Dr Juste Abramovaite, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Global Innovation, University of Birmingham — Written evidence (JCS0046)    

Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on community sentences in July – it was a great experience to share the implications of current evidence in this area for policy reforms. Please see below further details about the points you have asked me for more information on:

1)    Intergenerational effect of custody

When an individual is imprisoned, that affects them directly but also those that are close to them, in particular, their families and children and young people within those families. Parental imprisonment is considered as one of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs can be direct – such as abuse or neglect as well as indirect – such as mental illness, substance misuse or parental incarceration. There are many studies that explore the impacts of ACEs on later life outcomes and it has been found that living with an incarcerated household member during childhood is linked with higher risk of poor health-related quality of life during adulthood which suggests that the collateral damages of having an incarcerated relative for children are long term. Also, childhood adversity is linked to a higher probability of spending more time in prison, violent offending and a history of time spent in youth offender institutions – where more than eight in ten men in prison suffered childhood adversity. A Recent survey of Welsh prisoners revealed that 33% of prisoners reported to have experienced parental or a relative’s incarceration during their childhood. Further, an understanding of ACEs is of vital importance to anyone working with and on behalf of children with imprisoned parents, particularly the understanding that, although parental imprisonment is an ACE category in its own right, it is likely that most children coping with this trauma will have been exposed to additional adversity. This is supported by the study which shows that children of incarcerated parents are exposed to nearly five times as many other ACEs as children without incarcerated parents and these statistically significant differences persist even after adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

In the UK, Children of Prisoners (published in 2019) estimates that 312,000 children are affected by parental imprisonment each year. The report indicates that children of prisoners are at risk of significant worse outcomes than children not affected by parental imprisonment including an increased risk of future offending, mental health issues and poor educational attainment. It also highlights stark evidence of poor outcomes for children of prisoners – 65% of sons of prisoners end up in the criminal justice system which emphasises how strong intergenerational effect of custody is.

Therefore, the focus should be on those children who are left behind when a parent/relative is sent to prison as well as not overusing prison when a different type of sentencing can be used – especially for low level, low harm offences where it is known that community sentences lead to less reoffending and, in turn, prevent further offending through intergenerational effects.

2)    School exclusion to prison pipeline

The term ‘the school to prison pipeline’ comes from the United States of America and is used to describe the disproportionate nature of youth incarceration which has its beginnings in the education system. There is an equivalent pipeline in the UK which is often referred to as ‘school exclusion to prison pipeline’ or ‘PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) to prison pipeline’. PRUs refer children who have been excluded from school (or are unable to attend mainstream education) to an alternative education provision and this pipeline is used to identify the process through which students are pushed out of schools into alternative education provisions and finally into the criminal justice system leading to prisons. In short, school exclusion to prison pipeline can be described as a process that criminalises the youth, through the execution of disciplinary policies and practises within schools that put students into contact with law enforcement. There are many factors that reinforces this pipeline – special educational needs (excluded students are seven times more likely to have special educational needs), police presence on school grounds, poverty (pupils who are entitled to free school meals are four times more likely to be excluded than those who are not) and lack of support (this can come in many forms from absent parents or lack of support within the school system).

The latest data reported by the Government (for 2021/22) shows that there were 6,495 permanent exclusions that year (up from 3,928 in 2021/21) and 578,280 suspensions (up from 352,454 in 2021/21). In 2019, the National Crime Agency found that 100% of children involved in County Lines had been excluded from school, and they also found that being excluded from school is a contributing factor leading to a young person’s risk of criminal exploitation. In 2012, MOJ published a report on prisoners’ childhood and family backgrounds and found that 62% of prisoners were excluded from school (a number much higher than the rate of exclusions at the national level). Institute for Public Policy Research published a report in 2017 ‘Making the Difference – Breaking the Link Between School Exclusion and Social Exclusion’ which starts with a statement ‘Nowhere is Britain’s social mobility failure more obvious than in the example of school exclusion in England. Excluded children are the most vulnerable: twice as likely to be in the care of the state, four times more likely to have grown up in poverty, seven times more likely to have a special educational need and 10 times more likely to suffer recognised mental health problems. Yet our education system is profoundly ill-equipped to break a cycle of disadvantage for these young people.’ It also estimates the cost to the state of failing the most vulnerable children at school with every cohort of permanently excluded pupils going to cost the state an extra £2.1 billion in education, health, benefits and criminal justice costs.

Academic research on this particular problem is mainly based on the US data. In a longitudinal study using administrative records that tracking all Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in the US, students who were quasi-randomly assigned to school with higher conditional suspension rates are observed to have increased risk of being arrested and incarcerated when becoming adults in later years. This finding keeps in line with another piece of research that explored potential future harms to students who experienced school suspension which had not previously been considered. It is suggested that youth who are suspended in grades 7 to 12 in school are more likely to have criminal victimization, criminal activity and incarceration as adults.

In the UK, a recent report by the Nuffield Foundation evaluated the effect of being permanently excluded or temporarily suspended in Year 10 on the probability of experiencing custody at age 15-17 years. The data were collected from the National Pupil Database and the National Client Caseload Information System in England. The report demonstrates that receiving any exclusion or a suspension in Year 10 when attending a school that became an academy (used as a proxy for an increased likelihood of exclusion) causes a 1.3% increase in the probability of custody at ages 15-17. Similar findings are observed when looking at the association of exclusions and custody including youth attending an academy school in the year of conversion only.

3)    Imprisonment for civil debt and the volume of civil penalties

Non-payment of TV Licence

Under the Communications Act 2003, it is a criminal office to install or use a television receiver without the license. If a person is prosecuted and then convicted, they might be liable for a fine of up to £1,000 and non-payment of the fine may result in a term of imprisonment for up to 28 days. A person cannot be sent to prison for not paying their TV Licence, but rather for not paying the fine imposed by the Magistrates if they are found guilty of the offence. Committal to custody is a possible enforcement measure for any fine imposed by the criminal courts, though non-payment of a fine is not in itself a criminal offence. In short, not paying their TV licence will not lead to one having a criminal record but can lead to a prison sentence. Between 1995 and 2018, there were over 2,200 people sent to prison for non-payment of fines associated with using a TV Licence. Thankfully, these numbers are decreasing and the number was zero in 2021 and 2021.

In terms of the number of people prosecuted for not paying their TV Licence (as opposed to those sent to prison for not paying their fines), there were almost 1.8 million people who were prosecuted (out of them almost 1.6 million were convicted) between 2010 and 2022. On average the fine increased from £171 to £202 during that time as well.

There is a stark gender disparity around this issue with 75% of prosecutions by TV Licencing were against women although women account for around 50% of licence fee holders (based on the latest MOJ data from 2021 with this figure being over 71% since 2017 from when data are available). Also, it is the most common offence for which women are convicted – non-payment of TV Licence accounts for 30% of all convictions against women in 2019. A recent briefing ‘Poverty is not crime – The case for ending the criminalisation of the non-payment of the TV Licence’ by the APPEAL highlights the vulnerabilities faced by women prosecuted for the non-payment of a TV Licencing debt which included a significant proportion being convicted without knowing about it, being in receipt of benefits, with caring responsibilities, having debt issues and having disabilities but had not been asked about them during their interview with an TV Licensing Enquiry Officer.

Non-payment of council tax

Under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 someone who is able to pay their council tax but doesn’t, due to ‘wilful refusal or culpable neglect’, can be imprisoned for up to three months. England is the only UK nation in which someone can be jailed for not paying their council tax (Wales recently stopped using committal orders and suspended committal orders which aligns the Welsh Government with Scotland and Norther Ireland where the option for committal to prison for on-payment of local taxation does not exist). In 2017 an FOI request by the think tank Social Market Foundation revealed that, between 2010 and 2017 there were 692 cases that resulted in a jail order and 7,990 in a suspended committal order for non-payment of council tax. Whilst local authorities are only meant to pursue a committal order if a resident is actively or neglectfully not paying council tax and enforcement action is not intended for those who genuinely cannot afford it, there are concerns that many people have been jailed even though they could not pay. Such enforcement actions can be highly stressful and they often target the most vulnerable people (see cases studies here) when they then end up being sent to prison instead of being provided with adequate support. Melanie Woolcock is a well known case (which led to Wales abolishing custodial sentences for non-payment of council tax) and was released from prison after 40 days following an appeal. A judge found that the magistrate had failed to conduct a proper inquiry into her means before sentencing (often a convicted person is not present when the assessment of their funds – and they cannot explain neither their financial circumstances nor explain that they are not refusing to pay).

Given the current cost of living crisis with ever increasing food and energy bills, it is important to provide support to people facing hardship rather than prosecute and give criminal sanctions. By prosecuting people (and potentially sending them to prison if convicted) for non-payment of TV Licence or council tax, one criminalises some of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. That not only causes unnecessary stress but increases the chances of their further involvement in criminal behaviour and also contributes to the backlog in the courts.

12 September 2023