New Initiatives and the Resources Dilemma — The Treatment of Offenders
| Published date | 01 July 1984 |
| Author | S. M. Appavoo |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8405700311 |
| Date | 01 July 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
S. M. APPAVOO,
J.P.,
Ph.D., Barrister at Law,
Principal Lecturer in Law, Polytechnic
of
Huddersfield.
NEW
INITIATIVES
AND
THE
RESOURCES
DILEMMA
- THE
TREATMENT
OF OFFENDERS
We live in difficult times. However, Shakespeare reminded us that
"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and
venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head."
Some time ago, Sir Robert
Mark
referred to the cost-effectiveness
of policing. The Guardian newspaper reported that he said: "A great
deal of crime is simply not preventable; even the biggest police force
the society could want or afford to pay would be unlikely to have any
significant effect on the numbers of thefts, burglaries, or crimes of
violence between people who know one another. Any suggestion that
the police and the courts can by numbers and severity reverse or
suppress widespread social nonconformity is simplistic." This last
remark is surely true.
However, the judiciary must consider and reconsider ways and
means, and possible alternatives for the treatment of offenders.
The
process never ceases, for society is in a constant state of change.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, addressing the magistrates
in the Guildhall, London, on October 14, 1983, mentioned that he
was speaking out at the "often derisory financial penalties handed
down at petty sessions for statutory offences affecting public health,
the safety of employees or the public, or pollution
...
But I am told by
my advisers
that
if you fine an offender even as much as £250, the
financial benefit of the offence is likely to outweigh the penalty by as
much as 50 times.
It
is worth studying these things as otherwise you
will find the offender, even when found out, laughing all the way
from the court to the bank."!
A large number of magistrates, clerks, probation officers and
social welfare workers, and the police, attended aconference at
Leeds on Saturday, November 19, 1983, to hear Professor Norman
Jepson,
Judge
Robin David, QC, and Lord Emlyn Hooson, QC,
speak on sentencing. The subject is not unrelatedto the recession, the
shortages of accommodation and facilities and the more prudent use
of penal treatments.
Alternatives to imprisonment
Professor Jepson, of Leeds University, presented apaper resulting
from a seminar on Alternatives to Imprisonment, October, 1980 -
October, 1981.2The paper focussed on the role of the probation
service
and
why it was not more extensively used in the development
July 1984 279
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