Convicted criminals do not rank high on most voters’ list of candidates for generous government spending. As a result, the prisons budget has historically been a soft political target for cost savings. The people most affected in the short term have little impact on public debate. Prisoners can’t vote. In the longer term derelict, overcrowded jails accelerate recidivism, exacerbate drug and mental health problems and incubate hardcore criminality. That has an impact far beyond prison walls, upsetting a wider swathe of the electorate and placing a heavier burden on the exchequer. Skimping on justice is the definition of a false economy.
This is something Sir Keir Starmer, as a former director of public prosecutions, understands. There are encouraging signs that his government is serious about repairing the neglect and wanton damage done in this area by the Conservatives.
On Wednesday Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, committed to building four new prisons, creating 6,400 new places with similar additional capacity added to existing jails. The justice department was an unexpected beneficiary of increased spending in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget – an additional £500m allocated for new prison and probation officers; £2.3bn for prison expansion over the next two years.
Around the same time, David Gauke, a former Conservative justice secretary, was appointed to lead a review into sentencing. Earlier this week, in an interview with the Guardian, Mr Gauke gave an indication of his thinking, including specialist courts to focus on more intensive supervision of repeat offenders with addiction problems.
The sentencing review, due in April, is expected to recognise that many short prison sentences are often counterproductive, offering little deterrence or rehabilitation while turning casual offenders into hardened criminals. Implementing a recommendation to send fewer people to jail will require ministerial courage. The government, already forced to release thousands early to ease overcrowding, faced a hostile media backlash despite a reasonable defence: Labour was addressing an inevitable issue the Tories had deferred until after an expected election loss.
The effectiveness of arguments based on blaming a previous government degrades quickly. The case for rebalancing justice policy away from using incarceration as the default in every case will have to be made on its own merits. That means preparing the ground with arguments about the broader social benefits of investment in rehabilitation. Fewer repeat offenders means safer streets and fewer victims of crime.
That is also a point that the ministry of justice will make to the Treasury in advance of next year’s spending review. Cash spent up front on reforming the criminal justice system saves money down the line because habitual reoffending is a drain on plenty of other budgets. But it is hard to measure those hypothetical future savings, which makes chancellors reluctant to include them in their calculations. Other departments will be making similar cases and, while prisons are important, they are not listed as a priority among Sir Keir’s “missions”, so the recent budget infusion is likely to be the only one this parliament.
The stakes are high. The government has brought a welcome dose of rationality to criminal justice policy, but if the advertised benefits do not materialise, the shortsighted culture of unthinking automatic incarceration will make a quick comeback.
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