David Cameron reaffirms Michael Howard policy on prisons

Recent remarks by Edward Garnier MP were interpreted by the BBC as a sign that the Conservatives might be abandoning Michael Howard's 'prison works' policy.

Crime was one of a number of 'core vote' topics not mentioned in yesterday's Manchester speech but, in an interview with today's News of the World (not online), Mr Cameron makes it very clear that he still supports the Howard line.  Mr Cameron told the NotW's Ian Kirby that he would stop Labour's early release programme:

"It's ridiculous the way people are let out before their sentences are complete.  For persistent offenders, the public deserve a break from their behaviour and I have said many times we should look at the way sentences work.  The first step would be to scrap Tony Blair's parole reforms, which now allow 30,000 criminals a year to be freed on licence before they have even completed half their sentence... Prison has to remain a deterrent and people who pose a risk to society should not be allowed into the community."

Mr Cameron's NotW interview is classic And Theory Conservatism.  As well as affirming the imprisonment of persistent and serious offenders he stresses, like Edward Garnier, the need to do more to rehabilitate prisoners:

"70% of prisoners are functionally illiterate.  If you can't read you can't get a job, you have low self-esteem and everything starts to go wrong in your life.  Just 2% of the prison budget goes on education."

Last June Mr Cameron presented a Centre for Social Justice Award to the Shannon Trust.  The Shannon Trust organises literate prisoners into one-to-one mentoring of illiterate prisoners.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

Presumably Cameron then also recognises the need for a massive prison building programme. Prisons cannot be expected to more than detain criminals while they are subject to overcrowding.

[Christina]

I support the And Theory.

One way I can imagine it being applied to crime, would be the introduction of something like Boot Camps for Teens. These work when done voluntary to help unruly teens to sort their lives out.

A Boot Camp type service as part of the Prison Service would give law-breaking young people a choice. They spend a certain time in a young offenders' prison, or less time on a Boot Camp type program.

It would reward those who are willing to be disciplined in a Forces type recruit training way (without weapons training) AND allow them to spend less time in prison because of their willingness to train to be good citizens, in a tough but rehabilitory way.

It would also appeal to voters who believe that National Service would help sort out criminal behaviour, without actually 1. doing something the Armed Forces do not want, or 2. targetting the law-abiding as well as the law-breaking.

James makes a good point about more prisons being needed, but we also need more mental institutions as many in prison are suffering mental health problems.

[James Hellyer]

Around two thirds of those in prison have a learning difficulty, a mental illness or a substance abuse problem. Prison should offer an opportunity to diagnose and treat these problems as part of programmes designed to reduce recidivism.

This does not happen in the present system. The assessment of a prisoner on arrival may be carried out by a former GP or a locum who has no specialist knowledge of mental health problems. It's therefore little surprise that people end up being shuttled from one inappropriate institution to another.

Similar attention needs to be paid to the circumstances of release. There's little point trying to get someone off drugs if you then release them back into the environment that helped create their problems.

So we do need to build more prisons. Prison population should be a function of crime levels. But time spent in prison must enable rehabilitation. Overcrowded prisons fail everyone, and merely offer the public a break from a recidivist.

Finally these attempts at rehabilitation needs to be followed up with a more supportive parole programme.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

I realise I will be tarred and feathered as an intrusive authoritarian for saying this, but shouldn't we be focusing on prevention as well as the cure.

I agree with James, we do need more prisons, but if more action was taken to prevent crime in the first place through obvious measures (zero-tolerance policing, flooding well-known crime hotspots with police officers, greater use of CCTV etc) as well as tackling the longer-term causes of crime by addressing the continuing breakdown of social order in this country, then perhaps the call for more prisons wouldn't be necessary.

[Christina]

I think the re-introduction of discipline in schools, would help too, Daniel.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

Quite right, Christina - that would come under the aegis of longer-term issues that I was talking about. I would stop short of reintroducing National Service though.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

We don't need teenagers for national service. We need middle aged professionals to give their time and expertise to help out where the state has failed, accountants, managers, lawyers, people with real skills. I wonder how much support there would be if middle aged Telegraph readers were the ones being drafted. You're never too old to do some character building or serve your country!

[Christina]

Maybe I've confused things?

Boot Camps are not National Service. They are for changing unruly teens into responsible teens.

I think we need something similar to deal with young offenders, not just teens.

[Richard]

I agree with James, we do need more prisons, but if more action was taken to prevent crime in the first place through obvious measures (zero-tolerance policing, flooding well-known crime hotspots with police officers, greater use of CCTV etc) as well as tackling the longer-term causes of crime by addressing the continuing breakdown of social order in this country, then perhaps the call for more prisons wouldn't be necessary.

I'm sure such a suggestion would be very popular. It is possible to be tough on crime without undermining our civil liberties e.g. defend jury trial but make sure those who are convicted don't have a holiday in prison.

Which reminds me, when are the Tories going to adopt a policy (which I'm sure would go down well with the masses) of depriving prisoners of their televisions and making them do hard labour? I understand the need for rehabilitation but that doesn't have to include making prison like Butlins without an exit.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Boot Camps are not National Service. They are for changing unruly teens into responsible teens."

Sorry I think I inadvertently gave the impression I was conflating the two issues. My comment about national service was just a general point.

Your boot camp idea is an interesting one, although let's not assume that YOIs can't play a part in changing unruly teens into responsible teens - my brother spent some time in a YOI and upon release, he had noticeably changed for the better: before, he was a drug-taking, petty criminal prone to all sorts of anti-social behaviour but now, he's a responsible family man with a house, a steady job and a young son.

It just goes to show, prison DOES work, if it's done properly and backed up by a strong support network.

[Richard]

PS Good to see Cameron is maintaining a traditionalist position in an area where such a position is popular.

What are the chances of nationwide Zero Tolerance policing though? I can't remember the name of the police officer who was very successful in cutting down crime in the area where he patrolled. I think his name began with C. Anyway, the local YMCA and various other do-gooders asked him to stop being so thorough because he was driving away the people who used their services! It is this ridiculous attitude of "don't be so mean to criminals and vagrants" that we have to ignore if we are to make an effective drive against crime.

[Annabel Herriott]

I think we did make an awful mistake when the mental health services were switched away from "the big bins" as large psychiatric hospitals were dubbed. It would have been better to reform them rather than close them. It has produced a situation where the powers that be created another law of unintended consequences. "Care in the Community" turned out to be more expensive than the "bins". Now the poor souls with pyschotic distubances are in prison, on probation, on the streets, absolutely lost. In the old "bins" they would be warm, fed, clean beds, occupational therapy, little social clubs, and yes, their medication supervised. It concerns me that there are situations where some innocent bystander has to be injured because a sufferer from paranoid schitzophrenia has stopped taking his antipsychotic drugs, due to an overworked Community nurse not finding him at home, before he is found a bed in a secure unit.
So be it. The Cam Cons must carefully evaluate. Yes, we need more SECURE places. Whether these are prisons or pyche units is another matter.

[Richard]

Some interesting links:

http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/prisonRisk1950-2000.php
http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/crimeFiguresMain.php
http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/crimeFigures2004-05.php
http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/recordedCrimePer100.htm

"Crime has risen dramatically in the past half-century - and much of the blame lies with the police themselves"

http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/comment/0,8146,941750,00.html

[Chad]

Boot or Respect camps enable zero-tolerance in a progressive way, as a punishment before criminal conviction.

Whereas the government has set "blind-eye" limits on drug possession amounts, a zero-tolerance respect camp approach would mean that, for example, the city boy caught with a few grams of cocaine could be sent off to their local camp for the weekend. Punishment without ruining their career for a first offence.

This way, you could apply progressively harsher punishments until criminal conviction is necessary.

The message would be:

"If you commit crime, you will be punished.

The punishment will be applied firmly and fairly but if caught you will not be let off even for a first offence."

No blind-eye tactics, simply scaled punishments that can act as a deterrent without seeking to be too

[Henry Whitmarsh]

I think that the problem stems from the way in which authority has been systematically taken away from teachers and parents. Tougher crime and punishment measures are like offering stomach bypases on the NHS rather than dealing with the causes of obesity. Measures to prevent crime should go further than more police and harsher sentences. In a society in which lawbreaking is considered to be a normal part of life, how do you expect people to have a respect for each other or for those in authority? Boot camps aren't the sign of a civilised society, building a strong respect for others and for private property is. People suffering from morbid obesity might need radical surgery, but it never need come to that.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

(Labour have created so many new crimes it's forced good, respectable people to feel that they exist on one side in a them and us culture. Forget to recycle? Park in the wrong place? Forget your ID card? If you criminalise people they'll start to see things from the other side. The big state destroys personal virtue by policing the individual and removing their responsibility for enforcing the values of the community.)

[Richard]

One argument made in "The Welfare State We're In" by James Bartholomew is that the growth in the welfare state has helped to increase the level of crime in the UK. With the state taking over the fuctions of civil society a sense of community and self-responsibility was undermined. There are also other examples used to prove the point but I'm not going to go into them because I'm busy. This analysis may be too narrow insofar is it seems to be economically determinist but a lot of good points are made.

[John Hustings]

I agree with Richard. The "cause" of crime is not poverty; after all, everyone is richer now than in the 1950s when there was less crime. So before we can be "tough on the causes of crime" we must identify what those causes *are*.

Welfare culture, welfare dependency, and the breakdown of the family -- once again due to the welfare state -- are responsible. We need to address these issues, and strengthen civic society as a viable alternative to the state.

[Chris Palmer]

Prison Works. The only reason prison does not work as well these days is because liberals over the years have slowly eroded the sentences so they have become almost useless. A Conservative Government must not only increase sentences in a fair way, but also clean up prisons. You cannot hope to reform (for example) drug addict criminals if you are still able to get drugs on the inside. Further, prison must be a tough environment, so the pool tables and Sky TV must go. People forfeit their human rights (if they have any to begin with) if they break the laws and are imprisoned.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Daniel - 'flood well-known crime hot-spots with police officers'.

I agree with you as with everyone else, but first we need to recruit the police officers from somewhere as WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH police officers for this sort of work, and that takes time to achieve. Second, and probably more important, is we need to obtain a government that does not need endless STATISTICS to try and convince people that they are succeeding when they are NOT, that is so Russian!! Police officers like teachers are inundated with timeconsuming useless paper work, which prevents them from doing the work which would be more useful to the community (less useful to this government of course!), and presumably the kind of work - in the community - that most officers joined up to do in the first place.

But I do agree with Christina and Richard, and very much with Annabel - my daughter was waiting for a bus in Highgate some years ago, on her own, when this cyclist came by slowed down, hit her hard across the side of her face and sped off again. Thats 'care in the community' for you. And one of my friends who is French works in the local mental hospital and he has some choice tales to tell....

[Patsy Sergeant]

Sorry for Russian read Soviet!

[William]

Is anyone actually listening to Cameron's policy feints any more? None of them seem to mean anything. It's all gesture, posturing and no meat or bone.

[James Hellyer]

"if more action was taken to prevent crime in the first place through obvious measures (zero-tolerance policing, flooding well-known crime hotspots with police officers, greater use of CCTV etc)..."

I'd agree with the introduction of zero tolerance policies, especially as the most credible alternative model (represented by Chicago's Alternaive Policing Strategy seems to have failed.

While cost intensive in the short to median term, zero tolerance policing and sentencing policies do have the long term effect of allowing run down communities to reclaim the areas they live from criminal elements, and reassert communitarian values.

[Wat Tyler]

William- I agree with you. anyone listening to Dave C? It all seems so contrived it doesn't seem worth listening to. (Eg our old friend Moade on C4 News last night trying to explain what "The Change" actually is. It seemed to come down to the environment and "showing we care".)

So when I heard Dave had been saying this about prisons, my first instinct was not to listen. Even though this actually sounds like something I'd go along with.

The wages of spin, eh?

[Richard]

It is good that Cameron isn't ignoring the issue of crime. Perhaps he is trying to reach out to the Right of the party after alienating them recently. It should also prove popular with the public who usually cite crime as one of the most important issues to them.

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"I think the re-introduction of discipline in schools, would help too, Daniel".

Posted by: Christina | April 09, 2006 at 11:57

The above must rate as one of the understatements of the year. The Jesuits had a saying: " Give me the boy until he is seven and I will show you the man". I am not suggesting that their religion be followed, but they knew that certain lessons incalculated at an early age would not be forgotten and one of those lessons was discipline.
The schools were mainly taken over by the Left and wishy washy liberalism in the
70's; corporal punishment went out of the window and so did discipline along with respect. Corporal punishment must be restored in schools even if it takes someone specially employed to administer. Some teachers have only themselves to blame for unruly classes. If you check pre 70's figures expelled pupils were few and far between.
Religion and the fear of God is no longer the leash deterring some from unruly yobbery and criminality. Only the appropriate punishment that fits the crime will have a salutory effect.
Politicians are soft on crime and we are paying the price. For a continuation, no change and more of the same, tune into the BBC and its 'experts'. In the meantime the cry will be, "More Police" and you will be paying for them and little will change - the cane is far cheaper, quicker and far more efficient.

[matt wright]

I think the main cause of the increase in crime is the welfare state. It has bred an underclass who have no personal responsibility. To tackle crime we need to do 2 things. 1) firstly stem the tide in the short term by acting so that more people learn that if you break the law you will be caught and punished, 2)altering the welfare state to encourage responsibility in families and individuals and introducing a modern form of national service so young people know that as well as rights they have responsibilities to others and society,

Matt

[Don Meaker]

In the US we lock up criminals. Eventually they are largely locked up, and the crime rate goes down.

Once we allowed criminals to lift weights in gaol. Once they got out, they were even more dangerous.

If you educate criminals in gaol, they you end up with smarter criminals when they get out.

What we need is education for members of parliment, so they can distinguish between criminals and honest people. Honest people must be allowed to defend themselves, with guns, when necessary. Criminals should be afraid to bother honest people.

[Christina]

Henry:

"In a society in which lawbreaking is considered to be a normal part of life, how do you expect people to have a respect for each other or for those in authority? Boot camps aren't the sign of a civilised society, building a strong respect for others and for private property is."

The answer to your first question, could be a Boot Camp type environment, for such people, which would fill the gap of the lack of good parenting that many have had. This is what the Army, Navy and RAF do in recruit training. Something similar for young offenders could work wonders.

Yet, your second sentence rejects a potential cure.

Perhaps you are not familiar with daytime talk shows where sometimes they have unruly teens on, with exasperated parents. How do they resolve things? The teens get sent on a voluntary Boot Camp, and come out stronger, healthier and respectful towards others.

A Boot Camp is a way to civilise the uncivilised. It isn't about chain gangs and breaking rocks all day. A Boot Camp would be more enjoyable than prison.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

The Army and the RAF and Navy teach recruits to be self motivated. Shockingly, the armed forces expect families, schools and the wider community to give them decent raw materials. They don't want unmotivated unaspirational ne'redowells. The job's supposed to have been done beforehand.

Boot camps are a solution to a problem you've already allowed to arise. Its like saying, "We don't know how to bring up young people to be mature and sensitive or to show even the minumum of respect. Lets just square bash them into submission." It's tabloid toryism of the worst kind and ignores the root problem in favor of a reactionary quick fix.

[Michael McGowan]

Henry, I agree with your sentiments.....but if Cameron is to do anything about this, he is going to have to demonstrate some real tough love. The chaos in many of our schools, as well as the intimidation and abuse of teachers, is a scandal of which the left has washed its hands. Many of my family have been teachers and freely admit they wouldn't dream of teaching nowadays. A Conservative Party which really cared about those who work on the frontline in public services and the life chances of children whose parents cannot pay for them to go private would be itching to tackle this issue. But it comes back to the hard choice which Cameron has consistently ducked: at some point you are going to have to confront, not collaborate with the deeply-entrenched vested interests of the left in the teaching unions, at the BBC and in the print media.

[Christina]

Henry

"Shockingly, the armed forces expect families, schools and the wider community to give them decent raw materials. They don't want unmotivated unaspirational ne'redowells. The job's supposed to have been done beforehand."

This isn't true, Henry. A young offender was taken to an Army recruitment place and the recruiting Sergeant talked him up and said he would make a good soldier.

I think you are reacting towards the Boot Camp idea in a way which does not reflect what it is. It isn't about square bashing people into submission. It wouldn't be complusary either.

A young offender would have the choice of a Boot Camp sentence (which would include character building adventure training) which would be a few weeks, or a YOI sentence of a few months.

Choice would be necessary. A compulsary Boot Camp wouldn't work, IMO.

I did recruit training and it is nothing like your description.

[Christina]

PS Henry,

Boot Camps have been used on the Trisha Goddard show. She's hardly a Daily Mail Tory.

[True Blue]

Parole is necessary to reward prisoners who have shown contrition. However, we could easily increase all the sentences so that they served a decent length of time. This would give the prison services some flexibility.

We could build the new private prisons we need in areas of social deprivation, increasing employment in those areas. The average cost per prisoner is only £25,718, which is much cheaper that than the consequences of recidivism.

[Rick]

Maybe Cameron ought to have a task-force on this and employ Archer and Aitken to advise - I am being serious - they have an insight lacking in many of those who spout on, and probably could do some good with their knowledge of what goes on.