'A lot to do': Prisons minister says community orders need to be ‘trusted more’ by courts
“Doing this job comes with a health warning,” Prisons Minister Lord James Timpson joked. “The number of people who have come up to me and said: ‘How are you?’”
As CEO of the Timpson Group, Mr Timpson gained public recognition for his company’s decision to hire hundreds of ex-offenders within his stores.
Now a government minister within the Ministry of Justice, tackling prison capacity and reoffending are among the long list of challenges in his in-tray.
Many campaigners hoped his appointment would mark a gear shift in how the justice system rehabilitates prisoners and supports victims.
His first few months have been a baptism of fire, coinciding with an overcrowding crisis in which some male prisons were running at over 99 percent capacity - a problem compounded by recent riots that saw more than 1,000 people arrested.
Mr Timpson has, throughout his short tenure, kept a relatively low public profile, but speaking at an event hosted by the Fabian Society at Labour Party conference, he outlined his vision for the role.
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“I’m in this for the long haul, and I hope by putting me in this position the prime minister has sent a signal that we need to change the system and I’m hopefully going to be around long enough to do it,” he told attendees.
“We need a probation service that has enough staff that are trained, that are experienced and we need to work alongside the courts,” he added.
He was directly challenged by the audience on the need to use community orders more as alternatives to prison.
“We don’t want suspended sentences,” one audience member told him. “The law says a community order is a direct alternative to custody. We need massive publicity, we need Government branding and I beg you to say it.”
Mr Timpson expressed sympathy with her view replying: “I completely agree with you about the positive impact of community sentencing but I think it needs to be trusted more by the courts.”
He also said he recognised the importance of bringing the public onside and restoring confidence in the system.
“When it comes to the point on the view of the public, this is something that I am really aware of because not everybody will have my view on what prisons are for but we need to make sure that everything we do cuts crime, if it cuts crime and reduces reoffending then I hope the public will follow us.”
His message was one of determined optimism, admitting to the audience that there was “a lot to do”.
But he also reflected on the impact of the summer riots, sparked by the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport, and warned of the dangers of continuing to run an overheated prisons system without reform.
“One of the key lessons is you can’t run prisons at 99.7 per cent full when you then have civil disobedience like we had and you get to a point where there is less than 100 spaces left in the whole prison estate in England and Wales,” he said.
“It is dangerous and it means the police and courts can’t do their job.”
“We were lucky that we just had enough spaces and we can’t run it that hot in the future.”
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