More criminals than ever don't go to jail.
by Alison Gordon. Social Affairs Editor.
Rapists, robbers and burglars are more likely to avoid prison in Britain than ever before, new research reveals today.
Over the past 40 years the chance of a criminal being sent to jail has dropped by 80 per cent. The crisis is largely blamed on a 12-fold increase in crime combined with a dramatic drop in the detection rates and the increased use of cautions.
The study, due to be published tomorrow by the influential Institute of Economic Affairs, challenges the Lord Chief Justice's controversial call last week for fewer criminals to be jailed and more to be given community sentences instead.
It shows how police are increasingly frustrated by the Crown Prosecution Service's decision to drop cases and how criminals, especially young offenders, are left laughing at the law after escaping with a 'ticking-off'
The findings, compiled by social policy guru Charles Murray, show a dramatic drop between 1954 and 1994 in the number of villains jailed.
In 1994, police detected fewer than a quarter of robberies and a fifth of criminal damage cases. Forty years ago, they cleared up more than half of both crimes. Burglary and theft detection rates had also fallen by nearly half in 1994.
Under former Home Secretary Michael Howard, the likelihood of imprisonment increased by 25 per cent between 1992 and 1995, but did not keep up with the rise in crime.
In England, the jail populaion would have to increase five-fold to reestablish the 1954 ratio of prisoners to offences. Six disused Army camps are being considered as emergency jails as the prison population - currently at a record 62,067 - rises by 300 a week.
Mr Murray, based at the American Enterprise Unit, said last night: 'When the police say there's no point in making arrests because nothing is going to happen to the culprits anyway, they are not inventing excuses. When offenders laugh off an arrest, it is not bravado. The frustration of the police and the cockiness of the offender are both based on a realistic understanding of how the system now works.'
He added: 'It is thefact that crime has become safer for the criminal in the past 40 years' Mr Murray says part of the problem is the use of police cautions.
In 1954, cautions handed out for indictable offences amounted to only five per cent. Four decades later the figure more than treblend to 16 per cent. In the same period, young offenders have in the vast majority of cases gone unpunished. Only ten per cent of all youths under 14 picked up by the police in 1994 for criminal activity were found guilty of anything - the rest were cautioned.
Sentencing patterns are also criticised by Mr Murray, one of the most influential figures in the formulation of US welfare policy. In 1954, courts handed out custodial sentences in about 21 per cent of guilty verdicts. By 1994 this figure had dropped to about 17 per cent.
Researchers point out that in the US, an increase in the number of prisoners between 1975 and 1989 prevented 390,000 murders rapes, robberies and assaults in 1989 alone. But the criminal justice system is there to punish the guilty, exonerate the innocent and serve the interests of the law-abiding. Sympathy for the offender comes last.
'Restoring lawfulness means drastically reduced use of caution, charging defendants with the crimes they commit and not reaching agreemets that let offenders plead guilty to lesser charges' Mr Murray said money needed to be spent on more police, prosecutors, courtrooms and prisons.
