Children need to be taught in the home the difference between
right and wrong if persistently high levels of crime and
anti-social behaviour are to be reduced, according to a leading
prison reformer and former treasurer of the Conservative
Party.
, who has conducted reviews of
prisoner rehabilitation for the Government, deplored politicians
who engage in a penal “arms race” by pledging longer and tougher
prison sentences.
But he also condemned “liberal optimists” who claim that social
and economic disadvantage is to blame for
criminality.
He said that they assume people are basically good,
that crime will plummet if unequal societal structures
are reformed, and that high levels of criminality are
driven by adversity and other 'causes'.
In a speech organised by the think-tank, the Centre for
Social Justice, the Conservative peer linked high crime rates to
unprecedented levels of family breakdown, saying that reversing
this trend is critical to finding a lasting solution to levels of
crime that have propelled the prison population to record
levels.
All the evidence shows that children from broken homes are far
more likely to break the law and wind up in prison.
Following on from the tougher sentences announced in the King’s
Speech, he said:
“My response to the arms race which penal populism generates in
necessarily vote-hungry politicians, is that, like the nuclear
arms race, we simply cannot afford the price tag, either in sheer
cash terms of £47,000 per prisoner per annum, or the squandering
of human potential.”
He said that in the face of a “vengeful” public thirsting for
retribution, senior politicians from the two main political
parties know this and admit to it - but only once they
have left office.
The counterpoint to this “penal populism” comes from “liberal
optimists”, who maintain that high crime levels are driven by
poverty, adversity and other forms of disadvantage.
But this “causalism” has now overtaken “moralism” – the
traditional approach of teaching young people the difference
between right and wrong and a sense of personal
responsibility.
said: “This country needs to
find a way though the extremes of causalism aka liberal optimism
or hard-edged moralism in the form of penal populism.
“We need a decent and humane prison system for men and women that
is perceived by the public to be effective in both punishing and
rehabilitating those willing to be reformed, so there is less
crime and fewer victims.
“I have already referred to the neglected but indispensable role
that stable parenting and family relationships play in keeping
children safe and helping them to build a secure identity.
“To this I would add enabling parents to reinforce the difference
between right and wrong in their children’s lives. They and not
teachers are responsible for helping them self-regulate and be
others-oriented instead of adopting the selfish and narcissistic
approach to life of many popular role models.”
highlighted the damage done to
the nation’s social fabric by high levels of family breakdown and
its links to criminal behaviour.
“The fabric of our relational life is becoming increasingly
threadbare – almost half of all children do not grow up with both
their parents, which means a high percentage grow up with
enduring parental conflict and or in stepfamilies which are very
hard for all parties to navigate, but particularly children.
“Moreover, children who grow up with non-biological
father-substitutes, are eight times more likely to be on the
at-risk register and 50 times more likely to die of an inflicted
injury than those living with two biological parents. The CSJ
found they are also twice as likely to get involved in crime.
“Seventy five per cent of young offenders did not grow up with
both parents and 40 per cent were on the child protection
register or experienced abuse or neglect. A full quarter of all
those in our prisons spent time in local authority care, and, to
quote a recent Lord Chancellor, ‘abuse and violence form the
backdrop to the lives of many.’
But families are also critical to the rehabilitation of
offenders, said.
Official figures show that prisoners who receive visits from
family members are 39 per cent less likely to reoffend than those
who do not. This is far greater than the impact of access to
educational and employment opportunities while in jail, which cut
the likelihood of reoffending by 9 per cent, and that of
treatment for drug and alcohol addictions, producing a 19 per
cent drop.
ENDS
Click here to read the speech in
full.
