Prisonomics

by Pryce, Vicky

  More than this, we need to consider the possibility, at first counter-intuitive to those of us who usually obey the law, that punishment actually leads to more crime. Findings are at best mixed as to whether legal sanctions reduce, increase or have no effect on crime levels. Indeed, research suggests that a variety of other factors come into play in determining whether punishment acts as a deterrent, including the individual’s drug or alcohol use, their decision-making capacity, their natural level of impulsivity, and the extent to which they feel connected to society as a whole, not to mention an array of different situational factors and circumstances that make offending more or less likely. As one review concludes: ‘After careful perusal of the literature, one cannot but be struck by the fact that the effect of sanctions or sanction threats is far from homogenous and depends on several other factors.’147

  Academia has provided us with a number of possible explanations of why punishment may lead to increased offending for some people. Labelling theory, for example, suggests that the criminal justice system as a whole is deeply stigmatising and may lead to increased offending by excluding people from society, preventing people with a criminal conviction from getting work or suitable housing, or more profoundly by altering how they see themselves.148 Regarding the latter point, it is argued that if you tell someone often enough that they are ‘bad’, sooner or later they start to see this as a fundamental part of their identity. Labelling someone a ‘criminal’ or an ‘offender’ can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meanwhile, using punishment to make offenders feel ‘ashamed’ of their behaviour could unintentionally reinforce the deeply felt sense of shame experienced by many offenders resulting from the various forms of childhood abuse they may have suffered. This reinforcement could worsen all sorts of mental and emotional health problems, substance misuse and other self-destructive behaviours. In addition, various programmes acknowledge the central role of shame in reinforcing the cycle of addiction. Dr Brené Brown, Professor of Social Work at the University of Houston, perhaps expresses it most succinctly: ‘Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.’

  Similarly, ‘defiance theory’ suggests that offenders who feel excluded from, or unjustly treated by, wider society may actually be more likely to reoffend as a result of any punishment they have been given. The punishment may in effect reinforce the effects of previous experiences where they have felt victimised, unjustly or unfairly treated or denied opportunities available to others. This may be especially so if they feel that in their cases the correct legal processes have been ignored or the punishments given were ‘unfair’ in some way.

  On the other hand, a punishment is more likely to prevent further offending for individuals who share a close bond with society and who generally have an otherwise positive relationship with the criminal justice system.149 In essence, it seems that punishment works to deter those who are most likely to follow the law anyway. For those from deprived, chaotic or abusive backgrounds, however, punishment could actually serve to reinforce the very problems that lead to offending in the first place. In such situations, it is clear that a more constructive solution is required, where the offender is given the resources and support to turn their own life around.

  So it would seem the formulation of punishing people to prevent further offending is not as straightforward as we would wish. Having said that, we do know that in general some interventions are more likely to deter crime than others. Research has repeatedly shown that longer sentences have no effect as a deterrent. Rather, it is an increased likelihood of actually being caught and receiving a punishment (of whatever harshness) that leads to lower crime rates.150 If we are interested in evidence-based policy, the argument is clear: don’t waste money on harsher sentences. Instead redeploy resources towards ensuring that the likelihood of being caught visibly increases. It is also worth noting, however, that increasing police numbers indiscriminately is unlikely to have an effect either, whereas ‘specific, targeted and visible police work’ may.151 The implication here is that, in order for punishment to act as a deterrent, resources must be used intelligently and in a focused manner.

  That is the theory but what about the practice? Clearly prison has little impact on repeat offenders who go in for short sentences. One senior civil servant, who had worked in the Home Office and had looked after prisons and sentencing policy, confirmed that when he was working on policy in the 1970s, the analysis of various experiments carried out at the time found that the propensity of people to reoffend was much the same, whatever the sentence they received – prison, probation, fine. That pointed to the desirability of the cheapest and least damaging sentencing policy. He recalls that when he worked for the Advisory Council on the Penal System, weekend imprisonment was discussed to avoid disrupting employment, as is done in other European countries such as the Netherlands. But the prison service was not keen on the idea because of the administration costs of managing a Friday arrival and Sunday departure. In our 24-hour, seven-days-a-week world it seems odd that a measure that would reduce costs to the taxpayer cannot be implemented because it does not fit in with existing staff shift patterns.

  Ministers never like the ‘soft’ advice they receive. Then as now there was an insatiable media-driven appetite for ‘prison works’ and ‘tough on crime’ slogans from politicians. Willie Whitelaw’s ‘short, sharp shock’ was a classic of the kind. The theory is that by putting young offenders in a tough regime for a short period they would not wish to return to it. This idea was imported from the US (as is so much of the UK’s approach to penal policy) but it produced no better outcome than any other sentencing options.152 But, as the ex-Home Office official told me, the civil servants knew that the act made ministers and the tabloid newspapers feel better.

  As with much to do with prisoners and the criminal justice system, public perception plays a part in hindering reform. Prison education for example is often depicted as a reward for criminal behaviour, rather than a service with a wider social benefit. And yet it is clear from research that any help, such as education while in prison but also on the outside, leads to improved chances of employability, cuts reoffending, reduces longer-term costs to the overall system and allows people to contribute properly to society. In a speech at a conference in 2012, Chris Grayling said that one third of all offenders leaving prison need help to find housing and half of them need help to find jobs.153 That is a huge number of people considering there are nearly 200,000 admissions through the gates every year – admittedly many prisoners go through more than once.

  Ministers are reluctant to tackle this view, but Frances Crook of the Howard League explained to me that strong leadership from above is needed to change attitudes and drive through reform. And therein lies the whole crux of the matter. The politicians want to be tough on crime but being tough on crime has resulted in an increase in the number of acts which are now classified as an offence and in longer sentences, which has only led to a huge increase in the number of people in jail. The number of people in jail has practically doubled over the last twenty years though this has been slightly reversed in the past two years.154 Prison is an expensive place to send people and if you add the costs of the police investigations and CPS and court costs, it becomes even higher – and this increases still further once you start adding the indirect costs of the impact on the individual and society as a whole. And of course crime itself costs society a great deal. If prison does not act as deterrent for crime and does not reduce reoffending – which it seems not to have an impact on, in fact quite the reverse – then something needs to change.

  But the perception, often encouraged by politicians of both the right and the left, is still, overwhelmingly, that prison works. In fact, the argument is being made that crime has gone down precisely because we are putting more people behind bars.155 Indeed it is true that as the prison population doubled, crimes halved over the same period. Law and order ‘enthusiasts’ therefore argue that this demonstrates beyond rea
sonable doubt that in fact prison acts as a deterrent – in other words that crime has fallen because we have put more people in prison. But that would be wrong. As I discuss, no study has shown a significant causative link between prison numbers and a fall in overall crime – of course there are specific areas where police activity if targeted can have a big impact. But in general, as Nick (now Lord) Stern told me, causality between crime and punishment is tenuous at best and the deterrent element of a sentence has very little influence on crime. What matters are other things.

  One is the economic environment – the better the economy is doing and the more people are employed, the less incentive there is to commit a crime. And indeed, the drop in crime occurred during the past two decades in a period of fast growth. During the recession that followed in 2008, one would have expected crime to rise but unusually for a period of decline and then stagnation employment levels have remained higher than expected and this probably accounts for some of the reason why the rise in crime didn’t happen.

  A second reason, as Nick Ross explains in his book Crime, is technology. Investment in smarter tills has reduced levels of theft; car security and new designs, for example better car locks, trackers, no removable radios, have helped car crime figures drop. House burglaries are falling because insurance companies now insist on window locks before they insure a property.

  Another factor is demographics. Most crimes are committed by those aged sixteen to twenty-four; the peak age for offending is in fact twenty-four. If that age group becomes smaller, or grows less rapidly, then this leads to a declining trend. Crime, unlike other vices, seems to decline with age.

  The long prison sentences prescribed to offenders – in an effort to placate public opinion, which is in turn fuelled by the media – makes very little difference to those taking the decision to commit a crime. People ask themselves few questions before committing an offence, except one: will I be caught?

  So if prison does not work, either as a deterrent for crime or as a means of reducing reoffending, then it cannot be fit for purpose. So what does work?

  CHAPTER 9

  WHY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT MATTER

  When looking at the costs of keeping people in prison I stressed that one way of reducing reoffending and hence further costs to society was through education and employment. I saw the desire of girls to educate themselves while in ESP, their frustration when they were not able to do the courses they wanted or had to repeat what they had done before because they had moved to a prison which was under a different education contractor. I witnessed their excitement at passing tests and the difference in mental attitude and ambition for the future that acquiring a job while in prison, whether as a volunteer or on a paid basis, made. Their whole attitude changed and their outlook on life was dramatically altered. One day they were fidgeting, worrying about what would happen to them next and the following day their eyes were shining at the pleasure of having succeeded in an interview and securing a job that might transform their lives. It didn’t always work that way, and there were disappointments, but the opportunities given were certainly better than the alternative.

  Indeed many of the inmates I met in Holloway and ESP needed basic numeracy and literacy skills and had clearly already been failed by the education system when on the outside. In my view they needed to be properly looked after while in prison to help them become more employable, prevent reoffending and therefore serve society more effectively. And given its importance, education should not be an ‘earned’ privilege but part of the rehabilitation package. And women should be, as at least they were in ESP, paid the same ‘prison wage’ for being in education as they would if they were working, therefore providing an incentive for the women to learn. Education really made a difference to the women at ESP. I saw nothing more moving than a forty-year-old lifer coming out of a classroom and shouting at the top of her voice for all to hear that she got fifty out of fifty in verbal reasoning. That really showed the role learning can play in building self-esteem.

  Rod Clark, a former civil servant and now the head of the Prisoners Education Trust, whose purpose it is to support prisoners to rehabilitate through learning, is vociferous about the importance of education. In 2012, the trust received 3,180 applications from offenders for distant-learning courses and approved and hence enabled 1,889 of those applications to access funding to study 408 different subjects varying from the basic to the more advanced.156 In Rod Clark’s view, the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that education is a better route to reintegrate offenders into society because it drastically improves the chances of finding a job. In addition, as the Corston Report has emphasised, women in particular also urgently need help with certain life skills because of the higher prevalence of substance abuse, mental health problems and domestic responsibilities among them, as well as the effects of domestic violence.

  Responsibility for the budget for prison education transferred to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in 2001. But this shuffling of responsibility from one building in Whitehall to another only added to confusion as there was no overall strategy because it wasn’t clear who would be leading progress. The creation of the National Offenders Management Scheme (NOMS) in 2004, which was supposed to be responsible for offenders and their rehabilitation throughout their sentence, further exacerbated this confusion. Among Whitehall staff, NOMS was soon known as Nightmare on Marsham Street, which is where the Home Office is based. Education services are now commissioned through the Skills Funding Agency’s Offender Learning and Skills Service (OLASS), which spends over £100m each year. The responsibility has now transferred to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), for which I worked until late 2010. Whatever its imperfections, a report on education and crime, which looked at the cost effectiveness of education, found educational interventions provided value for money and had a very positive impact upon offenders.157 What this study did was look at a cohort of male offenders given custodial sentences in 2005 and the impact of educational and vocational courses on reoffending. The estimates of the benefits they came up with were substantial. Provision of education for that particular cohort was estimated to reduce the £2bn of total reoffending costs to society in the first year post release by 25 per cent. The studies they used suggest that prison education and vocational interventions can produce a net benefit to the public sector of between £2,000 and £28,000 per offender and the estimated net savings to society when victim costs are included are between £10,500 and £97,000 per offender.

  The authors of the report point out the studies undertaken by the Matrix Knowledge Group, which formed the basis for this work, are by no means definitive but do nevertheless suggest that the return can be significant. Interestingly, the studies were all based in the US and there is an urgent need to assess whether the benefits are as high (or higher) in the UK. The methodology used was to construct an economic model built upon the review of the effectiveness of the educational and vocational interventions in prison in terms of the resultant short-term change in offending and then to extrapolate the change in reoffending over the lifetime of the offender and value the saving in terms of both public sector and victim costs. A spokesperson for the charity Prisoners Education Reform tells me that the procedures the MoJ have now developed to analyse levels of prisoners’ subsequent reoffending via their own ‘Justice Data Lab’, which should provide a mechanism for testing the impact of statutorily funded prison education programmes in the UK; a very welcome move. Whichever way you calculate it the savings can be significant and the return on the £100m which BIS spends every year on prisoners’ education can be enormous.

  Education is also a crucial factor in preventing first-time offences. The 2005 report on prison education urges the government to ‘focus on improving education provision for the almost 50 per cent of students who do not achieve 5 A–Cs at GCSE, and particularly the 5 per cent that leave school without any GCSEs’.158 As this group has a much higher likelihood of entering t
he criminal justice system, interventions in early years are shown to have a bigger effect than interventions in teenage years once a student is already failing. MoJ statistics on newly sentenced prisoners suggest that more than half of male prisoners and two thirds of female prisoners have no qualifications at all, and a large percentage had been unemployed before they entered prison.159 Perhaps some of the budget currently spent on prisons would be of more use if it were spent on educating young people, therefore reducing the chances of offending in the first place.

  The most important purpose of funding education is to increase the chance of securing a job. The correlation between not having a job and committing a crime is very strong. The general economic argument on how education may affect crime is as follows: there are ‘income effects’, in other words as education increases the amount one can earn, a) it makes it less likely that one will go needy and therefore feel the need to commit a crime and b) crime tends to reduce its attractiveness as there is more to lose if one gets caught committing a crime – although one caveat of course is that the opportunity to commit white-collar crime increases. But in truth many petty crimes are committed by people in poverty or on low incomes. A second point is that young people do not tend to think about the long term and instead aim to satisfy their short-term needs. This is particularly the case for young people who leave education early; the earlier they enter a world based on employment the more likely they are to commit an offence. In economic jargon they have a very high discount rate, in other words they discount the future heavily and so are more likely to undertake risky behaviour such as crime, because they can’t or won’t think about the consequences.