Prisons do not create criminals or make them worse; prisons are bricks and mortar. Though
the article which follows was written in 1998 a year into the New Labour era it
has as much if not greater impact today in 2005 when so many are fearful of the
growth in crime particularly because of the New Labour policies on drugs, gambling
and now 24hr drinking. In an
article in the respected journal Freedom Today on Crime and
Punishment (www.tfa.net) by a learned contributor David Fraser on the
Supervision of offenders in the community has been a failure and its
continuation exposes the Public to unnecessary risks. [As we learn in 2005] * Courts misled on failed policy … “the bleak fact is that not one of the considerable
number of these research reports reviewed by the author has borne objective
scrutiny,”… There are 200,000 offenders subject to supervision in the community by the probation service. For members of the
public, as past and potential victims of crime, the over-riding question is: Do these supervision programmes work; in terms of protecting us from further criminal victimisation? An objective appraisal of the evidence makes it clear that the answer to the question is negative. Home Office statistics demonstrate that community supervision is a calamitous failure in terms of the number of reconvictions recorded against supervised offenders. In 1995 the overall reconviction rates for those placed on probation was 53 per cent, the majority placed under supervision are males under 30; the reconviction rate for those under 21 years was 75 per cent, 21-24 years 62per cent and 25-29 years 56 per cent. Against a background of a 7 per cent detection rate, the reoffending rate will be horrific. Reoffending refers
to all crimes committed by a criminal; reconvictions refer to the small number of these crimes, which
are successfully prosecuted through the courts. These statistics are the
only relevant yardstick against which to measure the effectiveness of these penal
measures, which allow many persistent criminals their freedom, and which, as
shown by the above figures, so obviously put public safety at risk. These results contradict the many claims made
over recent years by a number of probation services, which have published
so-called ‘successful’ results of programmes offering alternatives to imprisonment. In addition, the
Probation Service and other anti-prison organisations in this country have
embraced uncritically the results of ‘what works’ research from both North
America and the United Kingdom which purports to show that certain types of
community supervision can be effective in reducing crime. The bleak fact is that not one of a considerable number of these reports reviewed by the author has born objective scrutiny. As demonstrated by the following examples, when the ‘research babble’ [You could call it Spin!] has been decoded, what is found is that not only do the reported results not equate with the commonly accepted understanding of success in terms of protecting the public, but they threaten the public safety. The first example is based on a programme run by the Hereford & Worcester Probation Service, which compared the reconviction rates of offenders on a supervision programme with those sentenced to a period of imprisonment. The researchers claimed that their programme was a ‘success’ because they had found “16 per cent fewer convictions within two years for the supervision group than for the custody group” This
is a meaningless claim as far as protecting the community is concerned. What is relevant,
however, is the number of crimes committed by the offenders on the scheme
against innocent members of the public. Based on the reported 68
per cent reconviction rate for the supervision
group, and the 7 per cent detection rate,
it is possible to estimate that the 53 offenders on the scheme are likely to
have committed as
many as 500 offences during the two-year period covering the period covering the
programme and the follow-up period; none of these crimes would have been committed had a
prison sentence been imposed. Assuming only two victims per crime (a direct and a
indirect victim) this means that 1000 people were affected. Quite apart from
the significant financial loss likely to have been sustained by their victims,
the potential personal costs to them in terms of for example, Fear, Lingering
anxiety, General
loss of confidence, A reduced
sense of privacy, And
despair over the loss of irreplaceable family and personal items can be
devastating. [So when the Home
Secretary and Police are discussing in February 2005 the question what the
Householder can do to protect themselves when confronted by the intruder it is forgotten
the lasting damage that such an intrusion has on the victim. In the political-correct world of Blair and
his many adherents this does not appear to be discussed but then with them it
is the destroyer of our society who must be understood otherwise what would he
do with the thousands of interfering busybodies in our society today. It is not stress councillors
that are required but a stern front and action when it comes to dealing with
the criminal and not whether he or she has a television in the cell or a swimming
pool to use -of course the water must be of the correct temperature or the
Human Rights legislation will be invoked. It seems that Law & Order has become a
hot potato so we now have Tony Blair trying to explain after almost eight years
in office the out of control Immigration and Refugee flood which he has
previously turned a blind eye. This negligence has changed our country so that
the indigenous people now fear the future in their own once green and pleasant
land. Whatever New Labour or
the so-called Conservative Party say it is their stance on Europe and their
history of slowly turning their back on conservative values which has
contributed to the present unrest in our society as evidenced in many areas in
the community.] To continue. - Thus when viewed through the eyes of the beleaguered public, the claims of success for the programme can be seen to be ill founded. The second example draws
on the research of Izzo & Ross (1990) who published so-called ‘positive’
results of a ‘cognitive’ skills programme for offenders, originally designed by
Robert Ross and colleagues in Canada.
Supporters of the ‘what works’ research have made much of Izzo &
Ross’s findings that over a nine-month period, the reconviction rate of
offenders on the cognitive skills programme was 18 per cent compared
with 48 per cent and 70 per cent reconviction rates for two other types of
community supervision programme. When projected over the
normal two-year follow-up period, however, the reconviction rates for those
attending the cognitive skills programme, hailed by many as a ‘successful
example of what works in reducing offending’, equates closely with the
disastrous 53 per cent
reconviction rate for all offenders on probation in the UK (Home Office Statistical
Bulletin: 1995 figures). Thus the failure in this example of the much heralded’ cognitive skills’ programme to protect the public from further offending and the even more disastrous reconviction rates of the other two supervision groups illustrates the high price paid by the general public for such experimentation. Another tactic used by
some contributors to the ‘what works’ research literature is to compare the
reconviction rates of supervised offenders with their ‘predicted’ or expected
reconviction rates. While such comparisons
may fascinate some academics, they are a red herring as far as the safety of
the public is concerned; it is the actual level of crime in the community that
matter to them. This is illustrated in
the example of the ‘Stop’ programme run
by a South Wales Probation Service. The
results were reported as showing that after 12 months, the reconviction rates
of those attending the scheme were “16 per cent lower than their
predicted reconviction rates” Further
investigation of this classic example of statistical mummery showed that after
only 12 months, the reconviction rate of those attending the scheme was already
as high as 44 per cent. And due to the low detection rate, the
actual re-offending rate will be significantly worse. When [projected over the
usual two year measurement period, the reconviction rate for offenders on the ‘Stop’
programme is likely to be closer to a catastrophic 80 per cent (which falls in line with the
Home Office official reconviction rates of 74 per cent for supervised offenders
under 21 years). Only by a gross distortion of the English language could such results be described as ‘successful’. The researchers also reported as a ‘success’, the lower reconviction rates of those who finished the programme compared with those who dropped out, a consideration which irrelevant to the public, who are left to cope with the criminal behaviour of all the offenders on the scheme, not just the finishers. Thus
none of these research projects provides evidence to show that they stopped
offenders referred to them from committing crime. Indeed, when viewed
objectively, their results show that, “far from offering protection from crime, these
schemes have put the public at risk” This almost unbearable truth
could not be more clearly illustrated than by the extrapolation that the Home
Office figure of 53 per cent reconviction rate for the 200,000 offenders under supervision in the
community equates to millions of offences committed by them during their period
of supervision. It is the innocent
public that bears the brunt of this catastrophic failure in sentencing policy;
the continued depredations of the persistent offender have had an effect on the
quality of the lives of the victims and the public at large, probably
unequalled by any other recent phenomenon. Given the
incontrovertible evidence of their failure to stop further crime, the question
must be asked: why the courts continue to use community sentences for
persistent offenders unmotivated to change? Over the last three
decades, the misleading dogma of the of the anti-prison lobby has had a
powerful influence on both policy makers and courts. As a result, sentencers, prey to their own uncertainties, have
been vulnerable to the ides of these anti-prison organisations, which threaten
them with ‘ball and chain’ tag for sending a greater percentage of
offenders to prison compared with other courts. Relentless
mitigation Sentencers have also been exposed to the influence of probation reports offering relentless and undisguised mitigation for offenders, invariably presenting alternatives to custodial sentences, regardless of the risk to the public. In some probation areas the slavish adherence to this ideological dogma is reinforced by official instructions from senior managers to their staff not to recommend prison or even use the word ’custody’ in their court reports concerning offenders. Official records of sentences passed by both judges and magistrates
illustrate the effect of such intimidation; they show unarguably how, over the
past decade, courts have favoured the freedom of the persistent offender rather
than the protection of the public; they have sentenced increasing numbers of
offenders unmotivated to reform in the community programmes of the sort described
above, thus giving them a licence to go on offending and victimising yet more
members of the public. [It is no wonder why crime
is out of control in 2005-It is the scourge of political -correctness over the
past years which has encouraged the increased crime wave] For the courts to allow
such offenders to stay in the community is to abdicate their primary responsibility
to protect the public, particularly as in every case, the offenders frightening
history of previous criminality is made known to the court before sentence is
passed. No one has the right to
risk the safety of the public with such’programme experimentation’, which, in
the vast majority of cases, is so predictably doomed to failure. Courts should more properly
exercise the conscience and forbearance of the community by reserving community
sentences for those offenders who demonstrate genuine regret over their actions
and who show some degree of motivation to change. Persistent offenders unmotivated to reform should be sent
to prison, affording the public maximum protection from them for the duration
of the sentences. We should resist being bullied by fallacious ideological argument to think negatively about prisons. Recent Home Office statistics show that the reconviction rate for those released from prison are marginally better for than for those offenders placed on community supervision [If they bother to turn up?] In any event, the reconviction rates of those released from prison are a distraction and unrelated to the success or otherwise of supervision in the community. If in addition to protecting the public, prison deters or reforms, that is a bonus. If on discharge, ex-prisoners re-offend, it confirms that a custodial sentence was right in the FIRST PLACE. Cannot be
responsible Prisons do not create
criminals or make worse criminals; prisons are mere bricks and mortar; they
cannot be held responsible for further offending. The decision is solely the responsibility of the individual who
chooses to continue a life of crime.
Persistent offenders should get longer sentences, which could eventually
be a deterrent; otherwise, at least, the sentences would protect the public for
longer and longer periods. * * The author -David Fraser, who read social
administration at the London School of Economics in the 1960’s, was a Senior Probation
Officer for most of the 26 years he spent working with the Probation Service in
inner London and in Bristol. He is now a criminal intelligence analyst with the
National Criminal Intelligence Service. [Fonts altered-bolding &underling used-comments in brackets] It is no wonder that both the Conservative and New Labour are now pleased that the main headline in the second week of February 2005 has changed to Immigration and Refugee concerns where here again political-correctness and the Human Rights legislation in 1998 is giving both parties more severe headaches. With regard to the above article -Courts misled on failed policy it should be made a rule that the judge or magistrate who gives a community sentence instead of a prison sentence in the case of the persistent offender that it be a rule that all offenders should have to make contact every six months with the person who gave the community sentence to remind the sentencer that the offender is still a great pain to many members of the public. This will make it clear to the soft-touch legal eagles that they are not finished with the case until either the persistent offender is in goal or miraculously in a few cases they have relented of their misdeeds. We ask as we are sure many of those who have experienced the crime wave when will the do-gooders find other jobs and let real Justice take its place-the Public are still waiting.] * * *
FEB/05 To obtain other enlightened articles contact Freedom Association: www.itf.org.uk
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The abolition of Britain * Veteran parliamentarian TONY BENN speaks of the absolute necessity of a REFERENDUM HEAR HIM ON http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o0I-ZdvQz1o * * * * 13th October,2007
So You Want Out Of The EU
THEN WHY NOT SIGN THE RENUNCIATION of EU CITIZENSHIP http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OptoutDetails from petition creator With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty the people of Britain were given DUAL CITIZENSHIP -both EUROPEAN and BRITISH The extra tier of citizenship was thrust upon the people without their consent -and in many cases knowledge. The PEOPLE of GREAT BRITAIN should be allowed the option of opting out of the EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP if they so wish. The GOVERNMENT will then be able to provide those who have opted out with BRITISH DOCUMENTATION -only such as British (not EU) passports, driving licences and other national documents. EU laws will also NOT APPLY to those who HAVE OPTED OUT OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP
[PETITION OPEN UNTIL OCTOBER 08]
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* [Latest Addition - June07] * * *
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Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU
* GORDON BROWN WANTS TRUST-BUT WHY WON'T HE TRUST YOU? * 67% want powers back from EU-ICM poll-June 21-2007-95% of British people want a REFERENDUM * FOR A REFERENDUM SIGN TODAY ON LINE * July 18-2007 ALSO JOIN THE 10 DOWNING STREET PROTEST Readers can add their support to the growing clamour for a REFERENDUM on the '"REFORM TREATY" by signing up to a 10 Downing Street 0n-line petition http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-treaty-NON/
The Petition reads as follows: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to guarantee that the British people will be permitted a binding REFERENDUM on any and all attempts to resurrect the EU " CONSTITUTION" (and any or all of its content) regardless of nomenclature." Deadline for the PETITION is 31st January,2008 Eurofacts 27th July 2007. * 'The Spirit of England' by In London on St.George's Day -1953 *
VOTE -2007
WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE TO SET YOU FREE
THE UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY THE QUESTION THAT THE VOTER MUST ANSWER
‘DO YOU WISH TO BE GOVERNED BY YOUR OWN PEOPLE, LAW AND CUSTOM OR BY THE CORRUPT ,EXPENSIVE UNACCOUNTABLE AND CORRUPT ALIEN BUSYBODY BRUSSELS’
-SIMPLE IS IT NOT?
TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE FOR THE TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER BUT SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES. *
ONLY WILL BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE *
SCOTLAND -ITS PARLIAMENT -WALES-ITS ASSEMBLY-ENGLAND-STILL AWAITS ITS PARLIAMENT-WHY?
*
* [All underlined words have a separate bulletin]
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