural shifts, and technology are amongst some of the factors that go into increases or decrease in crime. Not to mention changes in the way statistics are defined and collected. That said, we can see broad moves and judge whether the components of the criminal justice system deliver what we expect from them, and what we pay them handsomely for.

The police are the first line in our response to crime. You may be rather shocked to discover that the clear-up rate for crimes now stands at under 6%. So 94% of crimes are left unsolved by the police. Expanding on this, the solved rate for murder remains extremely high, the solved rate for property crime is incredibly low. But across the board, the police are just not solving crime. There are many, and complicated, reasons offered for this but at its root is the reality that the police no longer bother investigating crimes such as burglary. You'll receive a nice letter from Victim Support long before you see an actual copper at your door in response to a call. While campaigners complain that rape prosecutions are so low that rape is effectively decriminalised, the reality is that nearly all the crime that blights our lives is effectively decriminalised. The police are utterly failing to deliver the outcomes we demand and pay for.

Assuming you are one of the very few unlucky criminals to get caught and hauled before the Courts, you'll have the obstacle course of finding a legal aid solicitor - whose ranks have been decimated - and an available empty court with an actual judge in attendance. The backlog in trials now runs into years. This wreaks havoc on the lives of the accused and the victims alike. If the role of the courts is to judge those accused in a timely manner, the court service joins the police force as being a gross failure that has only got worst over recent years.

But let's assume you were unlucky enough to get caught in your nefarious deeds, and a lawyer, a court and a judge was found, and you find yourself carted off to the Scrubs. While we all have many and varied views on what prison is meant to achieve, reducing crime is on most of our lists, else prison becomes a hideously expensive empty performance. It is depressing, then, to realise that crime doesn't stop at the prison gates, that there are hundreds of thousands of assaults in prison each year. Prisons are riddled with crime, most of it unknown to the authorities.

Whilst we too easily shrug off what happens within prisons, prisoners are released. And on the measure that matters - reoffending - then the prison service returns to society people who have a 50% chance of reoffending. The economic cost alone of this reoffending is estimated to be 50 billions. If prison is measured by how it cuts crime, it has failed from the time we laid the first brick. By now it is horribly clear that the Golden Thread that weaves through criminal justice is failure. Failure by the police, failure by the Courts, and failure by the prison service. Individually and systematically they fall far short of what any reasonable person can expect from them - safety of our property and person. There is no other part of government that delivers so much failure for such a large cost. And while we may grumpily accept poor performance from other parts of government, failure in criminal justice corrodes the very sinews of society and dissolves the bonds between us. As political philosophers have long pointed out, no society can function if what one produces can be randomly appropriated by another.

As civilised as we may be, there remains deep within our species atavistic urges that require some censure and control by the State for the common good. We occasionally need saving from ourselves as well as other people. This is the primary state of government, and recent disorders remind us that when belief in the competence of criminal justice is eroded, some are disinhibited from cooperating with that system and maintain social order.

There is no simple remedy for these gross, systemic failures. There is no set of alternatives shining like a beacon in the darkness. All we can do, what we MUST do, is take the first step and admit the failures of criminal justice to cut crime. We will never search for solutions unless we can honestly look the problem in the eye.

The Party Of Law and Order. And Stalinism.

Let me paint you a little picture of part of the justice system. Perhaps one of the most difficult parts - the assessment and release of Life sentence prisoners. More precisely, murderers.

Each Life sentence is divided into two parts. The first is the retribution and deterrence part, the punishment for the crime. We call this the Tariff. Post tariff is the second part of the sentence, where the Lifer continues to be detained until it can be established that he or she poses no more than a minimal risk to life and limb. Essentially, when he's judged to be safe to release. Tariffs can range from months to a whole lifetime, depending on the crime and the behaviour of the Lifer.

All so simple so far. Let's look at HOW the release and assessment process works. Firstly, the Lifer isn't told his tariff. He has no idea how long he is intended to serve. As the tariff expiry approaches, the interviews by prison staff begin. Everyone from the guy who unlocks your door to the Governor, taking in the Chaplain, education staff, and psychiatrists along the way. EVERYONE gets a say. They interview the Lifer endlessly and write their reports for the Parole Board.

Here's the interesting bit - the Lifer is not shown these reports. He has no idea what's being said about him. He has no way of checking or correcting anything he may dispute. The Lifer can make representations but he doesn't know what he's arguing against. These reports then go off to the Parole Board.

The Parole Board then looks at these reports and judges the Lifer against the release criteria - being no more than a minimal risk to life or limb. It then makes its decision. Release, or not to release. If not to release, the Board notes its concerns and the issues the Lifer needs to address before being released. The Board also sets the next review date, which may be a decade ahead.

Here's that interesting bit again - The Lifer isn't shown the Parole Board's answer. He is told “You aren't being released, come back in X years. Now off you go.” That's it. He has no clue whatever what the issues are preventing his release, has no idea what he needs to do to get released. This was called “Mushroom Management” - kept in the dark and fed on shit.

If the Parole Board does opt for release, this can then be stopped by a politician. The Justice Minister can overrule everything the specialists have assessed and substitute his own opinion. And as always, the Lifer Wasn't told why and left to blunder along in blind hope.

Would anyone call such a system fair and reasonable? When the Lifer is told nothing and can't argue against anything, can't defend himself against any wild claims made in staff reports? And to then have release blocked by a politician on equally secret grounds?

Well, the British courts were more than happy to uphold this system. They had no problems with it at all, at times tying themselves in ridiculous knots to defend it.

Which is where we get the European Court of Human Rights stepping in.

The ECHR stated what should be the bleeding obvious - that no, a secret system where you cant see what's being said against you isn't fair and just. And having politicians decide release was just absurd - no one should be detained for political purposes, a judicial body should control release, not a vote grabber. What supporter of the rule of law could argue against this?

The system above is, dear reader, history. It was the situation up to the early 1990s, when the ECHR rulings led to a new system. Reports were open - Lifers got to see every word written about them and be able to make informed representations. Release was decided by a three person Panel headed by a High Court Judge. The Minister had a representative there to give their views to the Panel. To all involved in these matters, it was universally accepted to be a better way. Even if it did put the brakes on prison staff's imaginative abuse in previously secret reports…

This system worked pretty well for the last 30 years. Public safety was upheld whilst a transparent due process was enforced. The rate of Lifers reoffending did not increase one iota. What's not to like?

Well, 2023 saw some opposition. Not based on any rational grounds. Tory politicians began grumbling that Lifers were being released that the public didn't want to be released. They want none released, obviously. This is a regular moan and can be dealt with by pointing to the Parole Board and saying “nothing to do with me, it's the law”.

This recent grumbling has been given an extra impetus - poor electoral prospects for the Tories. In their usual electoral spasms, they retreat to the high hill of “law and order” and start bewailing that everything is too soft, too short, too easy - the whine of politicians at every election in my lifetime.

Not that politicians were rendered completely useless under the new system. The Minister was represented at parole Panels. He had his say. And the Minister always has the ability to challenge the Parole Board in court if they thought their decision was manifestly irrational and have their decisions overturned. They never used this power.

Now, the Tories want to roll back time. They want the Minister to have the final say on release. They want to be able to override the considerations of the Parole Board and substitute their own views. These views are not constrained by the “life and limb” test. No, this schema abandons rationality completely. The Minister's criteria for release is “Will this lose me votes?”

No one should be detained in prison for political ends. No one's release should be a gamble based on electoral concerns. People's imprisonment should not be based on vote-grubbing and the whims of a politician. This is a return to mob rule - from the party that claims to be one of law and order. Lifers should be released when they have served their punishment and judged to be safe to release. Not based on the Minister's mood of the day.

While a politician grubbing for votes is hardly novel, electoral fear seems to have paralysed the political minds. As it stands, the release of the most serious criminals rests with the Parole Board. Ministers have a buffer against popular outrage at release decisions, being able to say “Nuffink to do with me Guv, it's the Parole Board.” In taking the release decision from the Board and back to the Ministry is to put a perpetual albatross around the political neck, THEY will now be directly responsible. This is a level of political idiocy that only the Ministry of Justice can think is a genius plan.

Politicians getting involved in release decisions undermines the rule of law. Which for the party of law and order is doubly deplorable. Add that to short term political panic and it's a recipe for gross injustice.

Censorship and Lies

Or, another normal day for the prison service and Ministry of Justice. Honestly, how can they even read that sign without chuckling? Even Orwell would find that too Orwellian.

After the row last year when the MoJ tried to shut me down and I refused to budge, I had hoped that the issue of prisoners getting their voices heard was settled. News has been trickling in, though, that demonstrates that the MoJ and prison service are quietly going to extreme lengths to crush our voice boxes.

One event which hit the papers was a con called Colin Gunn (no relation) and his Facebook page. The papers claimed that he was using it to threaten people outside, hinting that he was using an illegal mobile to post items. As ever, Jack Straw dived straight in and didn't even bother to get the facts. Colin had his Facebook account shut down.

The truth is duller, but slightly more embarrassing for the prison service. Colin asked for, and was given, permission from his Governor to post material out for friends to upload. Colin is a Category A prisoner and all of his mail and phone calls are censored. So if he posted out threats, prison staff missed them, i.e. were not doing their job. As Colin has it, though, the quotes in the media were decidedly partial and out of context. Everything he posted was given the official okay.

But as soon as the media got the story, the prison kidnapped Colin and threw him in the punishment block. Official permission or not, they were not going to be embarrassed and so take their vengeance on the nearest available target - Colin. Since that moment, he has been shifted twice, lights and sirens screaming, between prisons and the last I heard was in a London. And they haven't connected him to an illegal mobile phone.

As we share a barrister I have every faith that Colin will win his right to Facebook, one step removed. But in the meantime, he remains in the dungeons. I have also heard of three other people having their material stopped from leaving the prison for the web. Two are prisoners campaigning for their innocence (and anyone who believes there are no innocent people in prison is a moron). These men have been campaigning for years, one for decades and with the help of their supporters have maintained websites detailing their claims. All of a sudden, though, the prison service is leaning on them to sign undertakings that they will not send out material for the web and blocking their communications with friends and family.

As this is popping up across the country, it's safe for me to assume that this is a Ministry of Justice ploy. Having being thrust into the public eye by attempting to ban me, they are resorting to more devious and hidden tactics.

And I must apologise to these other prisoners. It seems that my publicity rocked the boat. The MoJ seemed happy to have material from prisoners on the web, as long as no one noticed it was there. Having my cherubic mug plastered across the Guardian's pages is a different order of profile and one that the MoJ are very afraid may lead to something.

Why are they so afraid of prisoners speaking? I appreciate that there are many people who don't want to read anything we say, victims included. So don't read it.. But this is a deeper fear, not just distaste, emanating from the prison service and Ministry. They are afraid because if prisoners’ voices became a constant in public, then you may learn.

You may learn what a rotten, pointless enterprise that prison is. You may learn that prisoners are not a seething mass of shaven headed, thick necked scum. You may learn that what the State does on your behalf is at best wasteful and at worst, repugnant.

And in an effort to prevent you learning, my fellow prisoners are being severely leaned on. It wouldn't surprise me if they came back for another attempt to shut me down. In which case, the Editor will let you know instantly and loudly. Meanwhile, I will pass on any news about this covert and illegal campaign being waged by the Ministry of Justice.