Interview with Michael Howard




       
       
       
 
 
 
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                                 ON THE RECORD 
                           MICHAEL HOWARD INTERVIEW
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                 DATE:  14.4.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS:                         There was a time when the Conservatives 
were called the party of law and order.  There's a bit of a problem with that 
nowadays.  Crime has doubled since they came to power seventeen years ago, 
hence the new White Paper on Criminal Justice which the Home Secretary, Michael 
Howard, published last week.  It would mean new minimum sentences for 
persistent burglars and drug dealers, automatic life sentences for people who 
are convicted of a second serious violent or sexual offence, and prisoners 
wouldn't automatically be entitled to get out of jail before they'd served 
their full sentence.  Tough stuff, and the judges don't like it.  They don't 
think it will work.  Never before have the most senior judges been so critical 
of a Home Secretary.   Well, Mr Howard is with me now.  Good afternoon. 
 
MICHAEL HOWARD:                        Good afternoon, John.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Your critics have said - judges, too -
that this White Paper has got precious little to do with cutting crime, but 
everything to do with sending a message to your voters that you want to be 
tough on crime.  
 
HOWARD:                                Well, that's not the case, and that is 
just sloganising, and I'm not really interested in sloganising.  I'm interested 
in taking very specific action to deal with the problems we face on law and 
order, and I want my proposals to be argued about and debated on their merits.  
So I hope that we will get on to the merits of the proposals today rather than 
talking in slogans as some of my critics have done. 
 
HUMPHRYS                               The White Paper is based on the logic 
isn't it, that when a persistent villain is locked up he can't be committing 
any crime while he's in jail.  That's the essence of it isn't it? 
                                                                            
  
HOWARD:                                Yes.  I put protection of the public at 
the very top of my list of priorities.  I have done every since I became Home 
Secretary.  I believe we can do more to protect the public and these proposals 
are designed to do that and also to enhance confidence in the Criminal Justice 
system.  I don't think confidence is served if people see someone being 
sentenced to ten years in prison and being relased after four or five.  So 
protecting the public and enhancing confidence in the Criminal Justice system. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So what you're saying in essence is 
prison works.  The judges say and many others in the legal profession say that 
longer sentences actually do not deter criminals. 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, I disagree with that, and I think 
you will find that if you looked at what judges actually say when they pass 
sentence up and down the land in courts every day, they frequently say to 
criminals in front of them: I am going to pass a severe sentence on you 
because everybody must know that crimes of this kind will meet with severe 
sentences.  And they do that because they think that severe sentences will 
deter.  Now, there've been a number of studies which have shown that what you 
need in order to deter criminals is certainty of sentencing as well as 
severity, and that's where mandatory minimum sentences come in.  But, that is a 
different point - it's an important point, but it's a different point from 
protecting the public.  And, if we look at my proposals first of all in terms 
of the most serious offenders, we must get away from the situation in which 
they are released from prison, having committed let us say two rapes, even when 
everybody knows they're likely to go out and commit a third rape.  So let's 
make sure there's an assessment of risk before they are released - that's one 
of my proposals in order to protect the public.  And as to those who 
persistently burgle or persistently traffick in hard drugs, let's make sure 
that they know that they will face a stiff minimum prison sentence in order 
that they should be deterred but also in order that the public should be 
protected from their activities. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The deterrent stuff though.  You say 
that judges say to the man in the dock: I'm going to bang you up for a long 
time, and let that be a lesson to you.  But, the Lord Chief Justice, the former 
Master of the Rolls, the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, the Chairman of the 
Bar Council, Probation Officers, an endless string of people with huge 
experience and huge knowledge of the penal system, say it does not act as a 
deterrent. 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, against those I would cite the 
Police who are at the sharp end of dealing with crime, who have to deal with 
criminals day in and day out and bring them to justice.  And, there is a string 
of quotes which I could produce from Chief Constables up and down the land who 
have said that they have absolutely no doubt that stiff sentencing deters.  
And, in addition to that, there have been at least three studies, studies 
carried out by Bylaveld (phon.) in 1980, by Lewis (phon.) in 1986, by Burnett 
(phon.) in 1992 which have demonstrated that certainty as well as severity of 
sentencing does deter criminals from committing crimes.  Let's look at burglars 
- let's just look at burglars.  I say that everyone who's convicted of a third 
offence of burglary should serve at least three years in prison.  At the moment 
you have many career burglars, persistent, professional burglars, prolific 
burglars who know that they can carry on burgling with virtual impunity.  They 
may get a short prison sentence, and they regard that as something tantamount 
to an occupational hazard.  We know what the figures are.  If you-If in the 
Crown Court you're sentenced to prison for a first offence of burglary you get 
sixteen-point-two months on average, and many people of course don't go to 
prison at all, for a third offence you get eighteen-point-nine months on 
average, and for a seventh offence you get nineteen-point-four months on 
average. 
 
                                       And when people find out about these 
figures - I've been speaking about this up and down the country - when I tell 
people these figures they react with incredulity.               
 
HUMPHRYS                               Right.  So, if previous Tory Home 
Secretaries had been as tough as you now want to be we wouldn't have had this 
massive increase in crime that we've seen in the last seventeen years? 
 
HOWARD:                                We've got to be prepared to learn from 
experience, and, and-
 
HUMPHRYS:                              An awful lot of learning that should 
have happened and hasn't then, isn't it? 
 
HOWARD:                                We've tried.  Well, we've tried various 
things.  We've listened to the judges in the past, and-and listened to some of 
those who criticise me now, and the truth is that those policies haven't worked 
as effectively as they could have done or should have done, and so-. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, previous Home Secretaries have been 
misguided then, they've been misled by the judges.  Unlike you they've not said 
to the judges: I don't want to hear from you, I want to listen to others. 
 
HOWARD:                                I'm in the position of being able to 
learn from experience, so I think we've got to learn from experience.  We can't 
carry on as though nothing has happened.  We've go to learn from experience. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right.  With learn from experience, you 
mean learn from their mistakes, from the mistakes of previous Tory Home 
Secretaries? 
 
HOWARD:                                I mean we've got to be prepared, 
constantly, to look at what works and what doesn't work and concentrate on what 
works.  That is what Government is about and of course you've constantly got to 
be prepared to re-examine what you're doing so that you can operate more 
effectively in dealing with the problems which as a country we face.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Will you listen to the Lord Chief 
Justice on the latest thing he's been saying which is that the courts ought to 
hear from the victim, before sentence is passed? 
 
HOWARD:                                Oh yes, and for the most part what the 
Lord Chief Justice has suggested is what we're about to do and indeed we've 
been consulting him about it.  We're about to issue a new Victims' Charter 
which would build on some of the changes that we've recently made.  Every 
pre-sentence report now should contain a statement of the impact of the crime 
on the victim and we're going to build on that and make sure that the 
experience of the victim is drawn more systematically to the attention of the 
court, in the way that the Lord Chief Justice suggested. I think that that is a 
sensible way forward. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Why not allow the victim himself, or 
herself, to appear in the court after conviction, so that she or he can make 
their own statement? 
 
HOWARD:                                Well I don't think that is necessarily 
the right way forward and I rather agree with the Lord Chief Justice about 
that.  Many victims wouldn't want to do that... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              No, but those who do? 
 
HOWARD:                                Well then you're into a rather difficult 
situation in which you might get a more severe sentence passed on someone 
simply because the victim had decided to appear in court, as opposed to someone 
who'd done exactly the same kind of thing, where the victim had not decided... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yes but it's given the victim the chance 
hasn't it? 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, there are different ways.  It is 
very important that we recognise the concerns of victims and very important 
that we take them more systematically into account and we're proposing to do 
that in much the sort of way that the Lord Chief Justice suggested last week. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Are you prepared, by the way, to 
legislate on that, is that something that you might pass a law on? 
 
HOWARD:                                I don't think we necessarily need to 
legislate on that but if we need to, of course we will. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Let's move onto something else then. The 
principle of what you've been talking about sentencing. Let me give you a 
couple of reasons why your critics say it is more political than practical.  
The underlying principle has been that judges ought to pass sentences that they 
believe fit the crime.  Now that is something we've observed, there have been 
exceptions, of course, mandatory life sentence for murder.  But nonetheless you 
are now messing about with that principle in a way that's causing meyhem as far 
as they are concerned.  
 
HOWARD:                                Well, as you say, this is not a novel 
principle, there have been exceptions to that in the past.  Now let me take, as 
the example of why I want to change things, the automatic life sentence that I 
propose for those who have been convicted for a second serious sexual or 
violent offence.   There were two-hundred and seventeen people who come into 
the category that I've identified, came before the courts in 1994.  Only ten of 
them got life imprisonment.  That means that the other two-hundred and seven 
were released at the end of their sentence, which had been passed for a given 
number of years, released regardless of the fact that they may still have posed 
a risk to the public.  And in 1994, there were forty cases where people in that 
category went on to commit another serious offence.  Now I just do not think 
that we can allow that to continue.  I think the public have to be given 
greater protection from that and that means...that means that people should 
only be released in those circumstances if they've committed two such serious 
offences before, if there's been an assessment of whether they're still a risk 
to the public, and then they're released.  It's nothing to do with giving the 
Home Secretary more power.  I won't decide. The Parole Board, the judge will 
say on the facts of this case you ought to stay in prison for at least seven 
years.  But at the end of that period of seven years, the Parole Board will 
assess whether you're still a risk to the public. If you're not, you'll be 
released, but if you still are, you will have to stay in prison beyond that 
seven years. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But the effect and here's the problem, 
isn't it, one of the problems, the effect of what you're proposing could mean 
that mandatory minimum sentences will mean more guilty men going free, not 
spending any time in jail at all.  
 
HOWARD:                                I don't see how that's likely to arise 
at all. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The White Paper of 1990 which looked at 
precisely this concluded that. 
 
HOWARD:                                I don't see what the evidence for that 
is. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Let me give you an example. 
 
HOWARD:                                You see one of the things that has been 
suggested in this context is that there won't be any incentive for people who 
plead guilty.  But there will be, because when the judge decides under my 
proposals, when the judge decides the number of years which it's appropriate 
for the prisoner to spend in prison, subject to the risk assessment, he'll be 
able  to take into account whether or not they've pleaded guilty, so there 
still will be an incentive for people to plead guilty. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Let me give you an example then.  Drug 
dealing.  You've talked about rape, a very serious offence. Drug dealing in 
Class A drugs is another immensely serious offence.  You've a youngster who 
sells a few Ecstasy tablets and is convicted for it.  He does it again, he's 
convicted again.  The third time, your law would say he's got to go down for 
seven years. Now, the jury, when they learn of that fact, which they could if 
the defence lawyer chooses to apprise them of that fact, the jury might say I'm 
not going to send that youngster to jail for seven years - he'll go free.  
 
HOWARD:                                Well first of all, I think it's not at 
all clear that that is how the jury would react.  I think juries will know full 
well the serious consequences of trafficking in hard drugs.  It only took one 
Ecstasy tablet to kill Leah Betts and I think to suggest that trafficking in 
drugs, if it only means passing on a few Ecstasy tablets is perfectly okay, is 
a very very wrong signal to send.  So I don't think your basic premise is at 
all justified. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But it's not my basic premise. It was in 
the White Paper, your Government's White Paper in 1990. 
 
HOWARD:                                I'm prepared to learn from experience 
and anyway you know perfectly well that in the vast majority of cases the jury 
wouldn't know that someone had had two previous convictions. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If the defence wishes to tell them so it 
would.  
 
HOWARD:                                Oh, yes, but the defence wouldn't 
because the defence would know that if a jury knew that someone had been doing 
this before - had done it twice before - they would, in fact, be much more 
likely to convict.  So, I don't think that this is an argument that is likely 
to bear very much relationship to reality.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If that's the case, why have you 
introduced the notion that there may be extraordinary circumstances- 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, that- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              -in which the minimum sentence wouldn't 
apply.  
 
HOWARD:                                Well, I'll tell you why.  There may be 
exceptional circumstances.  You cannot foresee absolutely every set of 
circumstances and if there are very exceptional circumstances, then, there 
should be a discretion for the Judge, who would have to say what the 
exceptional circumstances were and exactly why he had come to the conclusion, 
in that very special case, that it wouldn't be right to pass the minimum 
mandatory sentence.   And, there are similar exceptions in those cases where we 
have other minimum mandatory sentences in our law, at the moment.  Like, for 
instance, Drunk-Driving, where you have to lose your licence if you're 
convicted of Drunk-Driving and that is one of the things that has had a 
remarkable impact on the reduction in casualties on the roads.   
 
                                       But, there are special reasons which a 
Judge can give, or a Magistrate can give, for not passing that sentence in a 
very special case.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, it might not have been appropriate 
in the case I raise with you - the drug dealing case.   Perhaps, that might be 
an extraordinary circumstance, for instance? 
                                     
HOWARD:                                I very much doubt if that would be a 
sufficient, exceptional circumstance.  But, there are things that you can't 
always anticipate in advance.  So, I think, it's reasonable to have a caveat 
that for exceptional circumstances - in exceptional circumstances - the judge 
should be able to say: these are the reasons why I don't think it's appropriate 
to pass the minimum, in this case.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, right, the principle might not hold 
in every circumstance.  It might in the end come down to the judge, as it does 
today?   
HOWARD:                                No, no, no.   We must be clear about 
this.  There would not be as there is today a completely unfettered discretion 
on the part of the Judge to pass any sentence that he thinks appropriate. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But a little bit of discretion? 
 
HOWARD:                                There would not be the discretion which
has led to only five per cent of those who've been convicted of second serious 
sexual violent offences being given a Life Sentence.  There would not be the 
kind of discretion which has led the sentences for Burglary - which I quoted to 
you earlier on - being repeated.          
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right.  
 
HOWARD:                                So, this is a very substantial shift but 
I think it's reasonable that there should be exceptional circumstances in which 
judges should be permitted to come to a different conclusion.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Something else that worries people - you 
touched on it earlier.   Honesty in sentencing.  People see a burglar being 
sentenced to four years and he serves eighteen months or two years instead.  
Now, you said you would stop that. 
 
HOWARD:                                Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, you're not, are you? 
 
HOWARD:                                Yes, yes, indeed, we are.  We are saying 
that when the court passes a sentence that should be the sentence served, 
subject to a modest amount, which has to be earned by the prisoner by good 
behaviour, which could, then, be remitted from the sentence.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah, but that's not the same story 
though, is it?                                                           
 
HOWARD:                                At the moment, people are released 
halfway stage in their sentence, depending on the length of the sentence, 
automatically, regardless of their behaviour and the public feel cheated in 
consequence.  And, indeed, I'm delighted that on this particular proposal the 
Lord Chief Justice agrees with me.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, but that isn't the full story, is 
it?  Because the reality is that judges will pass fewer sentences.  Now, people 
may think shorter sentences-People will think: yeah, that's fine.  He was 
sentenced to four years, he ought to damn well serve four years.  And, they 
will think, as a result of things that you have said, in future he'll sentence 
four years and he will do four years.  The truth is judges will pass shorter 
sentences.  So, he'll still only do the two years.   
                                       That is the real effect of this White 
Paper.  
 
HOWARD:                                No, no, no, no.  The proposal is that 
the public should see what happens.  That the public should not be cheated, 
that there should be honesty and transparency in the sentence, so that if the 
sentence is four years, then, subject to remission for earned good behaviour, 
then, four years will be served.  If the sentence is two years, two years will 
be served.  
 
                                       Now, of course, judges will know that 
when they pass sentence.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The White Paper says- 
 
HOWARD:                                Just as they know it now.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The White Paper said it is not - says - 
it is not intended that there should be a general increase in sentences served. 
Now, you said in Blackpool last year release from prison comes too soon.  No 
more half time sentencing for full time crimes.  Literally, that is true but 
the effect of what you said was that people thought: ah, they're gonna get 
their just desserts.  In truth, it's rather different from that, isn't it? 
 
HOWARD:                                The effect of what I said is that people 
should know that the sentence passed is the sentence served and that they 
should not be cheated.  I want the public to have greater confidence -  
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah. 
 
HOWARD:                                -in our criminal justice system and I 
want them to know that the courts mean what they say when they pass sentence.   
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah.  But, what the public didn't know 
was that it meant half the sentence that is now being passed being passed in 
future. 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, that will depend on the attitude 
which the judges take.  But, I would expect every judge to pass- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              White Paper says that.  
 
HOWARD:                                Yes!  I would expect every judge to pass 
sentence in future knowing how much will be served, just as they pass sentences 
now-   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Can- 
 
HOWARD:                                -knowing how much will be served.  It's 
the public that is taken in.  Not the fault of these judges, it's the system. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Can I- 
 
HOWARD:                                And, I want to change the system, so 
that the public see exactly what's going to happen.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Can I suggest to you the real reason why 
you're having to bring in - some people suggest is the real reason why you're 
bringing in another Criminal Justice Act - yet another one - the crime rate has 
doubled since the Conservatives came into power and that is because the crooks 
haven't been getting caught and convicted.  Now, it is very difficult to change 
that, to get more crooks caught and convicted.  It's very easy to say we will 
be tough on crime.  So, what you're doing is actually making a political 
statement here.  That's what it's all about.  
 
HOWARD:                                Well, that's another attempt to sidestep 
the argument on my proposals and not to deal with them on their merits.  But, 
the answer to your question is that, of course, you need both.  In the last 
three years, we've seen crime come down by something like eight per cent.  It's 
only the third time this century that we've had three successive annual falls 
in recorded crime.  And, that has been largely because the police are using new 
methods and more effective methods to bring criminals to justice and because 
we've established a framework of law against the opposition of the other 
Parties, which has helped the police to bring more criminals to justice.  But, 
I'm not going to sit on my laurels and say: well, we've had an eight per cent 
fall over the last three years.  Nothing more needs to be done.  Crime is still 
far too high.  We do have to do more to tackle it.  That is why I've brought 
forward these proposals.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You mentioned the other Parties.  Claire 
Short said this morning she thought it was pretty sensible and people would 
approve of the notion that well-paid chaps, like yourselves - MPs, 
thirty-four/thirty-five thousand pounds a year - should pay a bit more in Tax.  
You'd agree with that, wouldn't you? 
 
HOWARD:                                Well, Claire Short is only telling the 
truth about the Labour Party's proposals.  She's told the truth, yet again, 
that Tony Blair is desperately trying to hide.  Of course, people earning 
thirty-four thousand pounds a year would pay more tax under Labour.  No one 
should be surprised by that.  Roy Hattersley, who knows a bit about the Labour 
Party, said just a few months ago on Tax, he said the Labour Party has a 
choice.   It can be proud of being the Party of high taxation or it can be 
ashamed of being the Party of high taxation.  The one thing it can never be 
is the Party of low taxation.  Claire Short has just confirmed that today and 
every family in the land should know that if there were to be a Labour 
Government they would pay higher taxes, as a result.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Michael Howard, thank you very much.  
 
HOWARD:                                Thank you. 
 
 
 
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