The Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is calling for urgent reforms to sentencing, warning that British prisons are failing society. In a new report entitled “A Journey of Hope”, due to be released on 18 October, the bishops warn there is “an unprecedented crisis facing our criminal justice system and our prisons are failing us”.
Society’s response to crime has been to demand “ever harsher sentences for an ever-greater number of offences”, they write. Yet, while this response is “understandable”, systematic failures in the prison system – including violence, drug use and suicide – mean that offenders’ chances of rehabilitation are “severely lessened”. “We are locking up far too many people than we can care for or help to turn their lives around,” writes lead bishop for prisons, Richard Moth. The report calls for greater emphasis on rehabilitation and “restorative justice”, where victim and offender engage in dialogue.