Here are some horrendous statistics:
Figures show offenders on probation were convicted of more than 1,000 serious violent or sexual offences in the two years from April 2006. Those included 120 murders, 103 rapes and 80 kidnappings. But the figures are likely to rise as nearly 400 criminals have been charged with serious crimes and are still awaiting trial. Criminals on probation received 44 manslaughter convictions in the two-year period, and 49 were convicted of arson attacks where they hoped to seriously hurt someone...
Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of Napo, the probation officers' union, said: "The number of offenders involved in further serious crimes is less than 0.5% of the total under supervision."
The two missing figures that we need here are:
1. Of the prisoners on probation who committed those crimes, how many of those were released early and committed the crime during the period when they rightfully should have still been locked up? Notwithstanding that sentences appear to be far too lenient, if somebody has served their full sentence, then we don't have much choice but to release them and supervise them.
2. The 0.5% figure given by Harry Fletcher is meaningless. Maybe 99.5% of prisoners on probation were convicted of non-violent crimes (from soliciting for sex to non-payment of Council Tax), whom you'd hardly expect to subsequently kill or rape somebody? The real question is, how high is the recidivism rate among those with prior convictions for violent crimes?
Armed with these further statistics, we could then do a good old-fashioned cost benefit analysis comparing the reduction in the number of crimes committed with the additional cost of keeping them locked up for longer. Or we could free up prison places by releasing all but the most serious non-violent offenders and/or sensible legalisation/regulation/taxation of brothels and certain drugs.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Missing figures round
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10 comments:
I must admit I thought our kidnapping rates were very low compared to most places. Do you know if this means that a disproportionate number of these released are career criminals & that kidnapping is a career criminal's crime or that stuff like illegally taking chilfren in cutody cases is what is meant?
I suspect the former; snatching your own children might technically be kidnapping but it's hardly the sort of thing you do as a career.
Agreed, never expect all the facts when we're talking about crime, if we had them then we might be able to do more than just emote about these things and actually work towards a balanced solution. My understanding is that it's the low level crimes such as burglary that have the highest repeat rates, whilst sex crimes are surprisingly low (about 1%). The ASI had the figures ages ago but their search function sucks.
Closest I can find to mention on ASI:
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/justice-and-civil-liberties/the-politics-of-fear-200808211912/
They ought to cross-link and tag their blogposts. Amateurs.
PT, let's assume that's true for sex crimes and burglary. But there must be some sort of rule of thumb of predicting reoffending rates, i.e. if you've committed one sex offence, your chance of reoffending might be 1%; but if you've committed two, the chance of you reoffending might be 50% or even 99%. And so on.
Absolutely, the question is: whilst a probation system built around probabilities would be effective, would it be politically viable? I doubt it because of the way the newspapers prefer anecdote to analysis.
PT, would it be politically viable?
I should hope so! 99% of people in this country aren't criminals. Sod the 1% who choose a life of crime.
That point about reoffending is what the US 3 strikes law is about. It does seem to be working in cutting US crime on the other hand with 2.3 million in prison I wouldn't count that as success.
NC, good point, as at 2006 the USA prison population was five times the rate of ours (adjusted for population).
But it's still a cost-benefit thing; cash cost of prison place vs. cost to society of the crimes that they would otherwise be committing.
PT, I doubt the ... drug offenders in them represent a decent cost:benefit ratio on that. However, it's probably a bargain on the violent offenders.
Exactly. The so-called drug offenders should be allowed to buy their drugs legally in safe doses, with a fair wodge of tax on top. The cost of the war on drugs doesn't just exceed the benefits: there are no benefits. And in exchange we could lock up violent offenders for X times as long.
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