How a doubling of sentence lengths helped pack England’s prisons to the rafters

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How a doubling of sentence lengths helped pack England’s prisons to the rafters

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Credit: Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

Around 1,750 prisoners in England and Wales were recently released early, the first part of the government’s

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the prison overcrowding crisis.

Politicians, legal professionals and academics all agree that prisons are drastically overcrowded, leading to dangerous and poor conditions. But there has been surprisingly little discussion of the role that sentencing has played in causing this crisis.

In a

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, the four surviving former lords chief justice of England and Wales have ***** out how changes in sentence lengths and aggressive sentencing legislation have increased the prison population. As they write: “Over the half-century that we have been involved in the law, custodial sentence lengths have approximately doubled and the same is true of prison numbers. The connection between the two is obvious.”

Their report shows that while ****** has fallen since the 1990s, this is not reflected in the prison population, which has

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in the same *******. They attribute this partly to an escalation in sentences for serious

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. Particularly, the introduction of schedule 21 under the last Labor government, which

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for those convicted of *******.

More recently, the Police, ******, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased the maximum sentence for ****** by dangerous driving from 14 years to

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. And other legislation has increased minimum sentences for ******* like firearms

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and

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.

The average sentence for all ******* rose from 14.5 to 20.9 months (a 44% increase) in just 11

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. However, this inflation is not applied equally. Manslaughter sentence lengths, for example, have risen by 80% between 2008 and 2021, and grievous bodily harm with intent rose 38% in the same time

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.

With ********* against the person offenses making up the largest

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of the prison population, this sentence inflation has a demonstrable impact on prison capacity.

This inflation has even more significance when considering serious offenses. While homicides and violent offenses have

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over the last 30 years, the number of prisoners sentenced to 20 years or more has doubled between 2013 and

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.

Sentences have been lengthened for a number of reasons, including the influence of emotional cases that attract a lot of media and political attention. Single issue cases, such as ****** ******, dangerous driving or attacks on emergency workers are widely condemned by the public, leading to an expectation of tough sentences for those charged.

But the legislative increases in sentence lengths appear to have been implemented without clear consideration of the impact it would have on the prison population. They are also costly—as the authors of the report note, it costs over £50,000 a year to keep someone in prison. The longer the sentence, the higher the cost to the taxpayer.

Sentencing and overcrowding

This brings us to today’s situation—an overcrowded prison system about to be under even more pressure following the hundreds of arrests during far right riots this summer.

Releasing prisoners early is a sticking plaster, and also brings its own challenges. Those serving time for specific violent and serious offenses, including domestic ******, have been

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from the early release program. But campaigners have warned these exemptions will not catch everyone, possibly putting domestic ********* survivors (and new victims)

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.

We know that many prisoners are likely to reoffend once released, but not necessarily because they have been released early. The current conditions in prisons, as well as an overwhelmed probation service, mean that prisoners have limited access to education and meaningful

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. All of these factors increase the risk of reoffending.

Early release prisoners are leaving an environment with skyrocketing self-harm and ******** rates and *********. Prison staff are unable to offer purposeful activity or rehabilitation

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. These are people who at best have not been able to be rehabilitated, and at worst are traumatized from their experience of imprisonment.

Prisons have not always been this way. The overcrowding of recent years has created this environment, combined with severe restrictions on funding and understaffing, in addition to

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.

What’s needed now is an overhaul of sentencing lengths and legislation that takes into account the limited prison space.

While the government has clearly recognized the need for prison overhaul, it has not announced clear plans regarding sentencing. The Labor manifesto promised to “review

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,” while simultaneously declaring a commitment to continue building prison

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as initially declared by the previous ************* government. It is not possible for both of these to be effective.

It is no longer sustainable to use prison as anything other than punishment for the most serious of

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. Despite a clear decline in many of these offenses since the 1990s, the Ministry of Justice predicts a high estimate of

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prisoners by March 2028. Evidently there is a disconnect between the intent of prison as a punishment, and the actual use of it.

As the lords chief justice suggest in their

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, sentencing legislation is often reactionary, related to public and political support for more “tough on ******” approaches. But ballooning sentence lengths are not sustainable, and overcrowded prisons do not make society more safe. Until changes have been made to sentencing legislation, there will be no change in the prison crisis.

Provided by
The Conversation

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How a doubling of sentence lengths helped pack England’s prisons to the rafters (2024, September 21)
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