'Only a royal commission can fix broken penal system'

Dangerously dysfunctional, broken and ignorant of falling crime rates is how a legal expert and a QC have described our penal system.

In a new report, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC and Professor Seán McConville say only a Royal Commission can fix the system. They contend that UK penal policy no longer serves the public interest and ignores evidence of falling crime rates.

McConville, professor of law and public policy at Queen Mary University of London, says politicians cannot deal with penal policy in a rational way:"Evidence-based discussions fall victim to partisan rants, rituals of finger pointing and recurrent spirals of dishonesty."

He continued: "Regardless of where one stands as to the usefulness of incarceration, we must at least ensure that it is used in accordance with evidence of effectiveness.

"Between 1992 and 2013, the incarceration rate in England and Wales increased from 90 to 148 prisoners per 100,000 of population, despite falling crime rates during the same period. Those who do go to prison will also remain there for much longer than was the case in 1992. This counterfactual trend is extraordinarily expensive, since imprisonment costs between £35,000 and £40,000 per inmate per year."

The authors said policy was formed from the fiercely partisan nature of current political debate, and blamed a media diet of hard cases and spurious campaigns against which evidence could not compete.

Sir Louis, who practises from Doughty Street, said he accepted that politicians find themselves in a position on policy, from which there is no electable escape. The solution, he argued, was an independent Royal Commission to be formed by cross-party agreement immediately following the next general election.

Professor McConville and Sir Louis have set out the parameters of an effective investigation, which would satisfy both the public mood and constrained national purse, commenting that the appetite for costly, lengthy and unwieldy inquiries is limited.

The parameters are the following:

• tight terms of reference, and the appointment of an experienced chair and professional secretariat;

• a non-negotiable two-year delivery time;

• severe limits on the taking of verbal evidence;

• no expensive and time-consuming inspection visits or overseas trips; and

• evidence presented only by those who have unquestionable expertise or direct experience

Professor McConville says a royal commission could help set the direction of penal policy for a generation:

"If the addictive but always short-term advantages of partisan policy-making can be set aside, and if evidence-based options can be examined dispassionately and authoritatively, there is every chance that we will be able, greatly, to further the public good by constructing and implementing a humane, cost-effective, and sensible penal policy. And if not now, when?"

The report will be launched tonight at the Inner Temple.