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Daily Mail
November 26, 2013
One of the country’s most senior judges provoked fury last night when he criticised short jail sentences for interfering with the home lives of criminals.
Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court, said he rejected the idea that a couple of months behind bars – and what he called ‘the clang of the prison gates’ – could help bring criminals to their senses.
Instead, he warned such sentences ‘can be disruptive’ for the prisoner’s job and home life. The judge made his comments after visiting Holloway women’s prison in North London.
He also expressed concern that prisoners there were forced to share a cell, when ‘the vast majority’ would, he said, prefer to have a room to themselves.
Bizarrely, he also complained about ‘bossy notices’ on prison walls, and the cheap furniture he saw in the jail, and expressed astonishment at how little money was spent on prisoners’ food.
His comments raised concerns that a senior member of the judiciary appeared to be intervening in highly political debate around sentencing policy.
Critics accused the judge of seeing things ‘entirely from the point of view of the criminal’ and failing to consider victims. Ministers defended short sentences as ‘effective’.
His comments came in an article for the November issue of Independent Monitor, the magazine for prison monitoring boards, after a visit to Holloway in North London earlier this year.
In the year to March 2013, a total of 18,724 criminals were given jail sentences of between three and six months.
Another 25,165 were given jail terms of up to three months.
The judge wrote: ‘As a judge one message I took away was the highly questionable value of short sentences.’
‘The notion that a couple of months in prison will help bring a defendant to her senses, the so-called “clang of the prison gates”, has always had a real resonance for me.’
He added: ‘But, following my visit to Holloway, having listened to the probation officers and others, I have a very different perspective. A short prison sentence can be disruptive for the prisoner’s job, home etc.
‘And on the other hand, if an offender needs help for any reason, such as substance abuse or training for a job, there is no point in her being in prison for much less than six months.
