May 13, 2005: Lord Woolf: Probation is "Key to Tackling Reoffending"

Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, delivered the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology's first Radzinowicz Lecture, on 'Making Sense of Sentencing', yesterday.

Lord Woolf stated that it was critical what happens to the offender following sentence, and welcomed the National Offender Management Service as it should “enable the Prison Service and the Probation Service, by working jointly… to achieve more than they could separately”. He argued that government needed to identify the resources to support sentencing policy over the next 4 years and then tailor policies to fit the resources available. As Lord Woolf put it:

“In the past policies have been embarked on without sufficient attention being paid to whether or not the resources (I am not only referring to financial resources) are in place to enable the policy to be successfully implemented.”

Lord Woolf also argued that there is only so much change that the criminal justice system could absorb at any one time, and what was now required was a period of consolidation. The system had reached the limit of the amount of change it can, for the time being, absorb. This was not, he argued:

“an expression of judicial conservatism. For the government to exercise the restraint in legislating I have suggested would be a radical change in government policy towards criminal justice. The government should decide to exercise a self denying ordinance and declare a closed season on sentencing legislation. I understand the desire to respond to public reaction over the latest horrendous crime. However, to resist this pressure would make a significant contribution to achieving the real gains that the government and judiciary would like to see.”

Probation was the key to tacking re-offending:

“If a community sentence, which is far less expensive, would be suitable for an offender, as a punishment for his crime and it would be constructive, it is wrong in principle to send him to prison. If there are no resources for drug treatment and training orders, it is pointless imposing such orders... The Probation Service is the key to tackling re-offending."

"This is so whether we are considering the person who is sentenced to a Community Sentence or the person who has been sentenced to imprisonment and is returning to the community. The role of the Probation Service is critical. We have to raise the standards of the Probation Service. The first priority is to improve their morale and effectiveness."

"We now have more police. As a result more offenders are going to come before the courts… We must now tackle what is not being achieved by sentences that the courts impose. We must make inroads into the abysmal re-offending rates. Success in doing this could transform the situation. Our efforts must not be deflected by the protests from those who ignore the reality of the situation we are in."

Lord Woolf considered that in future  imprisonment should be used primarily in 4 situations:

1. Where imprisonment is essential for public protection.
2. Where a crime's seriousness is such that it can only be marked by a significant prison sentence.
3. A 'clang of the prison door' sentence i.e. a sentence to mark the serious nature of offending by a very short time in prison combined with other punishments.
4. Where the crime itself does not make prison necessary but it becomes necessary as n offender refuses to comply with other sentences.

Lord Woolf argued for the following measures to bring “sense into sentencing”:

• Developing a consensus as to what resources should be available to the criminal justice system and ensuring that those resources are used in the manner which is most likely to provide the best protection for the public.
• Using the platform that Parliament and the Government have now provided to halt the continuing rise in the use of imprisonment and instead confining imprisonment primarily for the most serious offences and, in particular, for violent and dangerous offenders;
• Making the broad range of community punishments really meaningful so that they prevent re-offending and inspire confidence in the public;
• Providing more extensive drug and other substance abuse testing and training;
• Relying more on properly enforced fines and the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
• Avoiding further legislation except when it is absolutely necessary so as provide the courts and NOMS with the opportunity they need to absorb the changes that have been made and deliver an effective criminal justice system.