The Probation Service in a Flawed Justice System
| Date | 01 March 1989 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058903600102 |
| Published date | 01 March 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The Probation
Service in a Flawed
Justice System
Much
of
the pressure experienced by the Probation Service in England and
Wales and criticism made of its performance results from structural flaws
in the criminal justice system. This has led to a penal policy characterised
by inconsistency and lack of direction, subject to the vagaries of conviction
politics, pragmatic expedients and desperate damage limitation exercises.
It is difficult to detect a thread of consistent, planned penal strategy in
which the Service can make a rational contribution, argues Roger Shaw of
the Institute of
Criminology, University of Cambridge.
wo hundred years
ago the Home
Office
sent the First Fleet
to Australia. Com-
menting on this re-
cently, Mary Tuck,
Head of the Home
Office Research and
Planning Unit, observed
’They were simply and desperately
looking for somewhere to send con-
victs, North America being no lon-
ger available and
prison, in the mod-
ern sense, not having been in-
vented’.
Today, the same desperation is evident,
as it has been, on and off, for the in-
tervening two centuries. What to do to
criminals, as distinct from what to do
about crime or about victims, remains
central to such policy as we have. The
law &
order budget in England and
Wales which stood at £1.7 billion in
1978/79 has now risen to about £5 bil-
lion. The bulk of this is spent on attemp-
ting to catch, convict and punish the
relatively small proportion of offenders
who
come
to official attention.
Confusion
and
Tinkering
The public should be forgiven if it is
5
unclear as to what courts are expected
der whether government is using its
to do with offenders as the government
administrative powers to ’interfere’
struggles to balance a firm response to
with the wishes of the courts or
crime with an escalating prison popula-
whether judges are taking parole and/
tion and cost crisis. Any confusion in
or remission into consideration when
the public mind must have been com-
they sentence. Doubtless both would
pounded by the tamperings with the
reject the suggestion as it applies to
parole system in 1984 which effectively
them.
halved the period served by a prisoner
What is clear, however, is that while
sentenced to eighteen months at the
sentence lengths are going up, time
same time as the Home
Secretary was
served is coming down. Thus an ever
restricting the release of a small num-
increasing proportion of our popula-
ber of
long term prisoners. The result of
tion is being locked up at some stage in
the parole change was a short lived dip
their lives. It is surely beyond dispute
in the prison population; a year later it
that this is an expensive and socially
was
higher than it had ever been.
costly operation. Many argue that it is
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, in
also futile since more than half of all
his report for 1986, made the point:
men
discharged from custodial institu-
’The early release of prisoners has
tions are reconvicted within 2 years
provided some short term relief and
with reconviction being more likely to
a speeding up of the hearing of
occur in the first year and young male
cases by courts should provide a lit-
offenders released from short sent-
tle more relief in the longer term,
ences being the most vulnerable. The
but ultimately the choice may lie be-
reconviction figures for two years post
tween less, or shorter, use of cus-
release are over 80% for the younger
tody and further heavy demands on
male youth custody group.
the Exchequer for the additional
When
one
compares
these reconvic-
accommodation. How
much longer
tion rates with the outcome of proba-
the taxpayer will continue to favour
tion orders and takes into account the
the latter solution is open to ques-
period during which the imprisoned
tion, but if a cost benefit analysis is
offender is out of circulation, it appears
any guide, the balance should tip de-
that the public may not be well served
cisively in favour of less use of cus-
by our present-day sentencing culture.
tody and for shorter terms for most
This may still apply, even when one
of those coming before the courts.’
considers those probation orders
which terminated normally but where
Beyond
the Rhetoric
an offence was recorded during the
If one looks beyond the optimistic rhe-
course of the order and the order
toric of ’British justice’, ’our fine justice
...
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