Swimming against the tide
Ben Jarman reports on the Quakers in Criminal Justice conference
An overwhelming body of research has shown that many British prisons are close to breaking point. Politicians eager for votes have postured to be tougher on crime, and rapidly filling prisons have struggled to cope with an imprisonment rate that already exceeds that of most countries in Europe. The rehabilitative function of prisons has come under strain, and reoffending rates remain unacceptably high, especially among the increasing proportion of prisoners serving short sentences for comparatively minor offences. As Quakers we have long been aware of these issues and the importance of justice for all. In this context, the Ministry of Justice’s recent Green Paper on sentencing, Breaking the Cycle, offers grounds for hope; although prompted in part by the need to cut budgets, it does offer solutions that may wean a sick system from its addiction to punishment. The Green Paper, backed by Kenneth Clarke, has sparked intense dissent among sections of the Tory party and the media.
In this context, the Quakers in Criminal Justice 2011 conference, held at Woodbrooke in late February, made ‘Swimming Against the Tide’ its theme. More than forty Friends with links to the criminal justice system gathered to hear from practitioners in the field and ponder what it means to hold and practise Quaker values in a system so heavily concentrated on punishment. The attendees included numerous Quaker prison chaplains and prison visitors, two former prison governors, a retired chief constable, magistrates, ex-prisoners, members of QPSW’s Crime and Community Justice Group plus representatives from QUNO, QCEA, Quaker Service in Ireland, and various Area Meetings within BYM.
Some speakers and sessions focused on ways to mitigate the harm done by imprisonment. Simon Armson, a psychotherapist at the Broadmoor secure hospital, former Samaritan and current ministerial advisor on deaths in custody, outlined shocking statistics on the prevalence of mental illnesses among prisoners, as well as on the extent of deaths in state custody – on average, 681 a year between 1999 and 2008 (including suicides in prisons and elsewhere under the Mental Health Act). His presentation made a powerful case to extend greater support and more effective listening services in prisons. Meanwhile, Kevin Armstrong, chair of the Community Chaplaincy Association (CCA), spoke of the efforts of this network of mainly grassroots, voluntary organisations to mentor released prisoners in the weeks immediately before and after their release. Members of the CCA aim to mobilise support for released prisoners, especially among faith groups, and Kevin’s account of his work with Hindu and Muslim groups in Leicester was a powerful rebuttal of David Cameron’s recent attack on the ability of different cultures to practise the same ‘British’ values while retaining their cultural distinctiveness.
The harm done by our current system is not confined to offenders, however. Peter Wallis’s concerns about the effects of crime on young people in Oxfordshire led him to create SAFE, a charity offering counselling and support to young crime victims. Young people are more likely to be victims of crime, and less likely to report it to the police; they can also lack the personal resilience and resources to come to terms with difficult experiences, and are more likely than adults to suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms as a result of their experiences. Peter explained that the charity Victim Support does not see working with young people as its core work, and so he has pioneered workshops that assist young victims of crime to identify and develop the resources that will, in the future, help them to feel secure and able to manage the risks entailed in daily life. Peter’s work with SAFE is in its early stages and funding is tight. Friends would do well to look up the work of SAFE and perhaps consider ways in which they could help this project establish firm roots.
Research indicates that crime victims (especially those affected by serious crime) often feel dissatisfied with a justice system in which they find neither opportunities to express the harm done to them by a crime, nor the influence over how that harm should be put right. The conference included a variety of workshops. Marian Liebmann led hers on the topic of Restorative Justice (RJ). There are a variety of methods and definitions in existence, but typically RJ interventions seek to bring those affected by a crime together to agree an account of the harm that it has done and what the perpetrator may do to try and put the harm right. Research indicates that RJ leads to greater victim satisfaction, and can have powerful effects on the perpetrator by bringing into sharp focus the consequences of his or her actions. Marian detailed the RJ schemes currently in operation in the UK, and focused on the opportunities presented by the Green Paper, which contains some very positive measures but in some senses may be seen not to go far enough. Marian was clear that for restorative principles to achieve their full potential, they must suffuse all aspects of the justice system from top to bottom, and careful thought needs to be put into how to promote them. For example, Northern Ireland has developed a youth justice system based around restorative principles, and takes great care to publicise and promote the benefits of mediation, achieving higher rates of victim participation than elsewhere. The system has been very successful both in reducing youth offending and in achieving high rates of victim satisfaction.
The wider application of restorative principles was the subject of the opening and closing sessions of the conference. Peter Clarke, the director of Glebe House, spoke at the conference’s opening session on how running an entire institution along restorative lines could achieve dramatic results. Glebe House, in Cambridgeshire, works for two years or more with young men, mostly in their late teens, who have been involved in perpetrating sexual harm. Glebe House is run as a therapeutic community. The decisions and conflicts that come with living with others are explored as subjects of discussion in three daily meetings. These involve all members of the community, and are chaired by residents who learn to take greater responsibility for themselves and others after what have often been very difficult upbringings. Peter explained that the aim of the community is to help the residents understand what is unacceptable behaviour, and what in their own personalities and backgrounds may make it possible. By a carefully managed series of steps, they are then helped back into a normal life outside Glebe House. The aim is for them to be able to understand and manage the risk they pose to others; this allows probation and other monitoring agencies to focus on supporting rather than merely controlling them.
Peter’s presentation about Glebe House’s work was a reminder that punitive justice does not make enough demands on offenders, particularly in not treating them as responsible adults who must confront the consequences of their actions. Tim Newell, who concluded the weekend’s conference, is well known to Quakers through his 2000 Swarthmore Lecture, Forgiving Justice, and his work as a prison governor and, more recently, with those who have been bereaved by homicide. Tim presented a challenging outline of what he believes are the five tenets of injustice in society: elitism, exclusion, prejudice, greed, and despair at the possibility of solutions. He argued that defeating injustice comes in admitting our despair at the current system and then acknowledging that only a change in attitudes makes different solutions possible. In reference to criminal justice, he called for an end to punitive justice, which infantilises offenders and does not ask enough of them in terms of taking responsibility and putting right the harm they have done, and instead isolates them from society with rehabilitation left to chance. Tim’s holistic theory of justice presents great challenges to the current system, but also makes a strong case for the unique contribution that Quaker ideas can make in reforming a system that manifestly does not work.
At the end of the conference, Friends reflected on their hopes and concerns in the current situation. In the immediate future, we hope that the significant positive steps presented in the Green Paper are not defeated by dissent within the government on the specious grounds that retributive punishment is ‘what the people want’.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.