POLITICS
Mr Hurd disapproves of Mr Howard because Mr Howard does not dislike his own party
BRUCE ANDERSON
Prisons are depressing places. They fill any thoughtful visitor with a sense of waste. Waste of public money, but above all, waste of human potential.; the average criminal's principal victim is himself.
This creates a problem for those who have to administer the prison system and it explains the systematic intellectual dishon- esty which many of them practise. In search of its future senior civil servants, the Home Office recruits idealistic youngsters; so does the prison service, at least in the high- er grades. These individuals naturally want to do good, and it is very hard to do good in prisons. Humankind cannot bear very much reality, and when confronted with an unpleasant reality, it tends to go into denial and to create a make-believe alternative. That is what the Home Office and the prison service have been doing for the past four decades. Their make-believe is called rehabilitation.
The flaw in the notion that prisons can rehabilitate is both obvious and fundamen- tal. Many prisoners are inadequates. As a result of a wretched upbringing, they find it difficult to form relationships or hold down Jobs. But the idea that by putting a man in prison you can help him to function better in society is risible. Rehabilitation is a myth invented by high-minded officials to justify their activities to themselves. The 1990 White Paper was correct: prison is often an expensive way of making bad men worse.
Yet it is also indispensable; Michael Howard was right to insist that 'prison works'. It performs three crucial roles: pun- ishment, incapacitation and deterrence. The public's sense of justice would be out- raged if the authorities stopped punishing criminals, and now that we have dispensed with corporeal sanctions, prison is the only alternative. Prison also incapacitates crimi- nals, a point persistently ignored by those who complain about its cost. A man in prison cannot commit fresh crimes, or at least not against the general public. Finally, prison does deter. Most criminals stop committing offences around the age of 25, and the fear of going back to prison is a major factor in this.
By the age of 25, the average criminal will have acquired a significant amount of `form', which means that future offences will probably mean gaol. Wives or girl- friends do not enjoy their lives being dis- rupted in this way and frequently issue ulti- matums which are often successful. So the threat of prison puts an end to many crimi- nal careers.
Law and order is a Hobbesian business, and we should be suspicious of anyone who argues otherwise, whether it be penologists advocating rehabilitation or lawyers talking about rights. It is always worth reminding those who administer the criminal justice system, especially the judges, that the right to order is not only one of the most impor- tant of all rights; none of the others can be securely enjoyed in its absence.
Michael Howard understands all this, which is why he has made himself so unpopular with the penological liberals, among whom we must now include Dou- glas Hurd. These high-minded ladies and gentlemen are seriously unhappy with recent developments in penal policy, for two reasons. The first and less important is the Labour Party's failure to act as a check and balance. Whatever their private views — if they have any — Tony Blair and Jack Straw are determined to prevent the Tories from exploiting the issue of law and order at the next election. This means that any criminal justice Bill which Mr Howard pro- poses will receive minimal opposition in the Commons. The current Bill, which has now reached the Lords, contains proposals on sentencing and police powers which offend the liberal intelligentsia, and to their dis- may Messrs Blair and Straw have shown no interest; their sole concern is votes.
But the main reason why the liberals are so upset is Michael Howard's refusal to play the game according to the rules which they have established. Senior officials in the Home Office are clear as to a Tory Home Secretary's duty: to connive with them in order to frustrate Tory — and public opinion. Willie Whitelaw played this role perfectly. Mrs Thatcher wanted a short, sharp shock for young offenders, and would not be denied. But Willie ensured that, as implemented, it meant nothing more than a normal young offenders' regime plus a bit of drill. Once, during a law and order debate late at night, when Tory back- benchers were vying to outdo one another in proposing sanguinary measures, Willie became so fed up that he reclined full length on the front bench, needing only a covering of snow to resemble the Alps seen from the Po Valley, as he muttered repeat- edly: 'God, I hate my party. I hate my party.
I can't tell you how much I hate my party.' That is the message Home Office officials want to hear from their Tory masters.
Mr Hurd had a much more cautious and feline style, but even if he did not hate his party, he was determined to outwit it. His party conference speeches were masterly performances; one marvelled at the way in which he always persuaded the representa- tives to cheer their way to the invariable standing ovation, while he told them what they did not want to hear. He regards that as one of the most important duties a Home Secretary has: to resist public pres- sure for inhumane measures and to ensure that penal policy remains under the control of those who understand it.
That raises a basic question: how much is their understanding worth? The average Tory conference representative thinks he knows what has gone wrong with law and order: the abolition of hanging and flogging, and of corporal punishment in schools, plus an insufficiently harsh prison regime. After a generation of abject penal failure, who is to say that the representatives are wrong and the penologists right? With the possible exception of education, no area of public policy has been as unsuccessful as law and order. Education and law and order also happen to be the only two areas in which so- called experts from the pre-Thatcher era still exert significant influence.
Mr Howard has diminished that influence, which is why he is unpopular in certain quar- ters, including the judiciary. Certain judges are talking as if the Home Secretary were proposing 'three strikes and you're out'. In reality, Mr Howard merely wishes to ensure that a burglar convicted for the third time receives a minimum of three years, instead of the present farcical arrangements under which a burglar sent to gaol for a seventh offence — and not all are — is given an aver- age sentence of just over 19 months. The lib- erals should be reminded that their progeni- tor, Bentham, argued that every crime should have a set sentence, and that judges should have no discretion; to him, their role was analogous to that of a booking clerk looking up a timetable.
Mr Howard is no less sensitive than Dou- glas Hurd, no more prone to believe in punishment for its own sake. But he does believe that his duty as Home Secretary is to protect the public. If that means a larger prison population, so be it.
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