Panicology
Page 19
The US spends almost as much on military activities as the rest of the world combined. The country’s spending is at its highest level since 1969 even though the number of armed forces (soldiers and civilians) stands at around 2 million, less than half the number forty years ago. Employment in the arms industry is close to 4 million, a million more than it was at the height of the Vietnam conflict. After the US, the big spenders are the UK, France, Japan and China – together they account for a further one-fifth of global expenditures. The top fifteen budgets together account for over 80 per cent of the global total, with NATO countries being the dominant spenders. The large budgets of Russia, China and India are difficult to assess accurately due to both a lack of transparency in public and corporate spending and the difficulty of choosing an appropriate exchange rate for the purposes of comparison.
Per capita annual expenditures vary enormously between countries, ranging from nearly $1,500 in North America, and $540 in western Europe, down to just $18 in Africa. It has been estimated that developed countries spend roughly ten times as much on the military as they do on development aid for the poorer countries6 – a ratio that many people find hard to understand when large chunks of the world are suffering from poverty and ill-health.
More positively, the spending by the United Nations on peacekeeping operations is now at a record high, reaching just over $5 billion in the year to mid-2006, roughly double the amount at the turn of the millennium and surpassing the previous peak of 1994. Roughly 70,000 soldiers, police and military observers were serving in sixteen peacekeeping operations at the end of 2005. Over 40 per cent of the peacekeepers are located in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with six sub-Saharan African countries accounting for another 20 per cent. A good part of the increase in budgets in the last year is accounted for by the missions to Congo and Sudan.
When servicemen return from active duty you would think that their problems were behind them, but many media reports suggest that is not the case. Some stories suggest that soldiers have difficulty getting appropriate medical treatment, and that the failure to give them priority means that thousands are unable to return to the front line. It is quite possible, however, that the psychological consequences of fighting in these wars will be greater than the physical consequences – one charity dealing with services welfare said that it saw twice as many soldiers suffering from anxiety and depression in 2005 than in the year before and that ‘soldiers face a mental health time-bomb’, having bottled up the trauma.
One particular problem facing ex-servicemen is the so-called ‘Gulf war syndrome’, referred to by one newspaper as the ‘mystery plague that wrecks 8,000 lives’. The existence and nature of the syndrome is a subject of considerable debate as, while there is incontrovertible evidence that rates of ill-health are greater for Gulf war veterans than across the armed forces in general, there is no evidence of an increase in mortality or the occurrence of any well-defined medical condition.7 Symptoms attributed to the syndrome have been wide-ranging, including chronic fatigue, loss of muscle control, migraines, dizziness and the loss of balance, memory problems, muscle and joint pain, sexual problems, indigestion, skin problems, mood swings and shortness of breath. The British and American ex-troops have the highest rate of excess illness and are distinguished from the other nations by higher rates of pesticide use, use of anthrax vaccine and somewhat higher rates of exposure to oil-fire smoke and chemical alerts. Among the most likely potential causes not yet excluded are combustion products from depleted uranium munitions, side effects from anthrax and other vaccines, parasitic infectious diseases, the spraying of insecticides over tents and exposure to chemical weapons such as nerve gas or mustard gas.
The combination of multiple possible causes, multiple symptoms and the background of higher reported cases of stress disorder means that we are unlikely ever to have clarity on the story. That was certainly the conclusion of fifteen years’ research by scientists from the Royal Society, the British science academy, who concluded that there was ‘little value in conducting further research’.8 This will be of little reassurance to those veterans of the current Iraq war who are already revealing a range of serious health issues.
Lock ’Em Up
‘How Britain has become a land fit for criminals’ Daily Express
Is jail an expensive way of making bad people worse or the best place for persistent, violent and dangerous criminals? David Green, director of think tank Civitas, wrote of a deepening sense of crisis hanging over the British prison system, contrasting the mounting public concern over short sentences for serious offenders with parts of the political elite and judiciary expressing anxiety about the size of the inmate population and the supposedly excessive use of custody.1
Under the tabloid headline ‘How Britain has become a land fit for criminals’, we were told that the government has substituted the fight against crime with a war against prison, and that untruthful and misleading anti-prison propaganda has silenced all reasonable opposition. The article added, for good measure, that the criminal justice policy is maintained by lies and that misleading statistics and other obfuscations are used to engineer the public’s consent to a sentencing policy that undermines their safety – a potent cocktail indeed. While the government’s policy is so confused, the public is justified in feeling concerned about safety even if, notwithstanding the steady trickle of innocent people tragically murdered by ex-convicts, the personal risks are low.
The prison problem arises because most politicians, particularly on the left, would rather be remembered for building hospitals than prisons, even if it leads to overcrowding as more people are committed. Overcrowding means that there is increasing pressure, especially from the more liberal sections of society, for the early release of prisoners. But an increase in the early release of prisoners boosts the already high reoffending rates especially if the probation service is so stretched that they are inadequately assessed and not fully rehabilitated, in part as a consequence of the overcrowding. It adds up to a tricky policy area for government and a most fertile area for scare stories.
The release of dangerous criminals on to our streets – Scotland has one of the highest prisoner reoffending rates in Europe, with half of released prisoners back behind bars within two years – is a sign that the government is failing in its duty to protect the public. Add to that the apparently slack security that reportedly allowed 4,000 prisoners to walk out of prisons in the last five years, and it is a wonder that we can sleep at night.
Britain’s prison population has risen sharply to 81,000, nearly doubling in little over a decade by the summer of 2007. Meanwhile, the level of crime has generally been falling, suggesting that the higher imprisonment rate is a success. The combination of the increased chance of going to prison (acting as a deterrent) and more criminals being in prison (where they are unable to reoffend) makes the streets safer. The latter point would be consistent with the Home Office view that roughly half the crime in the country is committed by just 100,000 people. Instead, however, the view promoted by the anti-prison lobby, which has become widely believed across society, uses international league tables showing the number of people in jail per head of population to suggest that the country’s penal system is in crisis. ‘Britain tops European jail league’ is the sort of headline that typically follows the release of new figures, on this occasion based on a press release issued by the Howard League for Penal Reform using numbers published by the Council of Europe.2
Other sets of figures, such as that published by the International Centre for Prison Studies, show broadly the same conclusions, namely that England and Wales have more people in jail per head of population than any other country in the European Union.3 Within Europe, the rate is only surpassed by some of the central and eastern European countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The lobbyists would have us believe that judges and magistrates are deploying a rather barbaric instrument while their counterparts in Europe are opting f
or a more gentle approach.
The prison overcrowding seemingly adds weight to the argument that too many people are imprisoned. The cause is boosted when some of Britain’s senior judges, for example Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf in 20024 and his successor Lord Phillips in 2006,5 say that judges should resist the temptation of sending criminals to jail, especially for short sentences. The Daily Mail responded by calling Lord Woolf ‘The burglar’s friend’.
Europe’s prisoners
* * *
Prison population rate, per 100,000 of population∗ Prison population rate, per thousand recorded crimes
* * *
England and Wales 142 12.1
Spain 140 45.9
Scotland 132 14.6
Portugal 128 35.5
Netherlands 123 12.3
Italy 98 25.8
Germany 96 11.0
France 91 11.6
Belgium 88 10.1
Ireland 85 34.9
Greece 82 19.0
Sweden 75 5.1
Finland 71 8.6
Denmark 70 6.6
* * *
Source: ∗ICPS, www.prisonstudies.org, 6th edition, selected countries, and www.civitas.org.uk, selected countries, 2001 figures (countries with higher rates than England and Wales are marked in bold)
A close look at the figures, however, suggests that the very foundations of this argument – that England and Wales have a disproportionate number of people in jail–could be fundamentally flawed. The number of prisoners in relation to the volume of crime, rather than in relation to the population, a ratio that the Home Office has decided not to publish, gives a different impression. Thankfully, Civitas has produced the numbers.6 They show that the authorities in England and Wales send fewer people to prison in relation to the number of recorded crimes than the EU average. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland all send at least twice as many criminals to jail in relation to the number of recorded crimes than England and Wales. England and Wales is in line with France, Germany and the Netherlands, with only the Scandinavian countries incarcerating significantly fewer people. In other words, it is the relatively high level of crime in England and Wales that is responsible for the high prison population. It is not obviously the case, as the Prison Reform Trust press release entitled ‘England and Wales – Western Europe’s jail capital’ says, that ‘the statistics confirm that our courts are far more punitive than our closest European neighbours’.7
The British rate of incarceration, however, is only a fraction of that seen in the US, where the rate has more than trebled in the last twenty-five years. It is now just short of 500 prisoners per 100,000 population, meaning that one in every 200 people is in prison. Over 2.1 million Americans are in jail (pending trial or serving short sentences) or prison compared to under 1½ million a decade before.
There is no single reason why the number of British prisoners has risen so steeply in recent years. The appointment of Michael Howard as home secretary in the last Conservative government coincided with the start of the rise that continued under Labour, following their election in 1997. Labour’s stance was much more ambiguous, however, as the government tried to reconcile the election pledge to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, with the view, supposedly supported by the civil servants in the Home Office who had been brought up on dodgy ratios, that too many criminals were being sent to prison.
The number of people found guilty by the courts has remained comparatively static, and there has not been an increase in the number of serious crimes. But there has been a change in the pattern of offending, with an increasing number of people with long conviction strings and who have failed to comply with noncustodial sentences or have breached release conditions appearing before the courts.
Whatever the explanation for the trends, the building of prison spaces in England has failed to keep up with demand. This has led to overcrowding, with occupancy levels, based on official capacity, at over 100 per cent. The overcrowding puts pressure on prison management and disrupts the smooth running of prison regimes, raising the threat of rioting and higher rates of prisoner suicide. The increased churn of prisoners interrupts training programmes and undermines education, training and rehabilitation. But such help is vital due to the profile of the prison population – prisoners are much more likely than the general population to have run away from home as a child, have no qualifications, suffer from two or more mental disorders and be drug users.
Prison is not a cheap option. Figures released in 2005 for English prisons showed that the cost per prisoner ranged from £14,000 to £47,000 depending on the prison. Under the headline, ‘Are our prisons just like hotels?’, the nightly cost of housing a prisoner in Swansea prison, described as a grim Victorian jail, was reported to be £112, more than the average cost of a room at one of the city’s top hotels.8 While the cost of prison is known with some certainty, the cost of not putting criminals in prison is very uncertain, and estimates tend to be in very wide ranges.
Whatever the overcrowding problem now, it is set to get worse. Official forecasts of the prison population suggest that England will be short of 6,000 spaces by 2011, even after the government’s commitment to increase prison capacity by 8,000 places. One prison reformer was quoted as saying that the forecast of the prison population hitting 100,000 was ‘chilling’ and meant we were living in ‘gulag Britain’.9 Yet it is hard for ministers to avoid the overcrowding problem by sending fewer people to prison. The then home secretary’s announcement in 2006 that muggers, minor drug dealers and shoplifters would either be spared prison altogether or receive a hugely reduced sentence was met by the headline ‘60,000 will be spared prison’ and naturally gave rise to some concern.
Prison overcrowding panics people because it means that an increasing number of offenders are released back into the community before the end of their term, possibly to reoffend. An article entitled ‘Number of freed lifers trebles in five years’ quoted a member of parliament saying, ‘The public are being failed by a system which allows murderers and rapists back onto the streets to commit more offences. A life sentence should mean what it says, but at the moment it just means a few years watching television in a comfortable cell.’10
In recent years several high-profile murders have indeed been carried out by criminals on probation, showing that it is difficult for the stretched professionals to assess accurately the danger posed by offenders. Stories such as ‘Blunders that let Monckton killer escape supervision’ hardly ease our concerns. In America, three-fifths of convicts from state prisons fail successfully to complete their parole. Governments have never found it easy to get the appropriate level of policy coordination among the various groups involved – police, courts, prisons and probation services.
But should it just be hooded youths and seasoned criminals that give rise to concern? In rapidly ageing Japan, a wave of crime by the elderly is the problem. The percentage of over sixty-fives incarcerated in Japan has tripled in the last decade and now exceeds 10 per cent of the total – four times the UK proportion and the highest pensioner incarceration rate in the industrialized world. Prison in Japan is becoming a place for the old and disabled who have slipped through the cracks of the welfare system. A recent article told the story of a man in his eighties who broke into a Tokyo home with the intention of stealing. He was confronted by the woman owner who fended him off with a glass ashtray and said, ‘I tried as best I could to strike back.’ She was a mere seventy-nine.
Murder and Crime
‘A town where thugs rule’ News of the World
The safety of you and your family is paramount, and there are few things that are more scary than thinking you are under threat from dangerous souls wandering the streets. Every day, it seems, the media will have another tragic story about an innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and met an untimely end. The sight of bunches of flowers being tied to railings at the scene of a murder is a moving and seemingly frequent occurrence on our news br
oadcasts. Crime stories are also strongly political. The hyping-up of crime figures, selecting those that make the situation look worse, is a tried and trusted way of making any government look bad.
‘Britain in fear: a town where thugs rule’ described an area of east London where a young man was killed as being ‘a chilling example of forgotten Britain – an inner-city hellhole of lawlessness where gangs rule by gun and blade’. One tabloid article headlined ‘Why are murder rates on the increase in this once civilised country?’ started:
In 1955 anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer wrote that ‘the English are certainly among the most peaceful, gentle, courteous and orderly populations that the civilised world has ever seen’. Half a century later, it would be absurd to use those words about modern Britain, where savagery, aggression and lawbreaking are endemic. We have been turned from a land of harmony into one of fear.1
Fear perhaps, but a land of ‘endemic savagery’?
Murder, or homicide, which includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide, is viewed as the gold standard of the crime statistics, reflecting both its seriousness and the fact that the figures are hard to distort and are little affected by any changes in data-collection regimes. During this decade, the underlying number of homicides in England and Wales has fluctuated around 800 to 900, but the headline figure has been higher on occasions. The figures for 2000/01 included fifty-eight Chinese nationals who suffocated in a lorry en route to the UK, and in the following year around 200 of the victims of Harold Shipman, a rogue family doctor who drugged predominantly older patients to death, were added, taking the total number of homicides to over 1,000. Some fifty-two deaths in 2005 were accounted for by the London terror bombing in July of that year. Such exceptional events should be, but not always are, excluded from the figures when assessing the trend.