Lesley Riddoch: Unlikely coalition fighting bang-'em-up Britain

Published on Thursday 23 December 2010 17:10

What do Ken Clarke and Kenny MacAskill have in common - apart from Christian names? Well, the unlikely Starsky and Hutch of prison reform have become the surprise political survivors of 2010.

Both receive hate-mail and a weekly torrent of abuse from "hang 'em, flog 'em" tabloids. Both have been the subjects of reshuffle speculation when their Cabinet colleagues Vince Cable and Stewart Stevenson ran aground - and both somehow remained in place.

Now their un-choreographed cross-Border commitment to prison reform could transform Bang-'Em-Up Britain in the decade ahead. Ken Clarke, the UK Justice Secretary, set out his "liberal" direction of travel in a green paper earlier this month - abolishing mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes, diverting petty offenders to community service and aiming to cut English prison numbers by three thousand this year.

Kenny MacAskill's Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill is further ahead. On 1 February 2011, it will end prison sentences of three months and less, include rehabilitation (not just punishment) as part of each community payback order and institute regular progress checks in court. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, should be chuffed. He says there have been no direct discussions with his Tory namesake but welcomes "the start of consensus on prisons policy" across Britain.

Of course, Ken Clarke, a former home secretary, has his own reasons for spearheading a return to Douglas Hurd's view of prison as "an expensive way of making bad people worse". Apparently when Clarke accepted the justice brief in May, he expressed disbelief that the record 44,628 prison population he left in 1993 had doubled to 85,000 today. "It is an astonishing number I would have dismissed as an impossible and ridiculous prediction then. It costs more to put someone in prison - 38,000 - than to send a boy to Eton."

Enlightened self -interest and cost-cutting lie at the heart of all prison reform, but Clarke is much more than a cost-cutting accountant. He's a believer and a credible political old-timer with nothing further to prove - or lose. Michael Howard's answer to the high cost of jail was to strip out cost - remove the TVs, remove rehabilitation, work or anything else that involves (and therefore employes) prison guards.

Clarke is plainly not interested in making symbolic but tiny financial dents. He has raised the inconvenient truth brought home to me and other members of the Scottish Government's Prisons Commission two years ago: Scotland (and England) have roughly three times the prison population of the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Finland or Belgium - but roughly the same crime rate.In other words, there is no long-term correlation between the number of crimes committed and the number of criminals in jail.

Stronger correlations exist between theft and drug addiction, assault and drink, petty offending and illiteracy, criminality and deprivation. There is nothing new in these observations. Liberals have long cited them. Conservatives - and communities blighted by crime - have long ignored them.

The Scottish Prisons Commission was asked why we send offenders to jail (after which three-quarters reoffend within two years) instead of community service (after which only two-fifths reoffend). The UK coalition government seems prepared to go further, offering a bonus to prison providers whose inmates subsequently go straight. "Tipping" successful private operators sounds all wrong to Scottish ears. But if Clarke can combine a pragmatic embrace of the market with powerful reforming arguments, he may succeed in England where all others have failed. Despite the flak, neither justice secretary has shrunk from delivering the "prison doesn't work" message to difficult audiences.

Clarke infuriated hardliners by suggesting he did more to cut crime as Chancellor in the 1990s by laying the foundations of economic recovery, than hard-line home secretaries such as arch critic Michael Howard.

Rhinocerous-like, Clarke has charged into every redoubt of the Tory right and savaged deeply-held beliefs about punishment and the purpose of prison. Rhinocerous-like, though, he has also been clumsy. Two weeks ago he was described as "plain pig-headed" by a fellow Tory MP when he said the public must accept that releasing mentally ill prisoners could lead to someone being "bumped off".

That headline prompted the English Sun to launch a "sack Clarke" campaign - though his full conversation with a Times journalist reveals more of the logic behind Clarke's insensitive choice of words: "Most members of the public, if they met some of the mentally ill people in prison would think, 'What on earth is this person doing here?'"

Asked what would happen if a mentally unstable offender released under his new regime stabbed someone to death, Ken Clarke said: "The first time someone bumps someone off the fortnight after they are let out, there will be absolute outrage. But you have to explain to the sensible public that you can't give an absolute guarantee. It's about greatly reducing the risk. We can do that by providing proper treatment."

If he had not used that single incendiary phrase, Clarke's comments might not have offended the bulk of Middle England. But if he did not speak plainly, Ken Clarke would not be Ken Clarke. The danger is that prison doors are opened and petty offenders released willy-nilly into the care of un-funded charities, cash-starved community service departments, or perk-reliant private providers.The possibility, according to Kenny MacAskill, is that "the case for reducing our massive prison populations across Britain becomes non-party political". Perhaps the most significant factor encouraging such hope is Ed Miliband's quiet support for Ken Clarke's prisons reform agenda. Perhaps Iain Gray and Scottish Labour could follow his lead.