Tougher community sentences: Will they work?

Hello there,

Regular readers of my Twitter feed may get the impression that I'm not exactly the biggest fan of our coalition government, and they'd be right.  One person in the current Cabinet, however, does have some of my support.

His bid to increase the severity of community orders can only be a positive thing, as it not only ensures that the public actively see that justice is being done, but it also has the potential to discourage sending low-level criminals (or at least those first time offenders who have committed low level acquisitive crimes) to prison.  

Let's face it, with an ever increasing prison population, the chances of somebody serving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months receiving any meaningful rehabilitation is slim.  Instead, these offenders have the opportunity to engage and mix with more hardened "career criminals", who are able to pass of the so-called 'tricks of the trade' to their less experienced peers.

The is known as the schools of crime theory - the idea that, instead of punishing short-sentence offenders, prison makes them better at what they do and, if anything, contribute to reoffending.

On the other hand, desistance theory tells us that strict monitoring and surveillance of offenders in the community discourages them from leading crime-free lives.  Whilst, in the main, I agree and subscribe to this theory, I would argue that the contribution to reoffending from community surveillance is much lower than the contribution of very short-term prison sentences.

The Independent recently quoted Labour MP Sadiq Khan as saying:

"This Tory led Government's whole criminal justice strategy is built on an overriding objective to reduce prison numbers".

Exactly!!

Shouldn't this be the aim of ANY criminal justice strategy?  Yes, there may be some merit to the argument that this will lead to fewer prisoners and, obviously, less money spent on caring for them in jail, but I honestly believe that having more effective community sentences will reduce reoffending in the longer term.

Naturally, these sentence options should only be used with less serious offences, with violent and sexual offenders serving longer, rehabilitative prison sentences.  In sum, prison should be a place for those who pose a distinct and immediate danger to the public, and it is these people that should be the focus of intensive and structured rehabilitation.

So, what do you think?

The flip-side of this argument can be found in an article published by The Independent last week, here.

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All the best,

Craig