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Ecumenical report calls for ‘fundamental shift’ in public debate about criminal justice

INSTEAD of a system “focused on vengeance and punishment” — partly the result of media portrayals of crime — the Government should foster public support for a culture of rehabilitation, the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops for prisons recommend in a new report.

The report, Picking up the Pieces, published last week and described as “an ecumenical approach to criminal justice reform”, calls for “a fundamental shift in public discourse on criminal justice.” It says that both the Church of England and RC Church have highlighted “the destructive role of the media in creating a moral panic regarding the prevalence of crime and the need for more punitive sentencing”.

The prison population of England and Wales has quadrupled since 1900, while the general population has roughly doubled. In October 2023, England and Wales had the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe. The report describes an “overcrowded, understaffed, and under-resourced” prison system, “characterised by high levels of violence and mental health need”, with rising rates of self-harm and assaults. Prisoners are spending “prolonged periods in their cells with little structure or opportunities for development”, it says. Although the reoffending rate has fallen in the past decade, it still stands at 38.3 per cent.

Among its ten recommendations are a renewed focus on rehabilitation, investment in restorative justice programmes — “which the government’s own research shows is effective in reducing reoffending” — and early intervention to divert people from crime. “Being tough on crime and the causes of crime is not about locking more people up and for longer, but rather requires creativity and a reformed whole systems approach in which people are recognised as unique individuals created in the image of God,” it says.

Among the examples of Christian work in the criminal justice system highlighted is Spark2Life, a black-led charity founded by former prisoner and ordained minister Dez Brown. The organisation’s mission is to “prevent harm and promote life” by working to reduce the risk of children and young adults entering cycles of offending.

The first of the report’s ten recommendations is: “Make care for victims the first priority of the criminal justice system.” It quotes the Rt Revd James Jones, a former Bishop of Liverpool, who has stated that “those who have been offended against have a moral right to see that the offender is appropriately punished, and that the offence is not repeated. Such a just hope is predicated on the reform of the offender.”

The report identifies a “growing sense of optimism and hope” within the criminal-justice system, in which Christians have “a unique opportunity to present a unified voice and speak truth to power”, citing with approbation recent reviews of both sentencing and the criminal courts.

The report is published on behalf of the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, the lead bishop for prisons, the RC Bishop of Arundel & Brighton, the Rt Revd Richard Moth, the liaison bishop for prisons for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Quakers in Criminal Justice, and other Christian organisations, including Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT).

A Gloucester diocesan paper on sentencing published earlier this year with a foreword by Bishop Treweek said that the Church of England had played a key part in the emergence of today’s Probation Service, “which began in the 19th century with missionaries to the London Police Courts. . . Sadly it seems that in the 21st century a focus on rehabilitation of offenders is severely lacking and we have shifted to a primary emphasis on punishment rooted in removal from the community, irrespective of whether or not people are a danger to the public.”

It diagnosed a “distorted” public perception of the incidence of crime, partly as a result of media portrayals, concluding that ministers had to set sentencing policy in an “emotionally-charged context, often coming under pressure to extend prison sentences in the aftermath of single, high-profile offences, with a rhetoric only of punishment and an absence of any narrative about what works in terms of building stronger and safer communities. There is little public understanding of the alternatives to prison and how these alternatives can help to reduce crime by reducing offending. All this makes evidence-based policy-making particularly difficult in criminal justice.”

Polling by YouGov cited in the report indicates that, over the past five years, between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the public have believed that sentences are not tough enough; in fact, sentences have become longer. “This could suggest”, it says, “that either there is inexhaustible public demand for longer prison sentences or that, whatever politicians do, public perception is unmoveable.”

The report backs a proposal made by the House of Commons’ Justice Committee for an independent expert panel to advise on sentencing, monitor the financial sustainability of the prison system, and keep the public informed. “This proposal is not intended to undermine the decision-making of ministers,” it concludes. “Rather, it aims to help them go where the evidence points when there is enormous pressure to do otherwise.”

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