Who Lie in Jail
BY HUGH J. KLARE
0 NE in every two persons sentenced by the courts to imprisonment gets three months or less. That is really a pretty staggering figure and the Home Secretary has already acknowledged the need to look for alternative penal methods for those who get sentences too short either for deter- rence or reform. His department is now studying the question.
Yet a glance at the annual report of the Prison Commis- sioners shows that however necessary it is to find alternatives to short prison sentences, their use would still not lessen to any really appreciable extent the pressure on prison accommoda- tion. For although the yearly procession of under-three- monthers may seem. endless, the actual cell-space they occupy in our crowded jails is relatively small. Because they stay for a short time only, one and the same cell is used many times over in the year. Therefore the accommodation they occupy at any one time is only about 6 per cent. of the total. On the other hand, those who serve sentences from eighteen months up- wards occupy no less than 60 per cent. of the total living-space available in our prisons.
The fact of the matter is that many of the difficulties of our prison administrators are due not to more people being sen- tenced but to a much larger number of people getting very long sentences. The number of 'receptions,' as the Prison Commissioners hospitably call the bang of the cell door behind hapless backs, is virtually no higher than before the war. The only difference is that many more people stay behind those doors for a very much longer time. That is why our ancient prisons, some of which were scheduled for demolition long ago, are bursting at the seams.
There is no clearly discernible reason why so many more long sentences should be imposed. True, there has been a rise in more serious crime, but that rise accounts for only part of the increase in long sentences. A comparison between England and Scotland, for instance, shows that the average length of sentence for the same offence—housebreaking—is three and a half times as great in England and Wales; and that, to take another example, the proportion of prisoners serving three years and over in England and Wales is double that in Scotland. Yet the number of persons convicted per 100.000 of the popti' lation is actually higher in Scotland.
If the reason for high and an increasing number of long sentences does not lie with the offender, it must be with the Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions. Watching a trial at one of these courts one cannot help being struck by the contrast between the extreme care exercised to establish innocence or guilt, and the comparative rapidity with which even very long sentences are passed. particularly at Assizes. There can be little doubt that Petty Sessional Courts, which are only entitled to pass sentences of up to six months, case for case, take much more time and trouble in deciding what to do with the offender. This is not because lower courts are more careful and sensible than higher courts, but because they are in more or less per' manent session, whereas Courts of Assize meet very rarely' except in London and Manchester. The result is that short remands for inquiries are often impossible, and the pressure of cases to be dealt with is such that it is paradoxically in the higher courts that justice may tend to become a little rough.
It hardly needs emphasising that the passing of a long sen- tence of imprisonment is a very serious matter. Both in severity of punishment and in constructive training there comes a point of diminishing returns. For training purposes that point is probably somewhere near the end of the second year. Most prison governors will tell you that they cannot do anything very constructive for prisoners who serve either very short sentences, or sentences of more than three years (i.e., two years' if full remission is earned). After that period the most that can be done is to ameliorate the passage of time—the actual train' ing is over.
Two points seem to emerge from this picture. Firstly, it is hard to blame the prison administration for lack of facilities if, for no easily discernible reasons, our higher courts insist oil imposing longer and longer sentences which strain these facili- ties to breaking point. Secondly, it must be recognised that diagnosis is as important as treatment, and that a system of higher courts meeting as infrequently as Courts of Assize is a luxury we cannot afford if we want a penal system that works efficiently and helps in reducing crime.
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