Time to start asking some serious questions

As career criminals with 100 convictions are spared jail, MPs ask... What DOES get you locked up?

By Daniel Martin and James Slack
Last updated at 3:06 PM on 15th October 2010

Thousands of career criminals are being spared jail despite having amassed at least 50 convictions.

Almost 2,700 were handed a community sentence after being found guilty more than 50 times before.

Incredibly, 315 offenders even received a non-custodial punishment after 100 or more previous offences.

Escaping prison: Thousands of career criminals are being spared jail despite dozens of convictions

The figures, seen by the Mail, also show more than 13,000 on at least their 30th offence received a community penalty – widely derided as ‘soft’ by critics.

It means offenders who are convicted of 30 or more crimes are 1,000 times more likely to be given a community sentence or a fine than end up in prison.

MPs and experts said the alarming revelations showed why Kenneth Clarke should be imprisoning more convicts – not fewer.

Criminologist Dr David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, said even more prolific offenders could escape jail in future.

‘It’s all very well giving out community sentences for minor offences – but if you’re on your 101st conviction, then it’s evidence of being a career criminal,’ he added.

‘I would have thought a long custodial sentence would be appropriate for these people, who will have been committing crimes more or less every day for all their adult life. If they do allow career criminals to roam the streets, we can safely say there will be a rise in crime.’

MPs claim Justice Secretary Ken Clarke should be imprisoning more convicts - not fewer

Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: ‘These statistics show what a joke the criminal justice system has become. You have to work very hard to get into prison nowadays.

‘No wonder people have lost faith in the criminal justice system when we see people carrying out literally hundreds of crimes and getting off time and time again.’

But the Justice Secretary yesterday remained defiant over his plans to hand out community punishments rather than short jail terms.

He said: ‘Simply banging up more and more people for longer without actively seeking to change them is not going to protect the public. I do not think prison is or should be a numbers game’.

The re-offending figures, which are for 2008, were revealed last week by Justice Minister Crispin Blunt following a parliamentary question.

They show that the problem of repeat offending has been getting worse. In 2006, a total of 179 criminals were spared jail after 100 convictions – not much more than half of the 315 figure in 2008.

And whereas in 2002 a total of 1,200 had 50 or more convictions, that had soared to 2,670 in 2008.

Some of the figures were published earlier this year, buried in an annex of a document of sentencing statistics.

The Ministry of Justice document reveals that repeat offending is getting worse.

The proportion of sentences given to offenders with 15 or more previous convictions or cautions has risen from 17 per cent in 2000 to 28 per cent in 2008.

Graham Jones, the Labour MP who asked the question, said: ‘These figures seem to show that the “prison doesn’t work” idea put forward by the Conservatives is wrong.’

Despite how hard it has become to earn a custodial sentence, Mr Clarke is still insisting there are too many convicts sent to jail for six months or less.

He wants to replace these sentences – given to around 50,000 offenders each year – with ‘tougher community’ penalties.

Yesterday, he said: ‘The army of short term prisoners we have at the moment, who have a particularly bad record of re-offending within six months of being released, is too big and we’ve got to find some sensible community sentences.’

Governors say it will slash jail numbers by 7,000 at any one time – with some prisons closing because there are too few inmates.

Offenders who are convicted of 30 or more crimes are 1,000 times more likely to be given a community sentence rather than end up in prison

The vast majority of those convicted of a range of offences are have been convicted of the same crime before.

Mr Clarke provoked anger among the Tory grassroots earlier this year by declaring that prison ‘doesn’t work’ – ripping up almost 20 years of party policy.

But he has stuck doggedly to the position that short-jail sentences are ‘ineffective’ and ‘absurd’. He says that – with 60 per cent of jailed inmates re-offending on release – the system must be changed.

The government is carrying out a sentencing review, which is due to report back within weeks. It will rule out scrapping short sentences altogether.

But community punishments are likely to be toughened by making offenders wear an electronic tag. Officials hope this will persuade magistrates to use the punishment instead of jail.

In yesterday’s speech to the Prison Governors Association, Mr Clarke reiterated his plan to encourage inmates to work a 40-hour week, in return for the minimum wage.

He also said he wanted to modern versions of Victorian prisons with a new focus on hard work and discipline.

He also said he wanted an ‘intensive effort to start developing drug-free wings’ in prisons, getting inmates off drugs altogether, and wanted regimes which prepared prisoners for an ‘ordinary honest life outside’.

- A Tory minister caused outrage last night after he ruled out tougher sentences for vandals who desecrate war memorials.

Under existing laws, the scale of the penalty is often limited by the cost of repairing damage done. Critics say this means offenders often escape a custodial sentence.

But Justice Minister Crispin Blunt said the law did not need changing as it already dealt ‘appropriately’ with offenders.

Who will we let off next... rapists and murderers?

By Eddie Jefferson - who's just retired after 26 years as a magistrate

Outraged: Retired Huddersfield magistrate and JP Eddie Jefferson

The man appearing before us was an old hand and had used just about every trick in the book to avoid paying the four-figure fine he’d run up.

Time and again, court appearance after court appearance, he’d prevaricated, delayed or postponed. But eventually my colleagues and I on the Huddersfield Bench had had enough.

Today we were going to send him to prison. So we told him so.

He looked shocked, and even the clerk of the court looked surprised, but both knew we had the legal powers to do so: even today, magistrates can still send someone to prison for six months.

‘Can I have five minutes to talk to my relatives?’ he asked. We said he could. Five minutes later, he sauntered towards the bench, his face bathed in a semi-triumphant smile. In his hand – finally – was a cheque.

But it was only the threat of prison that persuaded him to pay up. And it had only taken three years! My goodness, the life of a magistrate today can be a frustrating one.

I’ve just retired after 26 years as a Huddersfield JP and that’s exactly the sort of case I’m not going to miss. But it’s a good example of how much grass-roots justice has changed over the last quarter of a century.

When I first became a JP, joining the hard-working band of unpaid volunteers who preside over the country’s local courts, we had three words absolutely drummed into us – punishment, deterrence and re-education.

Now it’s all about rehabilitation, human rights and endless – and I really do mean endless – excuses.

‘I was depressed’. ‘I had a bad childhood’. ‘I had a headache’. ‘I just lost my job’. ‘I missed the last bus’ – in the last few years, I seemed to spend half my working life listening to these endless and often highly ingenious excuses.

But what made it worse is that we’re now officially required to take these sob stories into account. The simple idea that if someone does something wrong – breaks the law – they should be punished seems to have gone out of the window.

Earlier this week judges and magistrates were told to send fewer violent thugs to prison

Instead, if little Johnny tells us that his Dad used to smack him when he was a kid so he became a burglar, or Mrs Brown says she’s menopausal so had no idea shoplifting was wrong, we’re virtually required to send them home with a cup of tea and a pat on the head.

There, there, we soothe, it’s not your fault.

‘Yes it is!’ I’ve wanted to shout more and more over the last few years. You’ve broken the law; here’s your punishment, now make sure you don’t do it again. It’s not complicated, is it? And yet that’s exactly what sentencing guidelines handed down from on high and reports into this, that and the other make it. And please, don’t even get me started on the European Court of Human Rights. We live in a topsy-turvy world where even those facing serious charges can get their bail extended... because they’ve got tickets for The X Factor.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved my time as a JP and still passionately believe the Magistrates Court is the backbone of the entire British judicial system. Without it, I’m convinced our judicial system would collapse.

And yet I’m equally convinced this backbone is neither anywhere near as strong as it once was or anything like as strong as it needs to be. Over the years, it’s been progressively weakened by over-liberal reforms, misguided do-gooders and now the pressing need to save money.

‘I was depressed'... ‘I had a bad childhood’...‘I just lost my job’... ‘I missed the last bus’ – I seemed to spend half my working life listening to endless and often ingenious excuses

Only this week, we heard that judges and magistrates are being told to send fewer violent thugs to prison. Now those found guilty of actual, or even grievous, bodily harm will not be going to prison at all, particularly if they are young or express remorse.

Makes you wonder who we’ll be letting off next? Rapists? Murderers?

Ken Clarke, our new Justice Secretary, may have come to the highly convenient, money-saving conclusion that prison sentences do not reduce crime – which I don’t believe – but I’m more inclined to side with former Home Secretary Michael Howard and his famous ‘prison works’ speech.

It addressed the problems of criminals and criminality in a way that the latest milksop, so-called ‘community payback’, never will. A couple of weeks loafing around in high-visibility jackets? Oh yes, I’m quite sure that will get hardened criminals back on the straight and narrow, Mr Clarke.

At the grassroots level, the judicial system is a currently a mess, where something as serious as shoplifting can earn you an £80 fixed penalty fine, while dropping a cigarette butt can land you with a £1,000 fine.

It’s a world where the police keep telling us that crime is falling but only, I’m convinced, because they’re letting repeat young offenders off with warning after warning, caution after caution.

Sometimes I wonder why they don’t just raise the age of criminal responsibility to 20 and solve the whole problem of youth crime overnight.

I’ll cheerfully admit that I retired from the bench both frustrated and a little fed-up too. But I must quickly add that I still have absolute faith in the magisterial system in this country.

No single magistrate is perfect and I’m sure I made the odd mistake or two but collectively, we perform a tremendously important service for this country, administering justice at local level.

It’s just that if the political interference – both from Whitehall and from Brussels – stopped, and we were left to get on with it, we could to it so much better.

The left has successfully conjured up the meme that there are to many prisons and there is a corporate/prison conspiracy. They have used these theory to argue racial discrimination which has always been a distraction from the real problem of curtailing criminal activity. It's a part of the leftist promotion of social justice instead of equal justice.