- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 27 2003 02.14 BST
- The Guardian, Wednesday August 27 2003
He was always seen as Mr Hard in comparison to Mr Soft, his boss. This is one reason why more attention should be paid to the comments of the new director-general of the prison service, Phil Wheatley. He is the first director to reach the top from the ranks. When he was deputy to his predecessor, he played an ignominious role in hounding the progressive Blantyre House prison governor. But few people are more aware of the devastating effects of prison sentences or the chaos being caused by the current overcrowding crisis. Last week on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost he delivered a carefully measured assault on the overuse of prison - and the excessive lengths of some sentences.
It could not have been better timed. The criminal justice bill, with its draconian new 30-year and 15-year minimum sentences for some crimes - up to double the length proposed by the lord chief justice - reaches its committee stage in the Lords next week. Sentences do not deter in a system in which 98 out of 100 crimes do not end with a conviction. What does deter is detection. As the Liberal Democrats have noted, the bill "is another stride down the American path towards mass incarceration".
All these new measures come on top of the most punitive period of criminal justice for decades. Between 1991 and 2001, magistrates tripled the proportion they sent to prison (from 5% to 16%) while in the crown courts it rose from 46% to 64%. Remember this coincided with a steep drop in crime including a 30% reduction in those convicted of violence and 40% reduction in burglary.
Proportionately, we already have more people in prison than any other European country - as well as more than such hardline states as Burma, Saudi Arabia and China. In the past decade numbers have jumped - from 44,000 to 74,000. An extra 18,000 places have been provided, but nine out of 13 of the new prisons are already overcrowded. Shouldn't the Treasury be intervening? Each extra prison place costs £100,000 to build and £36,000 a year to run.
Rod Morgan, the chief inspector of probation, has identified what is wrong with community penalties. They are now being used as alternatives to fines, rather than as alternatives to prison. Fines have fallen in the past decade from 45% of all penalties to 28%. This switch has left the probation service as overwhelmed as prisons.
A Downing Street review is due to report next month. Sensibly, according to leaks, it wants to see fines restored for low risk offenders and intensive community rehabilitation schemes focused on more serious offenders. This would ease the prison crisis. Mr Wheatley would agree. Will David Blunkett?
