More stick and less carrot: deterrence is the only way

It was with weary resignation rather than any great surprise that I read the disclosure on the front page of the Telegraph today that an average of almost 2 prisoners a week have been escaping from Leyhill Open Prison, Gloucester over the past 3 years.

The local police have been left with the double burden of rounding up these criminals, and of having to deal with the "mini-crime wave" for which the escapees are responsible.

The Home Office has not provided absconding rates for the other 12 open prisons, however, I share The Telegraph's pessimistic view that they would be much lower than Leyhill.

In a statement given to the BBC, The Prison Service stated that although prisoners were "rigorously risk assessed" prior to transferring them to Leyhill, the number of prisoners escaping was because "less trustworthy" prisoners were being placed in open conditions.

Leyhill and other minimum security prisons are used as a rehabilitative half-way house for prisoners who are due for release. According to the HM Prison Service's website, Leyhill has a special function of "assessing and preparing life sentence prisoners for release, providing an environment in which prisoners can assume more responsibility and benefit from opportunities to make decisions for themselves before returning to the outside community".

This all sounds very laudable: after all, rehabilitation of prisoners is an essential function of the Criminal Justice System (the "CJS"). However, the fact that 393 prisoners have escaped since 1999 (most of them in the past 3 years) strikes me as indicative that Leyhill is viewed by some prisoners as a easy exit route than as a useful step on the road to rehabilitation.

This goes back to my point in my last posting on this subject, that the whole mechanism of the CJS is failing in one of its key purposes, deterrence. Too many criminals are discovering that despite the posturings of various home secretaries, crime under New Labour does pay and moreover, will go unpunished. Until the various arms of the Criminal Justice System are sufficiently banded together and adequately resourced to ensure convicted criminals are properly punished and so that a clear message of deterrence is given to would-be criminals, crime rates will continue to rise, criminals will continue to run rings around the CJS and we, as taxpayers and the general public will continue to bear the consequences. It is time criminals learnt that if they commit a crime, they must accept the consequences of that crime, and that those consequences are severe.