Practically speaking?
Sir: In his critique of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Prison Reform Lecture, Matthew Parris (Another voice, 15 June) agrees with Dr Carey that 'we imprison too easily and too often' but maintains that `these are practical arguments' rather than the moral ones advanced by the Archbishop.
This criticism does not stand up. One of the main objections to unnecessary impris- onment is that it punishes the innocent families of the offender — hardly just a `practical' matter. Similarly, 20 per cent of those remanded in custody turn out to be acquitted by the courts and another 37 per cent receive a non-custodial sentence. To hold these people in some of the worst prison conditions for so long on remand raises questions of justice and morality. And how are we to describe the high rate of suicides among them: a 'practical' problem?
Matthew Parris also claims that the Archbishop is too 'timid' and 'evasive' to acknowledge the role of retribution and just deserts. But the Archbishop quoted with approval Churchill's famous phrase about our obligations to 'those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of pun- ishment'. Dr Carey acknowledged that pun- ishment is a necessary means through which the offender, the victim and the wider society can know just how serious a view society takes of the wrong which has been done and that this involves the courts in inflicting 'pain and humiliation'. But the offender, he said, must be helped to go beyond this pain to acknowledgment of responsibility, repentance and reparation — the very opposite of Matthew Parris's false suggestion that Dr Carey sought to `shrug off the issue of personal culpability.
Surprisingly, Matthew Parris also claims, `We do not repudiate "the crime". We repudiate the criminal.' Not so. The sin, not the sinner, is the target of our hatred and rejection. The human being, whatever label is slapped on him or her, remains to be treated with respect and to be led, through repentance, to new life. For purely practical reasons, of course.
Andrew Purkis
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Secretary for Public Affairs, Lambeth Palace, London SE1
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