The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales by David Downes

Author:David Downes [Downes, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, 20th Century, Law, General, Political Science, Civil Rights
ISBN: 9781000373653
Google: Op8lEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-04-22T01:45:44+00:00

Our preference was for the third, but I was concerned that we should present the choices and their implications as dispassionately as possible and without a recommendation of our own on the choice between them.' In the event, 'Ministers decided to take the third of the options we had presented to them'.103

A little later, on 18 November, Miss Jean Goose,104 writing on behalf of Bill Bohan, to senior colleagues Rimmer and Sanderson, as part of the follow-up to the Leeds Castle conference, headed her letter 'Delaying the First Custodial Sentence'. Two arguments were identified: 1. The reoffending rate was far worse after custody than other penalties. Yet magistrates believe the earlier a prison sentence is imposed, the more effective it will be. Secondly, courts often sentence on an offender's record, giving a custodial sentence for a comparatively minor offence because of his record of previous convictions. This was brought out in a Panorama programme on sentencing earlier in 1987. 'Having seen that programme, L.J. Watkins commented to Mr. Faulkner on the need for that tendency to be counteracted.' This letter reflects Faulkner's hope that the facts would conceivably sway the judiciary away from the use of custody in such cases; and may also express the grounds for the reactivation of just deserts.

Leeds Castle galvanised the Home Office into a more urgent formulation and implementation of policies and programmes on several fronts. Following a meeting between Ministers and Divisional Heads on 20 October, a Programme of Work was despatched by Faulkner to Heads of Department on 21 October. The Safer Cities initiative was to be launched with Prime Ministerial backing. Syd Morris was due to report on The National Organisation on Crime Prevention. There would be a Ministerial Group, and a Standing Conference on Crime Prevention. Publicity would be greatly magnified.105 A stream of papers were to be written by the end of the year: by Mary Tuck on 'Crime, Criminality and Crime Prevention'; by Douglas Hogg 011 drugs for discussion at the Ministerial Group: on sentencing prospects and their implications for the prison population; a paper on remands by 6 November. Discussions would be held on 'Managing the System', with exploratory discussions on the Standing Conference and Ministerial trilaterals with the Lord Chancellor's Department. There would be a Working Party on supervision and control, entailing a paper on sharpening up community service, by 6 November; the submission of a programme for young offenders, also by that date; and a Parole Review paper by the Working Party, to include its implications for prison regimes and drugs was planned for the end of February 1988. To cap it all, a Green Paper for discussion and a later White Paper were already on course and in view.

Hurd and Patten's conversion at Leeds Castle, not so much to the need for a radical overhaul of the system relating to the state of prison overcrowding, of which they were fully aware, but to the sheer urgency of the crisis that was unfolding, led them to engage with key constituencies in distinctive ways.

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