When cowards decide to get tough on crime

IT TAKES a brave minister to champion the cause of penal reform. It is neither popular with voters, nor does it burnish political reputations. Instead, home secretaries or justice ministers prefer, these days, to act tough by "cracking down on crime" and expanding the prison population. It is sad to see this happening in Scotland, because this is a place which has built a worldwide reputation for bold and innovative experiments in social justice.

The children’s panel system, which intervenes with young people at risk of offending, is one. The long-abandoned Special Unit at Barlinnie Prison was way ahead of its time in its enlightened treatment of hardened criminals. Peterhead Prison, which specialises in dealing with sex offenders, is another courageous example of an institution prepared to deal with society’s untouchables. Freagarrach, near Stirling, is achieving real results with young offenders who might otherwise be heading for a lifetime of crime.

The Airborne Initiative, based in Braidwood near Carluke, was very much in this tradition. It dealt with hardened young offenders who had already embarked on a career of potentially violent crime, and who seemed destined to serve long sentences as their behaviour deteriorated. These were more than just ‘neds’, the kind of youths whom Jack McConnell is anxious to lock up for anti-social behaviour. These are difficult, demanding and potentially dangerous young men. Dealing with them, as the author Ian Rankin pointed out last week, is "a hellishly difficult job which most of us couldn’t even contemplate".

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What Airborne attempted to do was to break the cycle of prison, more crime, and yet more prison sentences which inevitably awaited these people. It offered them the chance of getting back into society, of contributing to it rather than continuing to threaten it. Those who signed up faced a tough regime, hard, outdoor programmes, a demanding schedule, high standards of behaviour. Not everyone stayed the course, in fact nearly 50% were dropping out at one point and going back to prison.

But a lot was being learned. The staff of 25 full-time workers were deeply committed to the place and determined to learn from mistakes. Everyone who visited Braidwood, including the former Justice Minister, Jim Wallace, were impressed by their dedication. Last year, however, a TV series, Chancers, was made about the place. It showed bad language, drug-taking, absconding and some evidence of violent behaviour. It was not a pretty sight. Some MSPs and ministers were appalled at what they saw. Critics campaigned to have the place closed down. At this point a brave politician would have said: "What you are trying to do is good, but you have got to find ways of doing it better." This, last September, is what Airborne set out to do. They were making good progress. Figures from the Executive’s Criminal Records Office produced figures showing that there had been a 50% reduction in re-offending rates measured over a five-year period; the drop-out rate was coming down; and the steps being taken by Airborne staff were even approved by the Executive’s own inspection team.

But the public relations damage had been done, and last Monday evening the deputy justice minister Hugh Henry called in Airborne’s officials and told them that the 600,000 a year funding for the venture was being withdrawn. Ten years’ work is now going down the drain, 25 members of staff lose their jobs, and all the funds raised from trusts and foundations have gone to waste.

What depresses me is not so much the decision itself, as the reasons given for doing so. They are weasel-reasons. Mr Henry says that Airborne did not offer value for money, it did not attract enough referrals from the courts, it had a high drop-out rate, and it had not cut re-offending rates enough. He says there are better alternatives elsewhere. I have looked at these. They are worthy and they are relatively new, but none are even attempting to deal with the hard-core offenders that Airborne took on. The Fairbridge Venture Trust in Wester Ross, and Constructs in West Dunbartonshire are two of them, alongside some smaller local programmes. Constructs, which was cited to me by an Executive spokesman as the most successful, was evaluated by the same expert from Stirling University who assessed Airborne’s results back in 2000. She noted that Constructs’ re-offending rates in 2003 were down by 25% compared with results obtained elsewhere, but said it was too early to evaluate the results. In any event, it is a non-residential course, and it will not take young people who behave "inappropriately", or use drugs or alcohol - precisely the hard cases that Airborne is willing to tackle.

As to the other figures, for drop-out rates, referrals and re-offending, Airborne was confident that it was beginning to turn the corner. All of these statistics were responding to the reforms they had instituted. But just as results were being obtained, the axe fell.

"Our decision... is not a rash one," said Mr Henry. Maybe not. But it was a craven one, nevertheless. For all his protests that there are alternatives to Airborne, none measure up to the challenging work it was attempting. He promises that the funding will go into other schemes aimed at breaking the cycle of crime and anti-social behaviour. But there is nothing comparable to replace it. He concedes that Airborne was "ground-breaking" but says that the ground has "shifted in recent years". What this means, I suspect, is that the public mood has changed, and politicians are required to take a tougher approach to crime - witness Mr McConnell’s new anti-social behaviour bill.

Either way, a valuable experiment has been lost, and its work has been wasted. Did Airborne offer "value for money" as Mr Henry put it? Who knows? How do you quantify the value to society of an attempt to save young people from a permanent life of crime? How do you assess the redeeming qualities of reform, or the breaking of a cycle which produces nothing save for the bleak statistics of an expanding prison population? How do you measure the vision which refuses to accept the most negative aspects of human behaviour and attempts instead to bring out the good?

It would have been interesting to know what explanations Mr Henry or his boss, the Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson, would have given to the young staff at Airborne, who are this weekend plunged in deep depression as they contemplate the end of their dream. Neither minister, however, has ever bothered to go down to Braidwood to see the place for themselves. That would have brought things just a little bit too close to home. Reform, after all, is only for the brave.

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