Fellow Romans

The speech Starmer won't give.

The first duty of any government is the safety of its citizens. That requires an efficient, moral and reliable criminal justice system.

I stand here today because our criminal justice system is not achieving these aims. I have to explain to you what this difficult situation is, how we arrived at this point, and what we are compelled to do to address this situation.

The criminal justice system is in crisis. We have all seen the stories around prisons. But criminal justice is far more, it is an interlocked system encompassing the police, probation, courts and prisons. They rely on each other, and a weak point in that chain can damage the whole system.

The police have all but abandoned dealing with crimes they feel are less important. But a person breaking into your home and taking your goods IS important. You rightly expect this to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. The police are failing in their core duties of detecting and solving crime.

The courts service is straining at the limits of its capacity. Court buildings are crumbing. We have insufficient numbers of Judges, and lawyers are overburdened to a shocking degree. Waiting times for trials can now stretch into years.

The probation service has been fragmented, overburdened by bureaucracy, and is short of staff. We rely on the work of the probation service to monitor those offenders in the community, and they are unable to fulfil this to the extent we would desire.

And then prisons, the centrepiece of our criminal justice system. Our prisons are full. They do not rehabilitate offenders well. There is also a shortage of staff to do this difficult job of trying to work with people who obviously don't want to be there.

We have entered government to find all these problems coming to a head, and unlike the Conservatives, we WILL address the problems, we MUST address the problems. It is fundamental to good government and a stable society that people have a criminal justice system that detects crime, catches criminals, and gets them before the courts for due punishment, with space in prisons to take them.

We currently don't have such a system. We have inherited a shockingly underfunded and neglected criminal justice system.

This brings us to the immediate crisis - there is no more room in prisons. The Tory government KNEW from their own statistics that this was going to occur, and they decided to avoid addressing what is now a crisis. They ignored the problem and handed it to us. Well, WE are competent and confident enough to address what the Tories created then ran away from.

We are bitterly disappointed that the party of law and order has reduced criminal justice to disorder and lawlessness. People now have little faith in the system to keep them safe. This is fully a result of Conservative neglect. They chose not to deal with the prison population. They produced a plan to build new prisons, then failed to implement it. And in winning your votes, it is now left to us to pick up the pieces.

These are the difficult decisions, decisions no government should be put in the position of having to make. We are going to have to continue the Tory plans to release more prisoners early, and delay sending some people to prison from court.

I can understand how this will be shocking. People sentenced to prison should go to prison, and those in prison should serve their sentences. That we cannot now guarantee to do that shows the deplorable state of the system the Tories have left us all.

We will make every effort to ensure that the prisoners we release will be low risk. These will NOT be violent or sexual offenders. We are determined to use the space we have in prison to protect you as best we can.

The prisoners we release will be low risk, non violent criminals. Nevertheless, there is a chance that something will go wrong, that one of them will cause significant harm. We will use every lever in our power to prevent this. But we must also face this sad reality.

This decision will be condemned by some. And these are not decisions we would ever make in any other circumstances. We can only apologise that we are in this position and stress that it is not one we created. This mess was a Tory creation, but now our problem as a society to deal with.

This scandalous situation highlights many problems. But it also provides opportunities. We could just keep building ever more prisons, with each cell costing tens of thousands to build, and each prisoner in them costs 40 thousand pounds a year. And what do we get for this huge investment of your taxes? A shocking rate of reoffending.

We don't believe that this is good enough. You deserve better outcomes for your money. We need to reduce crime effectively. And prison isn't delivering what we need.

We are going to use this Tory created crisis to examine every part of our criminal justice system. Every nook and cranny. And we are determined to make it better. And I dont mean merely making the current system more efficient. The present system fails to cut crime. We must look at every avenue, every idea, every nation, to discover ways where we CAN cut crime, not merely recycle criminals endlessly through prisons.

This period of crisis is the best time to have a national conversation on crime and punishment.

I need your help to do this. I need your support and your patience while we carefully examine all the options. No government has had the courage to do this in decades. Now we have been led into crisis by the last government, it is time to face hard realities and search for affective solutions.

Crime is a blight on society. It causes huge harm to those effected. Let us use this moment to determine the future of an effective criminal justice system.

Thank you.

Hard v Soft

One of the pleasures of General Elections is that they clarify the minds of politicians. All of a sudden, blather has to be turned into policy that they can actually sell. One of the disappointments of Elections is that Labour and Conservative will retreat into an arms race on criminal justice. Any idea that Labour are reformists was shattered by New Labour and Jack Straw, who helped lever themselves into power by being tougher than the Tories on crime. Straw led up to the election trying to out-Howard Michael Howard. Once in office, Labour created ultra harsh “two strikes” laws that the years have shown to be so disastrous that even their creators have renounced them. Labour isn't instinctively harsh on criminals, but it will never forget the electoral lessons of new Labour. The myth that Labour is soft on crime should be long dead.

The Conservatives need no electoral nudge to be bilious against criminals. It is their natural home and one they invariably retreat to in the face of elections. This rests on a view of human beings and their decision making that criminology dropped about five minutes after criminology became a field. The Tories hold to the view that people are rational actors, and as such a calculus of benefits versus punishments can influence crime rates. Harsher punishments should invariably mean criminals rationally deciding it's not worth the candle. That over a century of knowledge shows us that this isn't true is not a detail that hinders Tory splenics.

And so we return to the perennial issue of being “hard” or “soft” on crime. The Overton Window doesn't seem to allow us to see outside of this criminological dimorphism that we are sold by our leaders. And it is deeply depressing. Everyone is pretending that the rise in sentencing that has been constant for decades has seen a concomitant fall in crime. This hard v soft discourse is deeply dishonest, partly because we insist it is. Its nice and simple. And we seem to be insisting that our politicians lie to us and feed us simplistic pseudo solutions rather than tell us “this is complicated, we can't guarantee we will get this right but we will do our best”.

And so the escalation continues, the waste of lives and billions of pounds, with no reduction in crime or social harm. The question of whether a measure is hard or soft is meant to relate to crime, but in reality applies only to criminals. Being hard on crime itself would mean measures that reduced it. Being hard on criminals means inflicting harsher punishments. The two are not connected, leaving us in a spiral of increasing sentences without any effect on crime rates. An absurdity. One we seem content to support.

Abandon hard v soft. Walk away from this dead end. The only question should be - Is this policy EFFECTIVE? Does it cut crime? Most current policy does not, it is expensive and stupid. And we will continue to vote for it.

What Have the Romans done for Us?

Just how in the hell did I find myself standing alongside the Minister of Justice, taking the ire of prison reformers and wrestling the cynicism of ex prisoners? My life is indeed stranger than I expected. I’m in the position of having to persuade people that Gove was undertaking serious reform. As the most cynical guy on the wings, these are unusual waters to paddle in.

Of course, any Minister who makes reforming noises is met with rolling eyes and a sigh. We’ve heard it all before, every variation of the theme. And those ministers who have actually acted have been the malevolent, petty ones who are more concerned with increasing the misery of prisoners than making an impact on crime rates.

In the face of this depressing history, which has rightly generated a wall of cynicism, then it is hardly surprising that people are already saying “Michael who…?” And yet despite the historical portents, people who really should know better have dismissed the idea that reform can be happening. This includes criminal justice professionals as well as my fellow ex cons and campaigners. To be frank, some of the criticism has been childish denial. “He’s a Tory…..Upper class….Supports Israel…” I have lost friends over this, people whose loathing of anything Tory is so blinding that it obscures reality. Equally, if reforms aren’t the ones highlighted by prisoners, then they aren’t reforms. I have been bemused and disappointed by fellow reformers.

You may ask, why would a Tory Minister push a prison reform agenda? Motives are very important. As we saw with Grayling, a malign motivation can be toxic. Was there political pressure for Gove to push for reform? Not particularly. There was no single “crisis” event demanding immediate and public change. Essentially, Gove could have sat in his office, collected his wages and allow everything to roll on as normal. Any particular prison problems could be squarely and fairly laid at the door of Grayling and the Treasury. Gove had no need to do anything, let alone create a plan for strategic reform. And yet he promptly got stuck in.

What, then, were Gove’s motives? I have blogged before about his involvement in my case, which came from nothing more than a broad sense of justice. Make no mistake, Gove’s motivations were solidly Conservative in their basis. Prison is very expensive, and quite ineffective in reducing crime. In essence, this view is more akin to Hurd’s “prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse”, rather than a Howardian “Prison works!”. Whilst not a common strand in Tory thought for over 20 years, it isn’t alien. Efficiency and effectiveness are central Tory concerns. And they can be powerful drivers for change.

This is not prison reform as prisoners and their allies would wish. Gove was not directly addressing the concerns of prisoners. And this appears to be the rub. In not focusing on prisoners, prison campaigners deny any reforms take place. It can be argued that without addressing the core needs of prisoners, then no meaningful reforms are taking place. But it would be silly to claim no reforms can happen.

Gove didn’t look at prison from the perspective of a cell, but as a policy maker concerned with the prison system as an expensive and inefficient part of government activity. His reforms were very much top-down, not bottom up. Not the approach reformers would adopt, but nevertheless a legitimate approach.

Any Minister can, and often have, meddle with prison policy. This tends to end badly, as my two recent blogs on Unintended Consequences suggest. Gove resisted any urge for quick fixes (which aren’t), nor did he rise to any tabloid bait. Previous Ministers, Straw in particular, who were weak and lacked any strategic vision were particularly prone to meddle on a nearly daily basis, to no good end. The lack of public spasms from Gove suggest inactivity; the reality was that his focus was on the long term, strategic issues. In avoiding the usual crisis management style of leadership, a broader view of the prison system and its place in society can be taken.

The methodology that Gove adopted was unusual, if not unique. Rather than merely diving into his own limited knowledge and pronouncing – a la Grayling – Gove canvassed far and wide for views on the penal problems and, more importantly, for solutions to these problems. To some degree NOMS was sidelined as expertise was sought outside the Ministry, at times from quarters who would otherwise be persona non grata with the prison system. The brief everyone bore in mind was: Prison is expensive and doesn’t cut reoffending. It needs to be “an efficient and effective” prison system. And NOMS has presided over a shambles. 

The question I had to ponder was, could the actual policies that flow from this brief lead to positive changes for prisoners on the landing, even as a secondary effect? This was, at the beginning, the Great Unknown. I had to make a serious determination – was this a reform process that I wanted to become involved with? I was aware of some others involved, such as John Podmore and James Timpson; both very serious people with significant and positive ideas. I also knew that Gove was interested in Education and Work, both issues ripe for change. After sniffing around, I made my decision – Gove seemed to have the right motivation, he was consulting people I respect and his way forward seemed politically interesting. I closed my eyes and jumped in. I must be circumspect in what I share, Chatham House Rules.

The approach from Gove that I found interesting was his use of outsiders, specialists. A political cynic might suggest that Gove selected experts who then made recommendations he wanted, but it is more subtle. Gove appreciated the problems with, for example, education and then handed the issue to an expert. In this case, Dame Sally Coates. Having outside experts making recommendations adds weight to a Minister who may have to force changes on the wholly negative and obstructive prison service. Ministers may not be able to force their changes onto NOMS, historically ministers are strongest in relation to NOMS when a serious crisis occurs. In the absence of that imperative to act, a Minister leveraging outside expertise against NOMS is creative and astute. 

This is my overview of the Gove process. I really shouldn’t need to point out that I am one of the penal reform community’s most experienced contributors. And unlike most, I suffered badly for my campaigning. Equally, I have a historical perspective that few others can match. I can even express this in the harsher terms – my activities cost me 22 years. And it is from this foundation that I say to dismiss Gove’s proposals as empty and meaningless is myopic.

Next blog – examining the Gove proposals in detail and what they can deliver. 

Baffling Times

We have a government facing significant challenges. Historically, the Tory response to such difficulties has included retreating to inane law and order rhetoric, which invariably led to prisoners getting a kicking.

This hasn't been happening, and I can't tell you just how disconcerting this is. Just what are they up to..? Possibly, just maybe, the financial crisis is giving a more cerebral coterie of Tories the opportunity to peddle their wares, to argue a more sophisticated view of law and order?

We can only hope. And in the meantime, brace ourselves! For every Ken Clarke or Crispin Blunt there are a hundred Michael Howards waiting in the wings, their fangs glistening.