Justice cuts we can believe in
Sarah Sackman, Labour PPC for Finchley and Golders Green
Sarah Sackman is a practising barrister specialising in public law and
Labour's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Finchley and Golders
Green. Sarah is an executive member of the Society of Labour Lawyers.
Twitter - @sarahsackman
In most areas of public spending, a cut today can store up costs for tomorrow.
Labour has been right to oppose many of the reductions in childcare, policing,
education and housing budgets which will not only damage the prospects for an
immediate return to sustained economic growth but will store up a host of social
problems down the line. Yet there are areas of justice policy where we do not have to
make that choice and where the evidence suggests that it is possible to achieve
improved outcomes while cutting costs.
The Coalition’s approach to criminal justice, spearheaded by the Justice Secretary
Chris Grayling, has been driven by ideological conviction rather than evidence of
what works. If Labour wins in 2015 it will inherit a truncated legal aid system,
overcrowded prisons, probation and prison services which have been privatised to
the likes of G4S and a political landscape in which the reputation of our human rights
laws has been trashed.
“If Labour wins in 2015 it will inherit a political landscape in which
the reputation of our human rights laws has been trashed”
Labour must adopt a different approach to restore public confidence in the justice
system. At a time when there is little money to spend we can appeal to voters by
presenting a vision of criminal justice policy that is both progressive and
economically robust.
The central argument which we need to be making is that for too many people,
prison simply is not working. The overwhelming evidence is that for thousands placed
on short-term sentences, custody is not only expensive, it is also detrimental to
society.
The UK has one of the highest prison populations in Europe. This is, in part, because
we opt for short prison sentences as a matter of course. Each prison place in England
and Wales has an annual cost of nearly £40,000 per person. As a country, we spend
£3 billion operating prisons each year.
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