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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Judiciary Speeches >> Lord Woolf, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales : 2002 Rose Lecture: "Achieving Criminal Justice" [2002] UKSpeech PCMTJ (29 October 2002) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/other/speeches/2002/PCMTJ.html Cite as: [2002] UKSpeech PCMTJ |
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Introduction
Lord Justice Rose is our outstanding criminal judge. He has unrivalled practical experience as a trial and appellate judge of our criminal system. When I first became a judge, Lord Justice Lawton played a similar role to that which Christopher Rose plays today. He was the person to whom the then Chief Justice instinctively turned for guidance and advice on difficult problems. So you will appreciate why I regard it both as a heavy responsibility and a privilege to be asked to give a lecture on a criminal subject which bears his name.
The responsibility is increased because I am giving the lecture under the auspices of the Northern Circuit and the Manchester Law Society. It was Christopher's colleagues in the legal profession on this circuit who contributed to his becoming the judge he is today. In the first Rose lecture, Criminal Justice - An Impossible Goal, he made clear the extent to which he regards himself as being indebted to his circuit's upbringing.
Those who heard Christopher Rose's lecture will know of his concerns about the criminal justice system at present. I share those concerns and I will address them in the course of this lecture. It is my belief that the present time could mark a change in the fortunes and standing of the Criminal Justice System.
A change is certainly needed.
We have seen Lord Justice Auld's report, the Halliday report, and the White Paper, Justice for All, and shortly the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Home Office will publish bills intended to implement the White Paper.
Normally, I would not be sympathetic to further legislation relating to the criminal justice system. I would share the distaste expressed in the preface to the 2002 Archbold:
However, at the present time there are, within the system, serious problems which, if they are to be solved, require legislation. But legislation is only part of the answer. There are other areas where what is required is good management to achieve the necessary co-operation between the multiplicity of different agencies involved in the criminal justice system. I will give you some examples although I appreciate there will be many in the audience who have their own horror stories and do not need me to remind them of them.
Delays
I constantly hear about delayed and adjourned hearings. The delays and adjournments are due to a variety of causes. Their combined effect is a scandalous waste of money and time. There is also exasperating inconvenience to victims, defendants, the police, the profession and judges.
I visited Dale Street magistrates' court in Liverpool yesterday. The record of what happens to trials at that court is 37% ineffective, 41% cracked and 22% effective. Part of the problem lies with the prosecution. The substantial number of trials which are unable to commence because the prosecution has to seek an adjournment have rightly been the subject of critical comment. During 2001, there were 1,326 Crown Court trials across the country which were ineffective because the prosecution was not ready. This is 10.5% of the disturbing total number of ineffective trials, namely 12, 611. These figures do not include the magistrates' courts nor do they include the cases which are adjourned because prosecution witnesses do not turn up.
The reasons for adjournment are numerous.
Frequently, they are brought about by a breakdown in communication between the CPS and the police. Where witnesses fail to attend, this can be the result of a failure to take sufficient steps to secure their attendance. A similar problem arises in relation to late changes of plea. It should not be beyond our capacity to put in place suitable systems, that would avoid the communication breakdowns that give rise to so many adjournments.
A helpful pilot recommended by another distinguished judge on this circuit involves the police and the CPS working more closely together. It is demonstrating what can be achieved. The earlier that discussions take place between the CPS and the police involved in the investigation, the more focussed will be the police investigation and the greater the chance that police resources will not be wasted on cases that have absolutely no hope of progressing. This, in turn, frees up the officer for hopefully more fruitful work. The prosecutor is able to advise the police at an early stage of ways to strengthen the evidence and so reduce the risk of the case having to be discontinued later.
The inclusion of the proper charges also helps the defence. The defence know what they are up against and can focus their preparations in the correct areas. They can properly advise their clients as to whether to plead - avoiding last minute pleas which are so disruptive of court listing and enabling their client to earn the maximum discount for an early plea. They cannot blame the prosecution for their own default.
The pilots are producing a dramatic decline in prosecutions which have to be discontinued. The number of applications per case has declined and the number of guilty pleas at first hearing has risen, with some decline in the number of trials. Monitoring is being undertaken and there should be less risk of victims having their expectations raised by inappropriate levels of charging.
We have heard about 'joined-up government' and this experiment in 'joined-up prosecuting' does seem sensible. It is important, however, that the CPS does not lose its independence from the police in the process. The need for the objectivity of an independent prosecutor was, after all, the reason for creating the CPS. The pilots suggest it is possible to have a much closer partnership between the police and the CPS without prejudicing the independence of the CPS. What is required, on both sides, is sufficient professionalism to accept that independence remains critical.
The defence must also play their part. Unfortunately, all too often the defence have a ready explanation for their not being able to be ready. Not unfairly, they argue that they cannot prepare without the necessary information about the case to be presented against them by the prosecution. If the prosecution's house is not in order it is difficult for the judge to criticise the defence.
The situation calls out for a clearly laid down timetable that identifies what is to be done, when and by whom, so as to ensure that the case will proceed smoothly to a conclusion.
Another cause of delay to which I wish to refer is the late arrival of prisoners.
Any practitioner or judge will know to what I am referring. It is partly a product of prison overcrowding. Prisoners have to be held wherever there is space even if this means they are taken to the wrong part of the country. There are also difficulties in the transporting of prisoners. A prisoner due in Liverpool yesterday and coming from Leeds, went via Caernarfon and arrived at 12pm. The Senior Presiding Judge has spelt out the cost, approximately £1,000 for every hour of time lost in the Crown Court. In Birmingham, where the Crown Court has 12 courtrooms, they estimate a whole court is lost every day due to a combination of the late arrival of prisoners and the extra time taken in getting prisoners in to court. This amounts to £5000 per day or £25,000 per week. I have not worked out the figure nationally, but I am sure I have said enough to make the point.
Fortunately, the video conferencing pilots suggest that very substantial savings can be achieved through reducing the number of prisoners that need to travel to court. The pilots have been very successful. Courts are being equipped and shortly we will have, both in the prisons and in the courts, the video facilities that are needed. There remain, however, problems over transporting prisoners to trials. It is unacceptable that defendants, and this is a particular problem with female prisoners, should have to travel for many hours in cramped conditions before and after each day in court.
Punishment
I turn to the question of punishment.
There have been at least three recent reports which are relevant to sentencing, each of which makes extremely depressive reading. By far the most important, is the Halliday Report, Making Punishments Work: Report of a Review of Sentencing Framework for England & Wales - July 2001, to which I already referred. The second, is the report of the Social Exclusion Unit for the Cabinet Office and, finally, there is the report of the Public Accounts Committee. Each report describes a situation which makes it clear that our present sentencing policy is not working. It is clearly failing to deliver what should be the primary role of the criminal justice system - the protection of the public.
Let me remind you of some of the worrying facts!
The cost to the criminal justice system of dealing with the consequences of recorded crime is at least £11billion per year. There are, as I speak, over 72,000 prisoners within the prison system. An increase of approximately 30,000 over 10 years. The position in relation to the female prison population is particularly disturbing. The numbers have increased by over 20 percent in the last year alone.
The average cost of a prison place is £36,651 per year. Overcrowding is excessive despite a building program (since 1995) which has cost £1.28 billion producing 12,000 extra places. Because the system is overcrowded 1,000 prisoners are once more being kept in police cells, the costs of which amount to no less than £300 per night (providing an interesting perspective on the cost of a room in a hotel in Manchester).
Almost 3/5ths of all prisoners in England and Wales are re-convicted within two years of their release. For younger prisoners and those serving short prison sentences, the reconviction rates are even higher. The expense caused by re-offending by ex-prisoners is staggering. A re-offending ex-prisoner is likely to be responsible for crime costing the criminal justice system £65,000. These costs are large enough in themselves but they are likely to be a fraction of the actual overall expense caused by re-offending. This is because recorded crime accounts for between only a 1/4 and 1/10 of the total crime. 75% of prisoners leave prison without a job, 30% leave prison homeless, 50% of prisoners have poor literary skills, 65% have poor numeracy skills and are usually unemployable. Those re-convicted will have received a further three convictions within two years, 70% of prisoners are not released to education, training or employment.
The shortcomings are particularly unfortunate because there is now clear statistical evidence that if prisoners have a home and a job to go to on their release it is very much less likely that they will reoffend. It is also extremely depressing that these shortcomings should arise at the point at which the prison service has developed considerable skill in education, training and tackling offending behaviour in order to reduce the likelihood of a prisoner reoffending after release. Unfortunately, the combination of overcrowding, the lack of resources and an inability to release a prisoner back into the community with the necessary support, means that, all too often, either the education and training is not provided or, if it is, it is wasted because of lack of continuity.
The problem of overcrowding in prisons is a cancer eating at the ability of the prison service to deliver. It is exacerbated by a large number of prisoners who should not be there. The most significant groups being those who are sentenced to less than 12 months imprisonment. It is now accepted on all sides that prisons can do nothing for prisoners who are sentenced to less than 12 months. In many of those cases, the prisoners could have been punished in the community. If prison was what was called for, the most appropriate sentence would be one of no longer than one month, to give the offender the experience of the "clang of the prison door".
Tackling the problems
Having painted that dismal picture, I would now like to turn to how we should tackle the problems.
However, before doing this, I stress that if I had had the time and you had had the patience to listen to me, I could have extended my recital of problems by including references to poor police clear up rates, a creaking disclosure process and significant difficulties with forensic evidence. I would also have explained how this has contributed to creating a new industry, the abuse of process industry, which is itself becoming an abuse.
The problem areas
The picture which I have presented demonstrates that there are at least two problem areas.
There are a) the problems in relation to the administration of the criminal justice process and there are b) problems because of what happens in consequence of the present approach to sentencing. Both problems have to be tackled. Society cannot afford to be expending increasingly massive sums of money for diminishing returns. The present system is counter-productive. Counter-productive, of course, because of the waste of public money, because of the effect it has on victims, witnesses and jurors who become caught up with the system and, most important of all, because it does not protect the public. This is a situation which no one should find acceptable.
It will have been noted that the problems I have identified relate primarily a) to the process from the offender being charged to the commencement of the trial and b) the consequences of the offender being sentenced. I have ignored the trial itself. I have done so, although I appreciate that there is considerable controversy about the proposals relating to jury trial and double jeopardy contained in the White Paper which are likely to be part of the Home Office bill. I do so deliberately because, although I recognise the concerns of those who regard these proposals as totally unacceptable as a matter of principle, I do not believe they are other than a sideshow when it comes to tackling what is really wrong with our justice system. The reforms if implemented will only affect a tiny percentage of cases and if they become law this will only be achieved at the cost of antagonising the profession. While I do not wish to criticise what is proposed, this is a cost I would prefer not to incur at the present time. Certainly, we need the support and co-operation of the profession if we are to make a success of the other reforms which are long overdue.
The need for co-operation
There is a critical lesson to be learnt. This is that the improvements required are more likely to be achieved in conjunction with the profession and the agencies involved than through dictat from above.
Here I am encouraged by the recognition by the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary of the importance of co-operation and involvement of all the main players. In relation to procedure, as in relation to sentencing, it is my belief, that the proper role of government is to provide the framework while those who have first hand experience of how the system works in practice provide the detail. Unless those who have the experience and the day-to-day responsibility on the ground, are intimately involved in the process of change they will not feel the sense of ownership which is required to make the change a success.
Remedying the problem over process
The Auld Report focuses on the first of my two areas of concern.
It provides an unrivalled analysis of the shortcomings in the way we administer criminal justice and the steps which should be taken to remedy the situation. The White Paper, Justice for All, is based on the recommendations of the Auld Report. However, it does not adopt by any means all of its recommendations. Sir Robin in a recent lecture, the Lund Lecture (9 October 2002), described the White Paper as a "pallid document, long on generality and the distant future, and short on the specific and the medium-term". Sir Robin considers that the explanation for this is lack of resources. One of my complaints is that the government in the past has embarked upon reforms, without thinking them through, and without adequate resources to back them up. As I will explain, I am deeply concerned that this should not happen again.
As it happens, a number of Sir Robin's reforms do not require more than very limited resources and very hard work on the part of those who will be involved. They are the two new committees which he recommended should be set up to produce new codes of evidence and criminal procedure. The Evidence Committee could achieve a great deal more than the jury reforms to which I have already referred. Apparently it is not on the agenda. If this is the case, then it is a lost opportunity. It cannot be suggested our criminal rules of evidence do not require to be brought up to date. I trust the explanation for this is an oversight and that it is not to be attributed to an unwillingness to entrust the task of preparing the much-needed new rules to those best qualified to perform the task.
The Criminal Procedure Rule Committee recommendation is to be adopted. That committee should be able to produce a new set of rules for criminal justice which will provide a blueprint for the preparation and conduct of criminal proceedings. The new rules will need to give the court greater powers to manage the whole of the criminal trial process. Both the prosecution and the defence require a detailed schedule setting out the steps which they are required to take for the proper preparation and conduct of the proceedings and identifying when those steps are to be taken. Then the parties know precisely what is required of them and, if it proves necessary, the judge can exercise the required control of the proceedings.
Sir Robin recommended a third code. A code of the substantive criminal law. If the three codes were to be created then access to the criminal law would be revolutionised. The Law Commission has already carried out a great deal of the work necessary for a codification of the criminal law. The Law Commission has not yet received the resources to bring this substantial task to fruition. The creation of the Code would be a leap forward.
However, even by itself, the establishment of the Procedure Committee will be a very important and welcome step and, pending legislation, it is my hope that, together with Lord Justice Kay and the profession, I will be able shortly to begin the work on the new rules. This, is encouraging. Another source of optimism is the fact that there is undoubtedly now more co-operation at the highest level between the government departments and the agencies who have responsibilities in this area. (An encouraging aspect of Justice for All is that it was presented not just by one minister but three; the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General, so they are equally committed to it. It is also necessary to involve the minister responsible for education and the Health Minister. The number of offenders who have mental and educational problems, this is particularly true of young offenders, mean that a whole range of agencies need to be engaged (but this is to anticipate what I have to say about punishment).
An example of the benefits that can be achieved is provided by the Street Crimes Initiative. Although that initiative diverted court and other resources from other important work, it did demonstrate that performance of the criminal justice system can be raised several notches by such co-operation, especially if it is backed by the personal support of the Prime Minister. Another example of the progress that can be achieved is provided by the pilots to which I referred earlier involving closer working relations between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police.
A further valuable reform, but one which undoubtedly requires legislation that is almost certainly to be taken forward, is the unification of the criminal courts. Historically there has always been and there still is a divide between the Crown Court and the magistrates' courts. A unified court will facilitate the more efficient progression of cases. The case process will be a seamless whole. The unified court will also enable members of the judiciary to be allocated to cases in the most effective way. On occasions, this will involve High or Crown Court judges sitting in magistrates' courts. It will also require unified judicial and court management. The higher judiciary look forward to their closer involvement with the Magistrates and the Magistrates' Association welcomes this.
Punishment
With goodwill on all sides, I am confident that by working together we can dramatically improve the way in which we handle the criminal process. The problems which confront us in dealing with offenders after they have pleaded guilty or have been convicted is much more intractable and requires a fundamentally different approach. The present situation to which I referred earlier is simply unacceptable.
Part of the difficulty is that sentencing is a highly political subject. It is also of immense importance to the public since, while criminals should be brought to justice, it is also essential that the sentence passed by the court reduces the likelihood of the offender reoffending. In addition, hopefully, the sentence will deter others from offending. Failing this, the prosecution of the offenders to conviction achieves little, if any, protection for the public.
I recognise that what I am about to say is capable of being labelled soft or liberal. In fact it is neither soft nor liberal, but realistic common sense. The lesson of the statistics on reconviction rates to which I have referred, is that the effectiveness of the criminal justice system has to be judged by the extent to which it can reduce the pattern of re-offending. This should be at the centre of the system. It should influence the decision as to whether to prosecute, it should influence the charges which are brought, it should influence what happens during the period that the offender is being punished and it should influence the provision which is made for the offender when released from punishment.
The fact that the situation is so unsatisfactory is surprising. We have, in relation to many areas of offending, identified constructive ways in which to tackle offending behaviour on the part of a substantial number of those who are convicted of criminal conduct. I have already referred to positive effects of education, training and providing accommodation and employment on release. In addition, the probation service can today play a much greater role in assessing the risk of reoffending. We also have a prison service that is capable, if given the opportunity, of not only warehousing prisoners but of sending them back into the community better equipped to avoid reoffending.
What has gone wrong is overcrowding. I have no doubt that it is a central problem that makes progress virtually impossible. The number of prisoners at any one time is not decisive, though at all times the prison population should be kept at a minimum. What is decisive is the capacity of the prisons. The prison estate has a finite capacity. If you insist on trying to take in through the front door more prisoners than a prison can hold without letting the necessary number out of the back door, a prison will simply explode. This is what happened during the Strangeways series of riots. It is also possibly what happened at Lincoln last week. Mr Narey, the excellent Director-General of the prison service attributes the problem to mischief-makers. However I am sceptical as to whether mischief-makers can result in the loss of a prison if they are not able to make mischief in fertile ground.
If the number of prisoners that the courts are sending to prison is in excess of the number that the prisons can both accommodate and deal with constructively, then you have only three choices. (1) you build more prisons to accommodate the number of prisoners being sent to prison, or (2) you reduce the number of prisoners being sent to prison (or you both build more prisons and reduce the number of prisoners) or (3) you continue to send more prisoners to prison than the prisons can accommodate and accept the consequences. There is I suggest no further option.
In this country, so far we have adopted the third alternative. We need to cease doing this. The cost of the present policy is growing astronomically and, although it is said that more prison accommodation is to be built, at best this will only keep up with the expected inflation in the prison population if our policies do not change. We are already imprisoning more people than any other country in Western Europe apart from Turkey. In addition, quite apart from the cost, it is difficult to find sites for new prisons. A continuation in the growth of the prison population is forecast by the government, and, if as could well happen, the prison population rises over the next ten years as fast as it has over the last ten years, we could be faced with having to accommodate 100,000 prisoners, an unacceptable number.
The increased size of the prison population over the last 20 years is not due to the number of people being sentenced or an increase in the gravity of the offences. It is due to a widening of the custodial 'net' both by an increase in the number of offences deemed to require imprisonment and by a lengthening of the period of sentences.
So far neither the government or Parliament has indicated what should be the maximum size of the prison population. Instead the response of ministers of this and the previous administrations to questions referring to the size of the prison population is to respond that it is judges who send prisoners to prison not the government, suggesting that the size of the prison population is all the judges' fault.
On the judges' behalf, I am prepared to accept some blame. (You cannot say I'm not objective!). Judges on occasions impose imprisonment when they should not have done so and impose higher sentences then they should. However, there are relatively few cases where the sentences imposed are higher than the going rate (the going rate being the sentence which is appropriate for the criminal conduct of the particular offender). If it is the going rate that is the problem, why do the judges not reduce the going rate? In order to answer that question it is necessary to understand how the present going rate has become increasingly punitive over recent years. The going rate is at least in part the result of guideline judgments given by the Court of Appeal over the years. Broadly speaking the judgments seek to provide a sentencing bracket for each offence by inserting that offence at the appropriate level having regard to its seriousness in relation to the pattern of sentences as a whole.
There is a continuous upward pressure, and very rarely any downward pressure, on the level of sentences. The upward pressure comes from public opinion and the media, the government of the day and Parliament. I suspect that usually when, in response to a sensational crime, Parliament, at the behest of the government, increases the maximum sentence for that crime, it is not appreciated that this has an effect on the going rate for all sentences for that crime and indirectly for other crimes as well. When the maximum sentence is increased, the judges, as the guideline judgments show, take that as an indication that Parliament wishes all sentences for that offence to be increased. This increase then has an indirect effect on other offences because of the need to keep sentencing for different, but similar, offences in proportion with each other. Thus, when Parliament increased the maximum sentence for cases of death by dangerous driving, sentences for all such cases were pushed up and there was a knock-on effect on sentences for dangerous driving cases without death as an aggravating factor.
In addition, Parliament has, also at the behest of the Government, increased the proportion of the sentence served in prison and the period during which an offender can be recalled to prison. It has also provided for extended sentences and mandatory terms both of which have an upward effect on the prison population.
In addition, the fact that the attorney general can and does appeal against unduly low sentences has a direct and indirect upward effect. Directly on the sentence which is the subject of the appeal, and indirectly on other sentences for the same and similar offences. The increasing number of guideline judgments and Attorney General's appeals also have a damping effect on the sentencing judges' discretion to extend leniency because of the particular circumstances of a case.
If sentences have increased in this way, should not the judges now decrease all sentences because of the conditions in our prisons? (In Germany the judges in one Lander reduced all sentences by 10 percent.) Our judges, when sentencing in individual cases, can and should take into account the situation within the prisons, but it is questionable whether action reducing sentences across the board can be taken by anyone other than Parliament.
Parliament could take action when establishing the new Sentencing Advisory Council. The Council's task will be to create a new code of sentencing guidelines. The Council will consist of sentencers at all levels. It will be independent and the holder of my office will preside. A judge in passing sentence will be expected to take its guidance into account. The legislation establishing the Council should, in my judgment, make clear the Council's remit. It should require the Council, when setting guidelines, to devise guidelines that take into account the facilities and resources that are available for dealing with offenders both in the community and in the prisons. It should also state that the Council should not make guidelines which will result in the prisons being overcrowded. If the Council was required to produce guidelines that would result in a match between the number of prisoners and the size of the prison accommodation, this could be done.
An illustration of the changes that the Council could promote is provided by what is happening in the Youth Justice System. The Youth Justice Board has the principle statutory aim of preventing (rather than punishing) offending. This does not mean that there is no need to punish. It means that it should be recognised that punishment is only part of what is to be achieved. The punishment should be constructed to make it clear that crime does not pay, but it must also be constructive and result in the offender, at the end of his punishment, being less likely rather than more likely to re-offend. The remit of the Board should be extended to a wider range of offenders. Lord Warner in the recent annual review (2001/2002) explains what has been achieved;
I agree with him that YOTs are a success and entitled to considerable credit for what they are achieving. And I echo his call for the Crown Courts to consider more carefully whether use of custody is necessary.
In New York, they have been piloting with equal success, community courts such as the Red Hook Community Justice Center that are also known as problem-solving courts. At Red Hook they seek to solve the neighbourhood problems like drugs, crime, domestic violence and landlord and tenant disputes by using a single judge who has an array of sanctions and services at his disposal, including community restitution projects on-site training, drug treatment and mental health counselling. But the courts reach goes beyond what happens in the court. It reaches out into the community and engages the community in achieving Justice. I found my visit inspiring and was particularly impressed how the outlook of the community towards its court had been transformed by its problem solving approach. The tackling of the problems of minor offenders prevents them becoming serious criminals.
On a smaller scale, Drug Treatment and Testing orders in this jurisdiction are intended to achieve what is being achieved at Red Hook. The order was introduced in October 2000 and already the reports are encouraging. The distinctive feature of the orders is the continued involvement of the sentencing judge through review hearings. The judge tracks the offender's progress. It is found that the involvement of the judges maintains the motivation of those who are the subject of the orders. They respond to both the deterrent effect and the approbation they receive when they make good progress. The involvement of the judge is not only good for the offenders, it is good for the judges themselves. Their involvement means that they obtain valuable experience as to how to use the orders most effectively. They appreciate that the programs are long term and that progress can be slow with an ever-present danger of relapse. When an offender fails, it does not mean that the program should be abandoned. It is often more effective to return an offender to the order so that they can renew their attempt to break their addiction. Encouragingly, the number of orders terminated for failure to comply with the requirements is now running at 29%.
The Drug Treatment and Testing Order should provide a model for the new community penalties which the White Paper promises. The wider range of penalties the better. Of these penalties, it is my belief that 'community service minus' offers the greatest potential. Community service minus is a form of deferred sentence. It should enable our courts to adopt a similar approach to that of Red Hook and to the use we make of drug treatment and training orders. By offering to defer sentence, the court can provide an incentive to the offender to address his offending behaviour by, for example, becoming involved in a Restorative Justice program. The more weapons that are available to the judge the more likely that further offending can be avoided.
The White Paper provides a vision of what might be achieved by diverting offenders from crime without burdening our prisons. However, the vision has no hope of fulfilment unless the Probation Service is to be funded on a different scale from what is now proposed. All the new programs, whether they relate to new or existing community punishments or the supervision of offenders after prison, depend on the close engagement of the Probation Service. Community punishments will be shunned by judges if they cannot rely on that supervision taking place. However, the Probation Service, because of a lack of resources, is finding it difficult to fulfil even its present obligations. The time the Probation Service takes to prepare a standard pre-sentence report is extending because of a lack of resources.
The Probation Service is being forced to focus its activities in a manner which means that sentencers are not obtaining the help that they need. With greater funding there is little doubt that the Probation Service could be far more effective than it is able to be at the present time. Unless this lack of resources is tackled the reforms will be of little value. The whole credibility of the Government's programme of reform of hangs on the resources it is prepared to provide for the probation service.
Conclusion
I left the question of the funding of the Probation Service to last because it appears to me that everything else I have said depends upon getting our priorities right. New initiatives are fine, but unless we tackle the basic tasks properly the criminal justice system will remain a quicksand. A quicksand in which admirable initiatives slowly disappear leaving the landscape as barren as it was before their arrival.
Real change involves spending money to save money. The old approach has proved a failure. A fresh approach, appreciative of the range of options which are now available and open to new ideas such as Restorative Justice, offers much more hope for victims than the system at present.
In different parts of the country it is possible to find a variety of approaches to deal with offenders which are backed by solid evidence that they work. The question which remains is, how do we take forward and build on what has been learnt.
It was 12 years ago now that crime first brought me to Manchester. It was on 1 April 1990 that the Strangeways Prison disturbance occurred. When I produced my report, with Judge Stephen Tumim, the prospects for putting disturbances behind us appeared bright. The serious disturbance at Lincoln Prison last week confirmed that, although for a time we had helped to produce a sane, sensible and just prison system, our efforts have been frustrated. Not because there was anything wrong with what we proposed, but because Parliament did not take the necessary steps or, indeed, any steps to control the prison population.
We are wiser today than we were then. We have tried a more punitive approach and that has failed. There is an opportunity now for a different approach, a holistic approach, which recognises that all parts of the justice system need to pull together. I earnestly hope that that is what will happen over the next 12 years and that future Rose lecturers will not have to tackle the situation with which we are faced with today.
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