Professor Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay explores what the Budget means for the justice system and why it should have been bolder.
"There is no doubt that prisons are at a stretching point and even maintaining prison spaces would have been challenging at current levels of spending. Thus, the investment in prison places in the Autumn Budget is a nod to this reality. However, in the long term, there needs to be a rethink of what prisons are used for and invest seriously in effective prevention and diversion programmes.
The budget does make provisions for ‘managing offenders in the community’, but this is combined with an overall investment in prison and probation services. Ideally some of the aggregate uplift in the budget to ‘repair the justice system’ should be directed towards prevention, early intervention and effective diversion programmes. It is also crucial to conduct scientifically sound assessments of promising interventions to understand what works and in what context.
It is urgent that we reimagine the operation of the justice system and mainstream diversion from standard criminal justice processing through evidence-based interventions that are cost effective and keep communities safe through lowered offending. To misappropriate an old phrase, a penny of prevention is worth pounds of punishment!"
Professor of Economics
Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay is a Professor of Economics at Birmingham Business School. He is an internationally recognised economist in the field of political economy and public policy.
