Short-Sentence Reoffenders 'Cost £10bn'

Wed, 10 March 2010 Courtesy of: Guardian

A failure to tackle the criminality of 60,000 prisoners who serve sentences shorter than 12 months is costing the country between £7bn and £10bn annually in reoffending, according to a report from Whitehall's spending watchdog published today.

The National Audit Office says so little is done to tackle their reoffending rates that more than half spend almost all day in their cells because they have no work or education courses.

While £300m is spent keeping the 60,000 short-term inmates in England and Wales secure, safe and well, prisons are struggling to meet their needs, the report says. Most have a longer criminal history than any other single group of prisoners: the average is 16 previous convictions each. They also experience high levels of homelessness, joblessness and drug and alcohol problems once they are released into society.

“The uncomfortable truth is they are not working, studying or doing almost anything constructive”

The auditors say most spend fewer than six weeks in prison. Overcrowding and constraints on physical space mean that there are not enough activity spaces for all, problems compounded by the long waiting lists for courses that tackle the offending behaviour of those in prison.

"Only a small proportion of prison budgets is spent on activity intended to reduce reoffending by prisoners on short sentences, despite the fact that 60% of such prisoners are reconvicted within a year of release, at an estimated economic and social cost of £7bn to £10bn a year," says the NAO report. Edward Leigh, the chairman of the House of Commons public accounts committee, said it demonstrated that attempts by the Ministry of Justice to tackle the "merry-go-round" of incarceration and criminality were ineffective.

"The uncomfortable truth is they are not working, studying or doing almost anything constructive with their time. Indeed, half of them spend all day, every day sitting in their cells," he said.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "Prison is not always the right answer for less serious offenders. In some of these cases, a tough community sentence can be more effective than a short prison sentence — more effective in terms of rehabilitating offenders, turning them away from crime and therefore giving greater protection to the public."

The report was welcomed by the Criminal Justice Alliance, a penal reform group. Jon Collins, a member, said: "Instead of spending more money in a futile attempt to make these short sentences work better, the government should instead focus on keeping more of these people out of custody, freeing up space and resources in the prison estate to better rehabilitate those people who do need to be there."