This is a guest post by the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons in England and Wales
Resisting prison expansion
The approach to so much in society fails to start with long-term vision and instead focuses on short-term fixes for presenting issues. This is certainly true regarding criminal justice and prisons, and we need to expand our imaginations and resist the expansion of prisons and the prison population.
Evidence-based policy
The popular narrative that locking more people up and for longer will make our streets safer and strengthen our society, is not supported by the evidence. Current penal policy is largely failing victims and offenders and indeed their network of relationships and wider society, and we are lacking the painting of the vision of the sort of society we want to see. What would good look like? We have failed to zoom out with the lens and ask what will enable the strengthening and transformation of local communities and society as a whole.
So often in this country we see newspaper headlines and tragic cases driving our politicians to make new laws which add to the burden experienced by our overcrowded prisons. In A new approach to making sentencing policy, my aim is to support Ministers to make objective, evidence-based sentencing policy in the midst of an emotionally charged context based on a distorted public perception of crime.
My approach builds upon the House of Commons Justice Select Committee’s 2023 recommendations, and I am proposing the establishment of an independent advisory body on sentencing but in conjunction with an additional step to increase transparency in decision-making and to link funding to policy changes. It’s a model and paper which has been developed following confidential conversations held at Roundtables I convened in Westminster in 2023 and 2024 with parliamentarians and experts in the field of criminal justice including former prison governors, sentencing experts, people with lived experience and a former high court judge.
You can see a graphic illustrating the model below.
The de-politicisation of penal policy
During a visit to the Netherlands last summer to see how they do prisons and sentencing, I was struck by the separation and de-politicisation of their penal policy. My hope and prayer is that by taking an alternative approach to sentencing, Ministers would make evidence-based rather than emotionally-based decisions. Furthermore, by keeping Ministers accountable to the Treasury for their decisions it would ultimately reduce the numbers who serve their sentence in prison, meaning those locked up could access rehabilitative programmes more easily and more funds could be allocated to community alternatives to custody.
This proposal is not intended to undermine the decision-making of Ministers. Rather, it aims to help them go where the evidence points when there is enormous pressure to do otherwise. Where Ministers believe it is in the public interest to set aside independent advice, they remain free to do so but must set out a rationale to Parliament and make a commitment, agreed with HM Treasury, to increasing the relevant budgets. It is worth reflecting on the criminal justice outcomes in the Netherlands (such as lower prison populations, a wider range of community sentencing and better use of public money) where politicians delegate more control to officials and crime is less of a political football.
One Response
The article in the Guardian 25.01.25 “Inside story” was well written giving an articulate account of Louise Lancaster in jail for her protests on climate change. She clearly highlights the problems of prison life for fellow inmates and hopes Lord Timpson will address nonsensical issues quickly. She did not mention Bishop Rachel who we know has been advocating change in women’s prison for a long time. Louise Lancaster’s passion for injustice is worth harnessing along with Bishop Rachel’s constant focus for change using ideas for a bigger narrative.