Justice should be its own incentive
Nigel Williams, 30 January 2014
‘It could be your house burgled, your bag stolen, your grandchild assaulted.’
These were the words of Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, offering a welcome reminder that the serious consequences of crime generally fall on the victim. Normally the organisation is more concerned to urge the public to prefer community sentences over prison terms and to regard under-18 burglars, bag-stealers or assaulters of grandchildren as under-privileged children. This is despite the most obvious advantage of custody over community sentences: it keeps the perpetrator away from the next potential victim.
Comparisons of reoffending rates generally reckon a community sentence from the date it commences but a prison sentence from the date it ends. Thus offenders with similar histories can appear to return to crime more after short prison terms than during community sentences. Longer prison terms, which offer greater punishment but also more effort at rehabilitation, fare better than short terms in similar studies.
Something has brought Frances Crook back to an awareness of the victims of crimes. It is a perceived threat to the probation service, whether working as a partner or an alternative to custody. As part of the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Payment by Results’ programme, parts of the probation service are being put out to tender.
Neither G4S nor Serco are involved in the bidding. Both were found to have overcharged the Ministry of Justice for monitoring offenders. G4S has been referred to the Serious Fraud Office citing, among other issues, ‘performance reporting’. A4E are still in the running. Nine of their employees faced charges of fraud at Slough magistrates court in October 2013 after the company alerted the DWP and the police to activities relating to the ‘Aspire to Inspire’ programme.
There are dangers inherent in payment by results. In the extra two months that the Ministry of Justice has given itself to reflect on the programme, they need to come to terms with those dangers. Preventing reoffending, without the certainties of custody, is an uncertain process, so the services could find themselves more in control of the statistics than of the reoffending. The police are now having to demonstrate anew that the public can trust their records of crime figures. One suspicion is that the incentive to record fewer or less serious crimes came from the targets set for police forces. It is not a good time to apply the same principle to the probation service. Officers that found evidence of an offence from among their caseload would have to endanger their rewards or even their contracts by notifying the police. I have no grounds for believing that anyone now working in the probation service is motivated by anything other than integrity, respect for the law and a wish to assist offenders back to law-abiding lives. It is a disservice to lead them into temptation.
Even if the monitoring system were perfect, there is a second drawback. It is an achievement for a probation officer when their efforts show an offender the path to going straight. However, a greater share of the improvement belongs to the ex-offender. Once released from custody, the decision not to burgle, steal or assault must come from them. The ex-offenders can be rewarded with liberty, respect and the opportunity to contribute to society. It is a step too far to give them the choice of how much their probation officers should be paid.