Prison ‘not a way to cut crime’
-13/06/05
In a statement that will be welcomed by radical Christians who support moves towards more alternatives to prison including more restorative approaches to criminal justice, the former head of New York’s prison system is warning British policymakers that they do not need to jail more offenders in order to cut crime.
Michael Jacobson was in charge of New York’s prison service in the 1990s when inmate numbers fell at the same time as crime fell substantially.
He described the “mass imprisonment” in the US as “a public policy gone mad”.
He urged community-based prevention and non-jail alternatives for some breaches of release conditions.
Mr Jacobson, in London for a series of lectures, is currently director of the Vera Institute, a non-profit organisation which advises governments on the administration of justice.
He previously headed New York’s probation service before becoming Corrections Commissioner.
The city’s declining crime rates in the period were widely attributed to former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s “zero tolerance” policy, in which police cracked down on minor offences to prevent more serious crimes.
But Mr Jacobson says the success of the policy was not due to tougher prison sentences as the use of jail terms fell.
“The New York experience challenges the conventional wisdom that the more people are imprisoned, the more crime declines,” he said.
“The number of people in US jails and prisons reflects a public policy gone mad.
“Spending more and more money on incarceration and police does not mean crime will decrease.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has similarly branded the UK government’s penal policy “scandalous”.
In a report called A Place Of Redemption Catholic bishops recently described prisons in England and Wales as becoming a “public disgrace”.
Jacobson also said that money spent on spiralling corrections cost has come at the expense of other crucial governmental services and pointed out that public safety was influenced by many factors, not just the criminal justice system.
“Accessible health care, community-based mental health and child care, reasonable school class sizes and well-trained teachers, well-funded environmental and transportation agencies all protect public safety.
Mr Jacobson believes the UK, where jail numbers are at record levels and are forecast to rise further, can learn an “important lesson” from the US.
Home Office figures last month showed the prison population in England and Wales has reached more than 76,000 for the first time on record.
However, new opportunities for Christian agencies to pioneer restorative justice programmes may be opening up, with the news that charities may soon be entrusted with running parts of the prison system.
Church groups have repeatedly called for different approaches to criminal justice. The restorative justice approach tends to be voluntary, and based upon the Christian idea that justice is primarily about making things right, restoring damage that has been done, restitution and reconciliation, before it is about retribution and punishment.
Victim Offender Reconciliation Programmes (VORPs) are one of the primary mechanisms of restorative justice. The are over 1,000 such programmes operating around the world. They typically face up criminals with the reality what they have done, cut re-offending rates but also break down the anonymity and fear which many victims of crime experience, allowing punishments to “fit the crime”.