More prisons are not the answer to punishing criminals, says poll
· Concern about system strong among women
· Detention is believed by many to create criminals
Julian Glover
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian
A Guardian/ICM poll published today overturns the assumption that the public think tough prison sentences are the best way to tackle crime. It shows that a majority of voters think the government should scrap its prison building programme and find other ways to punish criminals.
Politicians in all parties routinely assume that voters think prison works. But 51% of those questioned want the government to find other ways to punish criminals and deter crime.
The poll was carried out after a week that has seen crime dominate the news, including the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool and a row over the possible deportation of the killer of London headmaster Philip Lawrence - issues which might have been expected to increase support for imprisonment.
Concern about the prison system is particularly strong among women. Only 40% think the government should aim to send more convicted criminals to prison, against 57% who want to see other, non-custodial forms of punishment. But the issue divides voters of all ages and opinions. Only among pensioners is there a majority in favour of expanding the prison population.
Opposition to more imprisonment is driven by a widespread belief that prisons make crime worse. More people agree with the statement "prison doesn't work, it turns people into professional criminals who then commit more crime" than think "prison punishes crime, keeps criminals off the streets and deters others".
Only 42% of all voters, and 39% of women, think prisons are an effective punishment, against 49%, and 52% of women, who say they fail to work. Conservative voters are most likely to back prisons, Liberal Democrats most likely to oppose them. Among Labour voters, 52% do not want to see more prisons built and 46% do.
The findings follow a sharp rise in prison numbers, and overcrowding forced the justice department to order some prisoners to be released early. Last week the total prison population stood at 80,693, just 654 below the prison service's total capacity. In 1997 there were on average 61,114 prisoners in England and Wales.
That rise and the pressure it has put on the service has forced the government on to the defensive, and this week led Conservative leader David Cameron to talk of "anarchy in the UK". In a speech on Friday he said crime-fighting measures would fail "if we don't build the prisons and train the necessary staff to run them".
This month the government sought bids to build two new prisons, the first in Britain since 2005, as part of a programme to create 9,500 additional prison spaces by 2012.
The poll shows public unease about the effectiveness of this programme is not part of a wider hostility to a tough law and order policy. Asked whether they think courts should pass tougher sentences, 77% of all voters agree. Only 2% of those questioned say sentences are already too harsh, and only 18% believe the courts have got the balance about right.
· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,016 adults aged 18+ by telephone between 22nd and 23rd August 2007. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
Comment: This poll finding is in keeping with Jack Straw's recent comment that building more prisons is not the answer. Therefore, why is the government seeking bids to build two more prisons? Don't they listen?
Prisoners of public opinion
Michael White
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian
It might be easier for politicians to respond to anxieties about violent crime among young people and children if the public could be persuaded that "paedophobia" is a bigger threat to its peace of mind than paedophilia.
Today's Guardian/ICM poll, however, suggests suggests the underlying mood out there is more thoughtful.
Yet polls routinely report that many people in Britain are more afraid of crime and antisocial behaviour than the facts - bad enough in themselves - warrant. They are certainly afraid of teenagers congregating in our streets, whether they are drunk, hooded, aggressive or simply boisterous.
As a result, politicians are expected "to do something". After the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones last week, Gordon Brown staged a youth crime "summit" at No 10. Jacqui Smith, surely the first home secretary to weep on live TV as she watched Rhys's parents, promised more "resources and attention" to tackle street gangs.
As for David Cameron, whose "anarchy in the UK" speeches won headlines last week, he will unveil a package of meaures to "tackle Britain's crime crisis" today. But he too is aware of the pitfalls of instant policy. If Mr Cameron really believes the behaviour of individuals, families, whole communities, must change, he will also have been told that changing behaviour is one of the hardest things to do.
It can be done, though: smoking is down thanks to government action on the back of a growing public consensus. Cheap drink, knives, guns: they are not inevitable either.
Governments tend to move in long cycles. After Michael Howard's "prison works" and "zero tolerance" rhetoric pushed up prison numbers, Tony Blair's gentler promise in 1997 to be tough on the root causes of crime as well as on the criminals struck a chord.
But successive Labour home secretaries, with the partial exception of the unlucky Charles Clarke, found that "tough" sounded better.
That may reflect the prejudices of the mouthy tabloids. ICM's findings for the Guardian suggest that, asked less emotive questions, voters prefer non-custodial forms of punishment to the "lock 'em up" option, even in so distressing a month as August 2007.
That is not because the (admittedly narrow) majority are complacently soft on crime; more that they are aware that prison is the University of Crime for many inmates. As with other forms of higher education, student numbers are up - by one third since 1997. Surely not what young Blair intended.
Election battle lines are set over Crime and Punishment - Polly Toynbee
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
Prison is NOT an answer to anything, as I have learned.
ReplyDeleteThere are some people who need to be taken aside to have it explained to them that their actions are not acceptable, however I applaud the French system whereby a "Crime of Passion" is taken into consideration when the beak examines a case and rightly decides that the chap on the end of the stick was either a person out for his/her own gains or driven by passionate means or OTHER to perform any said "crime".
A lot of supposed "crime" could be more efficiently and humanely dealt with in such fashion if the courts took into consideration HUMAN feelings and disabilities.
Under the French system, you yourself m8tey would not have had to endure a half lifetime of incerceration with pricks who had simply let their greed get the better of them.