THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

 

03. Jul. 2010. – 14:57:40

When a friend of mine was complaining not so long ago about the cock up various train companies had caused him from misleading information about fares/timetables/changes to the dirty carriages and poor service on a journey from Exeter to Edinburgh I began to think of what does it take to make clean trains run on time providing the customer with a journey that he could describe as better than expected...a term used by retail market analysts to analyse the "customer experience". Do we really need an Italian megalomaniac to achieve this outcome?

The above tale can be understood by millions of us who rely on mass transport systems to convey us for 100 miles or 10,000. What then of a criminal justice system with its n-1 combinations and permutations of individual activities by hundreds of organisations and millions of participants which attempts to investigate an isolated incident where law might have been broken to dealing with the offender. Whatever other statistics might or might not reveal it has been recognised for a long time that about 3% of criminal acts end up with a conviction.

The current political hot potato of sentencing/prison population is an attempt by the purse holder to save money; a laudable target but one fraught with potential chaos as a result. I am sure Kenneth Clarke is familiar with the term “The Butterfly Effect”. Does the flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? It does not take such an esoteric scenario to predict that further tampering in the manner contemplated by the Rt. Honourable member will lead to considerably more waves than a tornado in the Gulf of Mexico.

By expressing his desire for those currently sentenced to six months or fewer in custody to be rehabilitated in the “community” by which he means under the auspices of the Probation Service or yet to be created profit orientated businesses we would consider that thought has been given to the budgets of local probation services and similar organisations that the desired results might be achievable. Unless there are plans still held in the basements of Whitehall it seems that future offenders in the Tees Valley probation area will notice no additional attempts by case workers to get them to stay on the paths of righteousness because 10% of the staff won`t be working there next year. Their jobs will have disappeared in the "cuts". Someone somewhere within the Coalition`s backroom must have the ability and wherewithal to produce a coherent analysis so that the butterfly in Birmingham does not interfere with a trial in Taunton.

Never has the termed “joined up thinking” been more required than for the next five years of budget restraint.

ASBOs, DISPERAL ORDERS, DRINK BANNING ORDERS; WHAT NEXT? WHAT USE?

 02. Jul. 2010. – 13:19:01 

I do not sit on the youth bench. It was a conscious decision. I have nothing but admiration for my colleagues who, week in week out, adjudicate on matters involving juveniles who for the most part have been brought up in family circumstances in which only a very positive “nature” would overcome very negative “nurture”. 

Thus my experience of ASBOs is fairly limited as they are used mainly in youth courts. However I find it depressing, especially in the current climate over sentencing, that they are used as a legal “cosh” in a similar manner in which medicaments like Prozac are reputedly used as liquid “coshes” in old age homes to keep senile residents controlled. ASBOs have begat various other “control” orders; Dispersal Orders and Drink Banning Orders being two. Breaches of such orders are criminal offences. 

I would venture to suggest that this progression in excluding, banning, preventing offenders in order to allow the rest of society to live their lives without external disturbance is bound to fail. Young people need to live in properly controlled environments where their immediate family and society around them instil boundaries to their behaviour. That means that teachers must have authority to act as they did fifty years ago and be respected for so doing. They must be allowed to tell their pupils that they are expected to conform to rules and head teachers, governors and the paraphernalia of governance must be so ordered. Rowdiness on public transport must be stopped by giving drivers instructions to deal with the miscreants verbally or by calling police immediately. Confidence in authority must begin at the bottom of the pyramid. 

Some of the reports on ASBOs and Dispersal Orders etc are so obviously vain attempts to rectify two generations of muddled child centred thinking. Rehabilitation must not begin after the offence; it must begin before. 

JPs and PUBLIC COMMENT on COURT CLOSURES

 01. Jul. 2010. – 11:56:31 

Not surprisingly media in all its forms have been occupied with two coincident policy announcements from the Ministry of Justice; the abolition of short prison sentences and the closure of perhaps a third of the Magistrates` Courts in England & Wales. Even in these times of budgetary parsimony government press offices are working overtime. Their spinning of the associated data to justify these policies is akin to describing the sinking of the Titanic as ,"Ship sunk...over 1000 saved by Britain`s merchant ship Corinthian".

Court closures could be said to occupy a no man`s land between political policy and the administration of justice. I would opine that the policy is political and as such those organisations with an interest in the topics including the Magistrates` Association have promptly made their opinions in all forms available to those who will promulgate them to as wide an audience as possible. This writer too has taken welcome advantage of what technology allows. But in Penrith the Chairman of the local Bench has taken it upon himself to offer his individual opinion on the proposed government policy whereby his local court might be closed. 

A senior magistrate has vowed to fight plans to close Penrith court saying he won`t take it lying down. 

This opinion is probably in line with those JPs in a similar situation whether more concerned about their own ability or willingness to travel to another court building or on behalf of the offenders and staff involved in any court. It is completely to be applauded that individuals take up Kenneth Clarke`s offer of consultation as the bench chairman at Eden says he intends to do but it is in my opinion quite another to sign off a long piece of his views in a local newspaper.  This appears to be a deliberate political intervention by a member of the judiciary and not at all in keeping with A Media Guide for Magistrates from the Judicial Communications Office 2006 in which are quoted the wise words of Lord Irvine, a previous Lord Chancellor,

There is a distinction between judicial participation in public controversy of a political nature and the judges participation in public controversy concerning the effective administration of justice ..... I think that judges would be wise to confine themselves to controversy about the administration of justice. If they engage more extensively in political controversy, they risk undermining public confidence in their political impartiality.

I would humbly suggest that other colleagues who might have similar thoughts or intentions to allow them to remain purely cerebral until they are conveyed privately or through appropriate organisations to the relevant office at the Ministry. 

KENNETH CLARKE TAKES NO PRISONERS

 30. Jun. 2010. – 16:40:37 

In order to achieve maximum publicity for his tirade against short prison sentences Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke MP QC voiced his policy aspirations on The Today programme this morning. Before I continue I must remind those interested that this is the cabinet member of previous Tory governments who if he had his way would have had this country in the Euro and the £ a historic memory. It was also he in 1988 when Secretary of State for Health under Margaret Thatcher who abolished the universal "right" to "free" NHS eye tests.

Amongst other things he said in the live interview that yesterday he had been to Leeds prison where he had talked to a prisoner serving an undisclosed sentence for driving whilst disqualified. This man had said to him, "I`m angry; I should have been fined". As a very general guide this offence does not attract a custodial sentence unless it is eg the third such offence or other aggravating factors such as being alcohol related or causing injury. To use such an illustration was fatuous. 

How many minor thefts [shoplifting] must a drug addict commit before being sentenced to custody?.....five, ten, twenty.....................By the stage s/he is incarcerated every disposal in the book has been tried to no avail. Or the first time wife beater my bench and I sentenced a few months ago........a first time offender who was convicted after trial, had kicked his pregnant wife in the stomach, punched her breast and pulled her hair and dragged her through the hall. He was on the brink of being sent to Crown Court for sentencing but he got our maximum of six months. And of course there are the thousands whose sentences are suspended but offend within their supervisory period and render themselves liable to serve the original sentence in jail. Please don`t forget those who steadfastly refuse to pay fines or co-operate with probation to serve their community sentences. Short sentences imposed by magistrates are a very last resort. I am of the opinion that the Secretary of State for Justice has got this very badly wrong on a judicial level although there are pressure groups like the anti hunting brigade who were single issue fanatics who have this loud bee buzzing in their bonnets and reason is a word alien to them. 

Let Mr Clarke trade on his bluff man of the people reputation and come right out and say we need to save money; we can`t afford prisoners. At least he might salvage his reputation for straight talking because as native Americans were scripted by Hollywood to say, "He speaks with forked tongue".

ADDENDUM 2nd July 2010

The official answer to how much it costs to keep an offender in prison is often compared to the cost of sending a child to Eton. The exchange in a parliamentary answer in 2008 is copied below. However it would in my opinion make more sense to publish the cost per day per prisoner. On my last prison visit earlier this year the governor told me he allocated 80p/per prisoner/per day for food.

Prisons: Per Capita Costs

David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what his latest assessment is of the cost of keeping an adult male in prison for 10 years. [237754]

Mr. Hanson: The overall average resource cost per prisoner in England and Wales in 2007-08 was £39,000 (rounded to nearest £500); for 10 years this would equate to £390,000. A separate figure for adults is not available.

Civitas in 2004 published their own figures on prisoners` costs using a broader brush to paint what many might consider a more realistic picture.