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September 7, 2024 - 1:00pm
How many Britons should be in prison? It was reported this week that the number of people behind bars in England and Wales has reached a new record high of 88,521. The prison population has been above 80,000 for almost 20 years now, only dipping significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic and rising again in subsequent years. The Government expects the total to rise above 100,000 by the end of this decade.
Those who take a more reformist view on criminal justice often express horror at growing rates of incarceration. They note, correctly, that compared to other European countries Britain has a much higher than average per-capita prison population. Germany, for example, has a considerably larger population than Britain — 83 million to our 66 million — but fewer than 60,000 prisoners.
However, judging a country simply by how many people it imprisons, without consideration of other relevant data, is a decidedly one-eyed approach. The implication of the European comparisons is that Britain is an authoritarian and punitive nation, locking up great swathes of its population needlessly while other countries take a more civilised and enlightened approach. But even the most cursory inspection of the current sentencing regime in Britain will reveal that this is not the case.
Judges are frequently instructed by the Government not to imprison even serious offenders because of a lack of capacity. Convicted burglars, muggers and sex offenders with many previous convictions routinely walk free with suspended or community services. The man who violently robbed our 89-year-old neighbour in April was a career criminal with 26 previous court appearances.
The most fundamental question in considering the number of Britons who should be in prison is: how many people are committing crimes for which confinement at His Majesty’s pleasure is the appropriate and just sentence? There is not some magic proportion of the population that we should be aiming for, or an arbitrary number, nor should sentencing become a part of capacity management. We need to look at the problem from the right end of the telescope. If Britain has to imprison 90,000 or 100,000 or 120,000 people to maintain a safe society and an effective justice system, then we should not be reluctant to do so because of some vague cultural cringe about it being “not a good look” among the other nations of Europe.
Obviously, there are limitations on space, and real concerns about overcrowding. But this is yet another area where the Government needs to bite the bullet and build some new infrastructure. The aim should be to deliver as many prison spaces as are needed, not fudge outcomes in the criminal justice system so that people who should be in prison are left to roam the streets. The capacity tail should not be wagging the justice dog.
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SubscribeCompletely agree with Niall but we do need to also ask what make Britain a country that has so much crime that deserves incarceration. I would prefer us to have more prisons now but also less crime in the future.
The problem starts in the schools.
To a significant degree the problem starts at the borders.
That too.
The schools may not help, Hugh, but I think the problem starts in the homes. If you compare the statistics of, say, the UK and Spain regarding the number of children still living with both birth parents by age 16, the picture is clear. A much, much larger proportion of our children grow up without the care of both birth parents. Dysfunctional homes then feed into ill-disciplined classrooms.
It starts with parents. School’s aren’t there to fix poor or absent parenting.
We need some research. Though woke driven governments might not like the answers.
Incarcerate more people and the people committing crime aren’t out and about. Deport all foreign nationals who commit any serious crime, whatever their fate in their country of origin. This won’t solve everything, but a lot if crime is committed by a relatively small number of people.
It’s welfarism Simon, welfarism is not only destroying our economy it is destroying our values.
‘The devil makes work for idle hands’
It does need to be questioned whether we are locking up people who should not be, eg childminders / housewives who make ill-advised posts on social media, whilst letting those who should be locked up go free.
For some reason we seem to take an overly dim view of punishments other than prison (aka academies of crime). We really ought to measure the effectiveness of all forms of punishment against whether they: deter crime in the first place, act as effective punishment from both victim and perpetrators perspectives, protect the public from further offending and enable effective rehabilitation (they all get out eventually). The only area where prison does have a clear advantage over other forms of punishment is on protecting the public and even that is only temporary. In my view we should only be sending people to prison who are either a very clear danger to the public or who have proved that other forms of punishment have no impact on their re-offending behaviour.
Your view that we should only send people to prison who are a clear danger to the public or where they have proved that other forms of punishment have no impact seems to be the official approach according to this information quoted in the Telegraph recently:
“For every offence type other than drugs, the number of previous convictions that criminals had before they were jailed has increased compared with 2007. People jailed for burglary had on average 26 previous convictions for any offence. Those jailed for robbery typically had 14.5 previous convictions. For assaulting a police officer, it was 19.6 convictions. Possession of an offensive weapon it was 14, theft 26, and sexual assaults five. For breach of an Asbo, it rose to 38.3.”
It seems to be a policy that is not proving very successful in reducing crime. Our high levels of incarceration are likely to be influenced by a range of issues to do with the culture and the population’s respect for civility, law and general decency of character that is learnt at a very early stage in life coupled with comparative levels of prosperity. Low incarceration countries tend to have law abiding populations – although not necessarily as some violent and disorderly societies have low incarceration rates as well.
Imprisoning women teachers for having sex with pupils really makes one wonder what the purpose is? They are made effectively unemployable and lifetime pariahs, for an act that both partied consented to? Why?
How young a pupil? 17? So what? 7? Under the jail.
How many of those in prison are 1st generation immigrants or “asylum seekers” aka economic migrants as opposed to genuine refugees?
Perhaps the rest of Europe is more inclined to deport them to serve their sentences in their country of origin.
The sad, mad and bad inhabit our prisons. Only the bad should be there.
If the sad and mad do bad then they must still be removed from society to protect the rest of the populace. However you look at the problem we must build and staff appropriately.
I don’t disagree…however, since the care in the community escalation and the closing of mental health facilities happened, sometimes you have no alternative but to use prisons.
Those groupings are not mutually exclusive. What is relevant is whether they are a danger to others.
I think Carol is correct though. With the closing of the asylums starting under Thatcher (under the guise of caring of course, never cost cutting) many with low level mental health problems were simply thrown into society in which they are unable to cope, with many ending up with addictions and petty crimes.
I’ll try and find the info and post the link, but I remember seeing an article which showed the prison population rose largely by the same rate as the asylums shrunk in the years following their closure
Much of the low level crime that we have today is carried out by people who are cunning – and know perfectly well that very little likely to happen to them if they do happen to get caught. We have offenders who carry out numerous thefts for example. This is not the same class of people who at one time would have been incarcerated in asylums.
On another note, there are increasing numbers of offences the police make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to prevent; for example the wholesale use of powerful ebikes, which are in fact electric motorbikes (no pedaling!) going on bike lanes, pavements etc. I understand the issue about police resources – although as has been much mentioned the police advising people about their tweets does seem to be within their capacity, and it isn’t that I consider this the most pressing issue to deal with. However it is a very visible sign that lawlessness is simply routine in many areas.
I don’t mean to be rude, but what is this opinion based on? I’ve got a family member who is a social worker and a mate who is a screw, and the tales they tell me indicate that the bulk of low level crime is carried out by the sad and mad ( to quote the original post) rather than the cunning.
There’s always been opportunists, but they tend to be rather clever. The bulk of our prison population is borderline illiterate
Having worked in the criminal justice system, I would argue that the real problem is how we sentence persistent, non-violent criminals who refuse to engage with rehabilitation and community sentences.
I never saw first time shoplifter sent to prison; I did see shoplifters sent to prison after multiple offences and breaches of probation orders and similar.
Singapore has a system worth looking at.
Miscreants are flogged there. It does seem barbaric, but may be more effective in reducing crime than imprisonment. I recommend that people read Peter Mosko’s book In Defence of Flogging. He clearly has difficulty with it but recognizes its effectiveness. A difficulty with imprisonment, I think, is that it’s not clear whether it is meant to rehabilitate or to punish, and it seems that both cannot be done at the same time.
Singapore is one of the safest places on earth. Looks like they’re doing something right.
For a person to be rehabilitated, they need to be ready to change. It cannot be done by force. However, the rattan cane as used in Singapore is remarkably good at opening peoples minds to the possible benefits of rehabilitation which is also offered there, after punishment. Carrot and stick.
Don’t doubt we need to rapidly increase capacity now.
But with the medium term in mind the comparison with Germany is intriguing and shame Author didn’t elaborate further. It would appear Germany does better on rehabilitation and repeat offending is less. Overcrowding is less in German system and more given to rehab programmes. I think we are c30%. Reduce that 10% and you can do the maths on a prison population nearing 100k.
Rehab is probably more successful if the ex-offender is released into a society more like Germany than the UK.
Given that Britain’s prisons appear to be riddled with drugs and run by inmate gangs, those drugs actually provided by prison staff, I’m far from convinced that Prisons are suitable from any inmates other than those who pose a genuine threat to society? Prison is also a neo Oxbridge of crime learning and teaching. Incarcerating people who have not committed violent offences, and the sort of people committed after the riots is actually converting offenders into consistent offenders who wil be back. Why ruin someones life by imprisoning them, so as to give them no life choice other than crime?
Excellent article, and Niall is correct, we need the prisons to inter people who abuse our society and its rules.
However, we also need to look at ‘Welfarism’ and its availability in our society, and ask ourselves is it destroying our values as well as our economy.
The devil makes work for idle hands !
It’s welfarism Simon, welfarism is not only destroying our economy it is destroying our values.
‘The devil makes work for idle hands’
Letting people out early because there’s no room, is a nonsense. No question.
But Mr. Gooch does not ask why we incarcerate more people than our Western European peers. A root and branch investigation of our criminal laws cannot possibly be a bad thing.
The growing diversity means a growing prison population.
Most of what I have heard of from the UK which are “ASBOs” should be serious misdemeanor or felony conviction for assault.
Cheer up, Britain, you can be more like the United States. We have more prisoners than China.
That’s because China simply avoids the problem of prison space by executing them
Prisons are an obsolete means of punishment, that along with branding, whipping, standing in a pillory, hanging, transportation etc is cruel, and does little good. It’s also expensive. A re-think is appropriate and overdue. For non-violent offenders, there are now cheaper ways, that have a good chance of benefiting both offenders and society. Along with this, should be a re-think of the Law, which is increasingly out of touch with any ordinary person’s concept of Justice.
That’s the thinking which has got the UK to where it is now Will. Framing prison as punishment. Incarceration’s primary purpose needs to be restated. Keeping those inclined to violence and substantial damaging non-violent behavior out of public circulation.
“Cruel!” Therein lies the left liberal progressives attitude, which is a major contributor to the mess we are now in! So now it is illegitimate to take people who commit extreme anti-social acts out of society. In fact they should be allowed to vote as well!
Our main concern should be with the victims and not the criminals. I’m not at all against the concept of rehabilitation, but in fact it doesn’t have a good track record in Britain. In the meantime we need to protect the great majority of law abiding citizens.
Japan has a very low crime society and is also punitive in its criminal policy including towards drugs. Is also noticeable that in many poor countries someone committing theft is likely to be lynched in the street; they just do not have the luxury of progressive tolerance.
The somewhat glib concept of “non-violent offenders”. Those are sent to prison are overwhelmingly multiple repeat offenders. Burglary is not a minor crime, and I would argue nor is the organised looting of shops. Once law and order breaks down completely, criminals can and will rampage with impunity. Then we all suffer, either directly or insurance rates and other costs increasing.
Make lynching great again! It works in poor countries and it’s cheap!
The various punishments you mention in addition to prison might well be cruel but are cheaper than prison. Whether they do any good has not been evaluated recently. I fear, however, that your idea that such punishments are out of touch with any ordinary person’s concept of justice is far from the case. Large sections of the population would I believe be in favour of distinctly harsher punishments than you would favour.
Are you for real? What planet are you from? Prison is to segregate the violent and dangerous people from society so public safety is maintained. Or, do you want to have vigilantes determine what the law is on a situation-by-situation basis?