Analysis: Breaking out of the prison places lock-in
MPs seemed wary at Cherie Booth's radical proposals
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Thursday, 02, Jul 2009 12:00
By Alex Stevenson
Cherie Booth's Commission on English Prisons Today has come riding to the rescue of England's fit-to-burst places of correction. A shame it's not clear whether the politicians are listening.
Today's report is the result of two years' hard labour (pardon the pun. Sorry, pardon that pun too). It proposes a radical reduction in the number of prison places and the closure of several prison establishments, shifting the emphasis to local preventive measures.
Is this so radical? Its commissioners think not. "It's perfectly possible to have less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison," chairman Professor David Wilson explained at today's report launch.
Accepting that's the case is actually quite easy to do. Crime levels have declined by 43 per cent, Ms Booth, claims, but prison numbers have shot up. Before the sudden rise in the prison population in 1993 there were only 42,000 inmates. Now we're close to double that level. Something's got to give.
For politicians acceptance is much harder, however. They are constantly under pressure to be harder, stricter, less compromising. That may be why today's report has tried to present a way out of this dead end.
"This is not a counsel of despair, this is a very positive report," Ms Booth told politics.co.uk. By spending public money "more wisely" the community can be made safer. "That's a win-win situation," she said.
Her upbeat approach offers a dramatic way out. If the choice is between continuing with business as usual and making a clean break, it's clear which presents a bolder option for policymakers.
This is why it may have been an error to duck out of providing any specific targets. The broad-brush approach, providing principles, was the result of a deliberate "tactical" ploy. Not all those present at the report approved, fearing it might undermine rather than enhance its effectiveness.
"There's a real danger in getting fixated with numbers," Ms Booth lamented, while Professor Ian Loader of Oxford University, a fellow commissioner, insisted a tactical mistake had yet to be made. "It's possible we might have done," he conceded.
A similar lack of specificity was present in the answer to the question from politics.co.uk, on the length of the "long-term" transition required.
"There are some things we could do pretty quickly," Ms Booth said. She is a woman in a hurry: "The question we have to deal with is happening now, and so the solution has to start happening now."
Prof Loader talked of the need for "political leadership" on these issues. Perhaps more experienced in the Westminster world herself, Ms Booth said a "political consensus" existed.
Was this a fair reflection of the commitment on show? Prisons minister Maria Eagle and her shadow counterpart, Edward Garnier, attended the report's launch. Their remarks were equally guarded, equally non-committal, demonstrating precisely the sort of equivocation not desired by Ms Booth and co.
Ms Eagle said the report was "very interesting". It would provoke "some lovely and ongoing discussions". Yes, minister. Her emphasis was especially telling. "We do have to have enough prison places for those people sent into custody," she said, at her most firmest. At least the commissioners can be encouraged she had made time in her "ridiculous diary" for the report launch.
Mr Garner was politer, but equally cautious. He said the report "makes some entirely worthwhile… recommendations".
"This is a document that should be open on every policymaker's desk, and not left on the shelf," he beamed. Take it or leave it.
Ms Booth, smiling courteously as they delivered their somewhat meaningless platitudes, knows that something must be done.
It must be the politicians who do it; there's only so much the wife of a former prime minister can do. But at least a radical solution is now on the table.