Paul McDowell speech: Community Sentences cut crime – Howard League Conference – 6 July 2011

When I joined Nacro eighteen months ago, I knew I was joining a great charity with an outstanding history. A charity which had worked the length and breadth of England and Wales for over forty years, to reduce crime and tackle reoffending in our communities.

But I never could have imagined what a fascinating challenge I had taken on.

And I certainly could not have imagined that the timing would magnify that challenge in such a spectacular way. What I mean by that is of course the significant challenge of recession and public spending cuts on one hand, and the range of potential opportunities falling from the proposed Justice reforms announced by the coalition government on the other. In my view we have before us a once in a generation opportunity to transform the justice system forever.

And everyone knows reform is needed. This is a system that currently doesn’t work on a number of levels.

Far more people are sent to prison than is necessary, either to meet public protection concerns or to match crime rates. And let’s be clear - there is no clear evidence to indicate, as some would have us believe, that there is a relationship between increased prison numbers and decreasing crime. It is a complex issue and we need to avoid drawing simplistic conclusions.

But we do know that too many leave prison and reoffend, and too many drop out of community sentences. And let’s face it, the public do not understand, support or have confidence in those failing community sentences. And there is no avoiding the fact that public confidence in what we do to reduce crime is important.

But if the green paper is to be the catalyst to justice reform that it could be, a large number of things need to change. I’m going to address some of these this morning.

Crucially, we have to try and shift the focus of the debate. We need to move away from the polarised view that prison is tough and community sentences are soft.

We see this being played out in the media all the time. But I also see it being played out in Westminster. Only a few weeks ago I was speaking to one politician who told me, in no uncertain terms, that what was needed was a ‘fear factor’ in our community sentences.

'Scare them into complying: that’s what we should do'.

And this brought home to me the fact that populist policies like these still prevail, in spite of decades of research which clearly demonstrate 'scared straight' approaches don’t work.

To read the full speech, click here: https://www.nacro.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/paul-mcdowell-speech-community-sentences-cut-crime-howard-league-conference-6-july-2011,1172,NAP.html