Burnham’s first real misstep in his honeymoon period has been the row over the early release scheme. Starmer introduced it  in order to prevent the overcrowding in prisons becoming  an absolute emergency.

The mass media, especially the tabloids, has focused on the two young men who were passengers in the car that dragged PC Harper to his death.  They were jailed for manslaughter and this offence fell into the category for early release. Rapists and child abusers had already been excluded. An official spokesperson from Number 10 said that they were not excluded from the release scheme.

A day later responding to tabloid anger and nearly a million strong petition, Burnham instructed his justice minister to find a way of keeping the two young men in jail. 

Once Labour decded to stay in the narrative defined by the right wing opposition and the media they were bound to get into a mess.  For Labour, the dire crisis in the prisons is purely down to Tory mismanagement in cutting the justice budget and not building more prisons. The overcrowding line is accepted as a law of nature or an act of god – all these evil people need to pay for their crimes.  Not one voice from the Labour government has actually asked the obvious questions:

• Why does Britain have the highest incarceration rates in Europe?
• Who ends up in prison and is it in any way related to the sort of deeply unequal society we have become?
• What other proposals could you make to deal with the problem instead of just building more prisons?

Tougher sentencing leads to overcrowding

Overcrowding in prisons has been a crisis discussed at least since the 1970s and there were regular outbreaks of rioting and disorder as a result. I remember when numbers reached 80.000 politicians and pundits were already exercised about it.  Its causes cannot be limited to what one other political party did. 

Labour just repeats the mantra that the Tories are responsible not building more prisons. It falsely claims that the prison crisis is just a Tory crisis. The rise in prisoners and overcrowding has been going on for decades

Between entering office in 1997 and Tony Blair’s departure in 2007, his government created over 3,000 new criminal offences—averaging roughly one new offence for every day in power. By the time Labour left office in 2010 under Gordon Brown, that figure exceeded 4,200 (disclosed in parliamentary answers)

Remember Blair’s mantra, Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime? He mostly dealt with the first part and did little about the second. Zoe Williams, the Guardian journalist, is the only person who I have seen on the media (Sky News) who raised the obvious issue that if politicians follow the tabloid and right wing push for tougher sentencing then you will have overcrowding. It is simple maths and a lot of rational people like lawyers have been saying this for long time.

Burnham might have said he wants to break with 40 years of neo-liberalism but on this issue he seems to stuck in the same reactionary time warp.

Should victims decide policy?

Victims do matter and the left is not opposed to understanding their stress, pain and grief. If you have undergone serial burglaries like I did during a two year period than you know how emotionally destabilising it can be. Victim impact statements read in court is a positive innovation. Women have historically not been recognised as victims in sexual abuse and rape cases.  Supporting progressive solutions to the problem of crime does not mean that we ignore what victims experience. Indeed most victims of crime are working class.

However you cannot let a justice system be led by what victims say or demand.  Under capitalist democracy there has been progress from previous societies where victims just take the law into their own hands and violently respond to the perpetrator without going through due process. Some (not all) relatives of murdered people call for the death penalty. Do we make law on the basis of what they say?  Victims have a voice but determining how we deal with crime cannot just be a matter for them.

Who is in prison?

Prison is overwhelmingly populated by the working class, particularly its poorest and most deprived  sectors. Since ethnic minorities mostly come from those sectors and also experience discrimination then they make up a disproportionate part of the prison population. If prison populations were based on some sort of quotient of evil or innate propensity for crime then you would expect prisoners to reflect the whole population. In fact the middle class and the rich are a very small minority.  

Nearly half (around 47% to 50%) of all incoming prisoners do not have any formal school qualifications.  Over 57% of adults entering prison have literacy skills below the level expected of an 11-year-old.  Ex-military personnel make up 3.6% of the total prison population. Current active service members make up 0.3% of the population although if you take all living ex service personnel it is equal to 3.8% of the population. The military is supposed to inculcate discipline, rule taking and skills but it is failing with thousands of people.

Does prison work?

If the second aim of prison after taking people off the streets is rehabilitation so they do not offend again, then the record is very poor. The overall proven reoffending rate sits near 29%, but surges to over 56% for adults released from short custodial sentences of under 12 months. These people with less serious offences should be the ones you could rehabilitate but prison in turning many into worse criminals.

Half of all prisoners lack access to work or education, and two-thirds are unemployed after release. Continual cuts in prison resources and the quality of probation and support means that it is very hard to reduce this high recidivism rate. Around half of prisoners take part in no prison work or learning, harming their employment chances post-release.

Up to 50% of people entering prisons in England and Wales have an identified, active drug problem or co-occurring substance use disorder tied to their overall criminal background. Drug usage in prison is widespread and prison staff may not say it publicly but they know that if there were no drug supply inside people would kick off even more than they do now.

Alex Norris – Burnham has ordered him to keep two young man who were sentenced for manslaughter of PC Harper in prison

Nordic example

So If you treated drugs use and misuse as a social and medical issue and decriminalised you immediately could begin to reduce the prison population. Around 9,008 to 10,700 prisoners in England and Wales are serving time primarily for drug-related crimes (such as supply, production, or importation), making up roughly 13% to 17% of the total prison population.  Zack Polanski and the Greens are right about changing the drug policy. Up to now Labour have distorted and smeared their policies on this.

Not one Labour government person has had the curiosity to just look at the Nordic countries. Less inequality there has resulted in much smaller, more manageable prison populations. Money is invested in decent rehabilitation schemes. If you live on minimum wages or are in precarious employment then it is quite logical that your propensity to find money from elsewhere will be stronger. Austerity by both Labour and the Tories have meant youth services have been cut to the bone. It results in even less support for young people who may opt for a ‘career’ in the local drugs trade.  A radical Labour government would launch a huge investment in youth services.

Women prisoners need not be there

Women in prison are mostly in for minor offences and could easily be dealt with in the community. At least one Labour spokesperson did manage to notice this anomaly and suggested more women prisoners could be released.  Around 3,500 to 3,600 women are held at any given time. Roughly 4% of all people in prison are female. Even a government ministry source states:

Women are typically jailed for non-violent, low-level, and acquisitive offences such as petty theft, shoplifting, and default on fines or license fees. These crimes are frequently driven by poverty, survival, substance misuse, or domestic coercion rather than chronic violent patterns (gov uk source)

Within a radical rupture with capitalism we could move to completely end the current prison system. A real programme is needed to significantly reduce inequality by job creation and boosting education, health, housing and other social spending.   

Reforms to cut prison numbers

Specific prison reforms are necessary and could be made now, these could be a start:

• a serious rehabilitation programme so that all prisoners could be given learning and skills training.
• less severe sentencing
• more community sentences
• decriminalising drugs
• closing women prisons and creating community support hubs
• releasing the 2000 prisoners being held on the old imprisonment for public protection (IPPs) scheme which brutally extend sentences if prisoners are considered a threat to the public, Simon Hattenstone has written on this here

Prison and crime are class issues of a capitalist system that tabloid headlines do not address.  Labour could easily resolve the overcrowding crisis if it broke with the bipartisan narrative and adopted bolder, progressive measures.