Justice reinvestment: A new form of penal system

By Stephen Gummer

Justice has always been somewhat of a sticky issue for the Labour Party. We are torn between two seeming polar opposites. We have a duty to protect Britain’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens who all too often live in crime ravaged areas. These people deserve the protection of any future Labour government.

However with 72% of male and 70% of female sentenced prisoners suffering from two or more mental health disorders it is clear that a significant proportion of the vulnerable who Labour vow to stand for are being forsaken in an increasingly hopeless prison system.

A modern Labour Party fails to meet its mandate if it lets down either group so what is the solution? Perhaps it lies withthe Howard League for Penal Reform, whose recent Take Action campaign focuses on the idea of “justice reinvestment”. This is a daunting turn of phrase but in essence justice reinvestment is a way for local taxpayers to benefit from their tax funds cutting crime. At present that is not what happens. With a 66% reoffending rate among prisoners money poured into prisons is not serving local people and it is not serving the vulnerable who make up a good deal of the current 85,000 in jail.

Justice reinvestment is a new idea emerging in the US that is being championed by the Howard League. It is a modern and exciting approach which is revolutionising the way people think about tackling crime and making their communities safer. Justice reinvestment moves the criminal justice budget from national government and puts it in the hands of local people. Such an idea can create savings in economic and criminal terms. It would still allow the commissioning of prison places for those who pose a serious theat of violence (of course some people would require secure accommodation for public protection) but it would also give local strategic partnerships and local councils the option of spending criminal justice funds in the community.

Funds could be used to promote crime prevention and directly solve problems like accommodation, education and employment. Money would be used to tackle pragmatic local problems such as poor street lighting, lack of facilities for young people and poor lift services in council blocks.

One such example of a scheme comes from the Deschutes County Community Youth Investment programme in Oregon. Here a justice reinvestment project was set up so that Deschutes County could take on local management responsibility for some young people involved in crime. The plan was that this would reduce its reliance on the state’s custody system.

At the end of each year the state would then give up resources equal to the daily cost of incarceration in the state system for each young person moved from state custody into a local secure residential centre. The savings would then be reinvested into the community; in this case investment focused upon youth programmes and early intervention programmes. The scheme resulted in a 76% reduction in use of state custody.

The House of Commons Justice Select Committee has mapped out what amounts to a two stage process by which justice reinvestment could be actively used in the UK.

The first stage concerns justice mapping. This is a process similar to the process of crime mapping currently undertaken by local police authorities. It involves experts identifying information about areas with high crime rates and identifying problem areas within these areas. For example drug use in a certain area of the community might be prominent. The experts will then set targets for reducing the amount of factors that cause crime within that local area.

The second step is best described as the clear identification of relevant policymakers. In this case the core policymakers with accountability for the success of the scheme would be the Prison Service at a national level and the council at a local level. The Prison Service would have the responsibility for reducing the amount of non-violent prisoners within the prison estate and particularly in a set local area. They would also have responsibility for gradually devolving their centralised budget to local authorities on an appropriate scale for each prisoner released (It is currently estimated that it costs £41,000 to keep someone in prison for a year).

The local authority would then be responsible for using the money to cut crime within their local area, with accountability to the local electorate. They would inject the newly acquired ring-fenced funds into a range of projects from alcohol and drug dependency schemes to schemes to improve local lighting and council housing. An independent mapping authority would publish clear and unambiguous data to demonstrate the local council’s success or failure at tackling crime and its indicators within the local area.

This scheme is not about community sentencing. It is much bigger than this. It is a complete overhaul of a largely unsustainable justice system. I have heard some people in the justice sector describe the current prison system as an affordable luxury in the current recession. While I agree the current system is now unaffordable I cannot agree prison was ever a luxury, having 85,000 people in prison and a £10 billion annual bill for reoffending is not something to be aspired to but something to be improved upon with urgency.

The Howard League for Penal Reform and Tribune Magazine, in affiliation with NAPO, are hosting a Labour Party Leadership Hustings with all of the Labour Party Leadership candidates on Wednesday 21 July 2010. The Labour Party’s current political position warrants bold new thinking as does the overflowing criminal justice system. Perhaps some of the candidates will back such actions in two weeks time at Islington Town Hall.

You can apply for tickets to the crime and justice hustings here.