Crimes of Violence

HL Deb 15 November 1983 vol 444 cc1154-66

3.9 p.m.

The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury rose to call attention to the need to examine new ways of reducing crimes of violence in the light of the recent decision of the House of Commons that capital punishment should not be reintroduced; and to move for Papers.

The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper. This House is full of experts on this subject, but the subject itself is one that cuts across party lines, so it seems appropriate for a Cross-Bencher to open the debate. Since this subject raises deep and difficult ethical issues, it is proper for an Archbishop to speak on it and to listen.

Perhaps I may say a word about the background to this Motion. When it was first tabled, the question of capital punishment had just been debated in another place. I do not want to repeat today the reasons which led me and others to oppose the reintroduction of the death penalty for certain types of very serious crime. It may, however, be helpful if I recall some remarks which I made immediately after the result of the debate in the other place was announced. I made three points. The first was that in the public mind capital punishment seems to provide a short-cut solution to very serious crime. It does not. The second was that we need to initiate a much wider debate about the causes and prevention of crime, about the treatment of offenders and about the conditions in our prisons. The third was that, while it is proper to have concern for criminals, our society has perhaps shown too little concern for their victims.

Events have moved on since that evening in July in that the Government have now announced their decision to ensure that for certain crimes of quite exceptional violence criminals will serve longer periods in prison. This is the first opportunity which this House has had to consider these decisions and they are bound to figure in this debate. I hope, nevertheless, that they will not be allowed to overshadow a number of other issues to which the Government have yet to address themselves.

In response to the measures which the Home Secretary has already announced, I should like to make four points. First, I understand the public concern which has led to these decisions. I accept that society has a right to express its utter abhorrence of certain crimes by ensuring that quite exceptional periods are spent in prison by those committing them. I hope, nevertheless, that it may he possible to review these policies in due course. Secondly, the introduction of longer periods in prison, even for only a relatively small proportion of prisoners, makes the matter of acceptable and humane prison conditions more urgent than ever. I sometimes wonder whether we realise sufficiently the consequences by way of strain and suffering for prison warders and fellow prisoners.

Thirdly, I hope that the Government will take seriously the evidence gained from those places where the criminal is involved in the constructive understanding of the origins of his behaviour. Peper Harow and Grenden Underwood are two such places with which I have been personally associated. If this process does not take place during confinement, the opportunity for change to the community's benefit, and the individual's, is lost.

Fourthly—and this is obviously of greatest importance for me—we must never forget that the Christian belief in God on which the ethical framework of our country has been built combines a realism about the fundamental corruption of human nature with a determination not to despair about the potential in everyone for redemption. It is an ethic which draws its inspiration from a unique marriage of discipline and compassion. That is the face of God in Jesus Christ.

Of course, the great bulk of crimes of violence, thankfully, are not of the type for which these longer penalties are designed. It would be most unfortunate if the natural public concern about the activities of a relatively small number of terrorists and professional criminals diverted our attention from the evils and suffering which result from the very much larger incidence of other types of violence in our society. It is to this subject that I hope much of today's debate will be devoted and to which I now turn.

In approaching violent crime, we should not be misled by sensational newspaper reports, but nor must we doubt that there is a very real problem. We may be comforted by comparisons between our cities and, for example, New York and Chicago. These are, however, the wrong comparisons to make. Britain in the 1920s and 1930s was not a violent society. We cannot say this today of life in our great cities where the incidence of violence has, in certain areas, reached quite terrifying proportions and sometimes takes extraordinarily cruel and perverted forms. I hope that this debate may focus on the problem of gratuitous evil: the elderly person casually and brutally assaulted; the young football fan in the crowd stabbed for no apparent reason; the baby slashed with a razor blade so that his mother yields up the few coins in her purse. This is the sort of violence which kills communities: the threat which leads people to hide behind their shutters, even when—at least statistically—they are unlikely to be victims. We must remember that the threat of violence is as corrosive of a society as violence itself.

The problem of violence is moral and spiritual. It is not just social and environmental. Violence is one of the expressions of egoism. If you are self-centred it becomes easy to regard fellow human beings as objects, inferior, unworthy of respect and legitimate targets. This is a moral question. It is a religious question of what it is to be a human being. But there are environmental factors. In themselves, poverty, deprivation and unemployment do not necessarily lead to violence. But higher expectations, and their consistent frustration, will inevitably encourage lawlessness, and the physical condition of the inner city can offer in itself a provocation to violence, as well as the most frequent opportunities to profit from it. We should be deluding ourselves if we were to deny the existence of a very large number of people who live on the margins of society, their lives bounded by urban dereliction, the decay and boredom of mean streets and the indignity of the dole.

I want now to look at some of the ways in which, as a society, we can try to reverse some of the failures of the past. Many of your Lordships will remember a remark which the Lord Chief Justice made in this House in March 1982: neither police nor courts nor prison can solve the problem of the rising crime rate. By the time that the criminal falls into the hands of the police, and more particularly by the time he reaches court, it is too late. The damage has been done. The remedy, if it can be found, must be sought a great deal earlier".—[Official Report, 24.3.82; col. 988–9] I believe we must start with the home and the school. The prevention of violence—like its occurrence—will be closely linked to family life. If violence in parents can often lead to violence in children, equally parents can do much to prevent it. Yet all too often in Britain there is not so much an absence of parental love as a failure of parental nerve. Unless we can do more to strengthen families and to reduce the frightening increase in divorce and separation we shall not he getting at the roots of violence. The volume of concern is such that a determined effort to re-establish the authority of parents and the necessity of firm values would be met not only with success but with relief.

But the burden of such teaching will not fall on parents alone: our schools are crucial. They will determine largely whether children serve the community or react against it and whether they appreciate or exploit the needs and fears of its more vulnerable members. There are already many remarkable "community education" projects in existence, and they are staffed by exceptionally dedicated and imaginative teachers. At the same time, however, many of our schools are the breeding ground for precisely the kind of mindless, tribal violence which it should be their task to outlaw. Such a tradition of violence, once generated inside the school, flows outward to the street and the football terraces, to the home, and ultimately back to the school. It is essential that the cycle of violence be attacked at every point and inhibitions against it instilled in our children as early and as frequently as possible in their lives.

Schools are very much a reflection of the society which they serve, and without external commitment both to good values and to the restoration of real purpose for our young people, the schools alone will be able to do little. I was impressed by the recent report of the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group entitled, The Prevention of Crime among Young People. I believe that its analysis and recommendations should be widely circulated within the teaching profession.

I now want to turn to the role which communities can themselves play in these matters. We badly need today a heightened sense of community. In the Christian Gospels we are enjoined to love our neighbours. Modern society shows that not only is compliance with this commandment morally right; it is essential if the weak and lonely are to be safe from attack, if the sick are not to suffer alone, and if the old are to enjoy the dignity which they deserve.

In his lecture to the Howard League last January, Sir Kenneth Newman had some wise words to say about this question in relation to crime. His view is that, police acting alone cannot make a fundamental impact on crime". The efficient detection of crime requires active participation and co-operation by the public. In his talk he mentioned some research carried out in the University of Manchester which evaluated the extent to which members of the public actively contributed to police arrests. The study found that almost 70 per cent. of arrests were initiated in some way by the public. This kind of thinking is leading to the emphasis of police policy shifting from the potential offenders and their motivation to potential victims and their environment. It seems to me that the concerns—and the views—of the victim have been too little considered by our society in dealing with these matters. He or she is too often the silent and forgotten person in the drama.

My attention has also been drawn to some work by Dr. Joanna Shapland, of Oxford University, which has argued for a victim-centred system for compensation and victim assistance. I believe that the public would be genuinely interested to know more of this kind of thinking in our efforts to improve the criminal justice system which we now have. I have also been interested and impressed by the progress of the National Association of Victims' support schemes. Encouragement of such schemes should, in my view, be a primary component of future penal policy.

A considerable virtue of such schemes is, in my opinion, the way that they bring together representatives of different parts of the community—from local commerce, from the police and from other agencies involved in social work. Such co-operation is something which the Churches have tried to foster, for it is a fundamental part of our belief that we belong to one another.

Another area in which much can be done is the physical condition of some of our run-down city areas, and in particular some of their worst housing estates. It is regrettable that so many flats and houses should remain empty when there is a general housing shortage. Overcrowding is a significant factor in much domestic violence. The standard of a person's home has a fundamental impact both on his self-esteem and on the way that he runs his life. Community violence, community fear and community disorganisation follow hard on neighbourhood decay. Let us try to mobilise people to take an interest in the maintenance of their evironment. Give people a stake in their community and we shall find them more willing to defend it.

Your Lordships may know that I have recently set up a commission to look into ways in which the Churches can better help those who live in urban priority areas. And we do have some knowledge of these matters, for we are one of the few organisations whose official personnel both live and work in deprived areas. This is very important from the point of view of all parties in such a relationship, and a matter in which I think that the example of the Church could be followed. I would urge that those agencies which operate in our inner cities should encourage their employees to do likewise.

I feel that I should mention three matters which, I believe, have an influence on the incidence of violent crime, and which could give us cause for concern. The first is the burgeoning of "video nasties". Most of us have little first-hand experience of this phenomenon, but it is clear from a recent showing of some examples to Members of another place that this is a deeply disturbing phenomenon—something wholly different in kind from what we are accustomed to see on television or in the cinema. I am glad that this matter has been raised through the Private Member's Bill recently given a second reading in another place. I hope that we may soon have an opportunity of considering the matter in this House. A society which genuinely wants to curb the incidence of violent crime must confront this frightening influence for evil.

Secondly, there is the influence of television. I know the extreme care that is taken by the broadcasting authorities—and I cannot deal with this matter in any detail—but I find it hard to accept that a daily diet of mayhem and murder does not have a cumulative desensitising effect. I think also that many will share my deep apprehension at what may happen when many more TV channels become available.

Thirdly, I must mention the problem of violence induced by alcohol. We all know that there is a problem here, not least among young people. I have no wish to see the legitimate enjoyment of the many prejudiced by the foolish behaviour of the few, in this or any other field. But there is a relationship between alcoholism and violence, and I should like to see more resources being devoted to these matters. It would surely be sensible if some of the proceeds of the revenue gained by the sale of alcohol could be seen to be devoted to health education and detoxification centres. This would in itself serve to remind people that alcohol can be a plague as well as a pleasure.

I want finally, and I am afraid rather briefly, to put forward some thoughts about the criminal justice system itself. Whatever may be the pros and cons of long periods in prison for a hardened criminal of the kind I mentioned at the beginning of this speech, I believe that most of us would agree that alternatives to custodial sentences—and certainly to long custodial sentences—are desirable for a great number of those convicted of less serious crimes. A good deal has already happened in this area. My purpose today is simply to ask whether more could not be done, and done more quickly. I am impressed by the success that seems to have been achieved by community service schemes as an alternative to prison in certain circumstances. I know that this puts a heavy burden on the probation service, but it has achieved an acceptance by the courts, by the community and by the offenders; and, as David Mathieson, the Chief Probation Officer of Merseyside, said in another Howard League lecture, it has helped all concerned to see the offender, not just as someone who needs something done to him, but as someone who—given the right opportunities—is capable of doing something constructive himself". I should also like to see developed further the concept and practice of direct reparation in our criminal justice system.

I have tried in this introductory speech to cover a lot of ground and yet I am conscious that there is much that I have left unsaid. I want to end on a note of hope rather than gloom. We are right to be deeply concerned about the incidence of violent crime in our society, with the problems of prison overcrowding, and with our seeming failure to find solutions to these matters. My impression is that there is a great deal of work being done in these areas which is both realistic and constructive. For too long, the public has seemed to want to push these matters under the carpet. Perhaps the very size of the problems has now woken us up to the fact that there is which should start in the home and be continued work which not only can be done but which must be done and for which resources must be found. It is work in the schools, and which should involve every community. For the heart of this matter is the question of the kind of moral values on which we wish the life of our nation to be based. Only limited good can be done by Acts of Parliament, important as they are. Responsibility for these problems must be accepted by each one of us as individuals and by the community as a whole.

My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Gaitskell

My Lords, I wish to ask a question, if I may. May I ask the most reverend Primate one thing? We know that the Church and education are ready to help but what I, and, I know, many people would like to see, is that the Church should take a very much deeper interest in the problem of unemployment, which he put right at the bottom of his arguments.

The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury

My Lords, I should like to say in reply that this is a subject on which I hope there will be more publicity. I believe that the Church is engaged in many projects and has many spokesmen dealing with that matter in relation to education. On another occasion, I should be very happy to respond in detail to the noble Baroness.

3.37 p.m.

The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)

My Lords, I am sure that the House will share my own pleasure in welcoming the most reverend Primate back from his travels in partibus infidelium and will also rejoice to know that he has introduced for debate in this House this extremely important subject. I was also very glad to see—I am sure that my gladness will be shared by other members of the House—that, in addition to the Front Bench spokesmen, we shall shortly have the pleasure of hearing my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice speak to us again.

Violence is something which horrifies all right minded people, and all right minded people are almost daily agonised by terrible accounts of the circumstances attending murders and brutal assaults—some of the most macabre and almost unreal of which we have ever heard—violence at football matches, riots in city centres, rapes and child abuse, bombs and terrorist activities and, in other countries, massacres. I suppose that we are all disquieted by the belief, well founded and entirely borne out by the facts, that particularly, since the war, violence has increased almost steadily, is increasing, and, doubtless, has not reached its peak.

The crude statistics which, however, may be to some extent—but only to some extent—falsified by better methods of recording and must he read in the light of a rising population are, indeed shocking. My own opinion is that violence has been rising ever since about 1930. I am surprised and gratified to know that the most reverend Primate seems to have arrived quite independently at almost exactly the same figure. Prior to that date, I believe that it had been declining.

I therefore take as my baseline the year 1925. Taking that as the baseline, homicide has about doubled. But there are also about 30 times as many serious woundings, and nearly 20 times as many other serious crimes of violence. In the whole of 1925 only 650 cases regarded as serious cases of violence were recorded. By the end of the war, this figure had doubled to 1,300. But since then, it has rocketed; in 1955 to 1,600, in 1965 to 3,600, in 1975 to 6,200, and in 1982 to 6,500. It is, however, worth saying that, over a longer timescale, probably the number of murders per million of the population may actually be less than in Victorian times.

There is another yardstick. When I went to the Bar in 1932, there were four courts in the Old Bailey and the judges there, including the Recorder and the Common Serjeant, often used to help out with the civil business of the Mayors and City of London Court. There was a small criminal court complex at Newington Causeway and another in Parliament Square for the Middlesex Sessions. Now we have 25 courts at the Old Bailey—I think that is the figure. Newington Causeway has multiplied. The Old Middlesex Sessions Court in Parliament Square is still active and, in addition, there is Knightsbridge, there is the old Hans Crescent Hotel, there is Snaresbrook, there is Croydon and I know not what else.

The most reverend Primate's Motion, as he told us at the beginning of his speech, links the debate with the recent refusal of the House of Commons by a decisive majority to reintroduce capital punishment. I will not go into the merits of that argument nor will I in any way seek to reopen that debate. The fact is—at least, I think I am right in saying this—that never since 1948 has any House of Commons, on a free vote, supported the principle of capital punishment for murder, and never since, I believe, 1938 has it supported corporal punishment for robbery. Whatever the merits of these disputes, we cannot go on debating them for ever, and. even if we were to do so, it would be wholly intolerable, in my opinion, on any view, that the law should go in an out, to and fro, on either of these subjects according to the particular composition of the House of Commons at any particular time. Law and its enforcement must have a certain durability to be effective, and, may I say, to be respected. Therefore the most reverend Primate is clearly right. Sooner or later we must stop debating this subject, which has become infructuous, and get down to discussing new ideas for dealing with the situation or, as he puts it in his Motion, new ways.

No one, of course, will deny that the level and methods of policing and the levels and types of sentence in the criminal courts must play a central part in our discussion. Of course they must, if only because these things are matters for which Government and Parliament are responsible and which, within limits, are therefore within our control. They are the tools within our grasp, and their design and methods of use are therefore things which we must discuss.

At the same time, I should like to express my own view—which I found to my pleasure was echoed or, rather, initiated by the most reverend Primate—of the limitations on the influence which these tools can have on the course of events. We must use them for what they are worth, but, having used them, we must look further afield into the sources of crime, its causation and, if possible, its prevention. Here we are, indeed, on uncharted seas. My own view of crime, which seems to correspond in other words to what I believe the most reverend Primate has been saying, is that crime is an extension beyond reasonable limits and beyond acceptable limits by individuals, but still only an extension, of the general mores of society. I shall return to this topic when I come to discuss the later passages in the most reverend Primate's speech. In that I believe I am only perhaps echoing his words in less felicitous terms.

The origins of crime lie in evil motivation spilling out into overt action. That happens to be the Biblical view, and I believe it to be also historically proven. If a society glorifies or acquiesces in or condones hatred and violence in its talk, in its publications, in its actions; if it deifies lust; if it even worships covetousness and the acquisition of material things to the exclusion of more civilised and more civilising values; it will not be able, by the mere use of police methods or the imposition of deterrent sentences, or even the new methods of disposal advocated in the terms of the Motion, to prevent violence, dishonesty and sexual crime among the least law-abiding of its citizens. Police and criminal sanctions are necessary: but they are not enough. I must add that if, in addition to displaying these characteristics, a society takes pleasure in discouraging respect for the lawful authority of the state, whether in its executive, its legislative or its judicial arms, it will find the tendency to break the bounds of decency even less easy to control by police or criminal sanctions. I was interested to see in the recent Darwin lecture of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice that he, too, had arrived at a somewhat similar conclusion.

The second general warning I would wish to give is that crimes of violence are not necessarily a single category of unlawful behaviour. Between the man who indulges in, let us say, racial violence, a man who uses violence in the course of a burglary, a man who rapes women or abuses little boys, a man who kills his wife or a woman who kills her husband, there is relatively little motivation in common. There was little motivation in common between, for instance, a Sutcliffe or a Nilsen and the little Irish girl I once defended for beating her two-year-old child to death. I was happy to note that the most reverend Primate's analysis made a direct mention of the correlation between violent crimes of one sort or another and the abuse of alcohol—and I would add, myself, also, the use of prohibited drugs. I am sure there is such a correlation, and any preventive action the state may take will he more than welcome. Perhaps it is possible for my noble and learned friend or others to expand on this.

Your Lordships will notice that, in the catalogue I mentioned above, except in two instances I used the word "man". I did so advisedly. In terms of criminality, however else, the sexes are not equal. Criminality of all sorts, but particularly, perhaps, crimes of violence, are predominantly a feature of male behaviour, and are particularly a disorder of young males. Of the prison population—and here I am not far wrong, but am to some extent guessing—of, say, 44,000, about 42,500 at any one time would be men. Not more than about 1,500 (of whom some would be civil offenders) will be women. Indeed, 45 per cent. of male offenders in crimes of violence would be under 21, and nearly a third of those would be under 17. If we are thinking of remedies, we cannot disregard gross facts of this kind.

But I must turn for a moment to Government measures. I do not believe that it would be true to say that the Government—any Government, for that matter. although it is only for this one that I can speak—or the judiciary have gone deliberately soft on crime. On the contrary, we (by which I mean this Government) have increased the numbers and improved the pay of the police. In the field of punishment, my right honourable friend recently announced a series of measures relating to criminal sanctions within the field of his own discretion designed to give increased effect to the sentences of the courts by postponing release in serious cases of violence. And, with suitable concessions to reasonable criticisms, he has re-introduced the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, as to which I will say nothing today as there will be ample opportunity later in the Session to discuss its proposals.

Nor would I think it convenient to comment on the most reverend Primate's suggestion that my right honourable friend's proposals be reviewed. On some of them there will have to be discussions with the parole board. But I am sure that the Home Secretary would also like to reply personally to any specific and constructive proposals the most reverend Primate or others would like to advance. It has to he said, however, that my right honourable friend's proposals were made against the background of grave public disquiet and against the knowledge that there are criminals whose conduct has been so grave that every other consideration may have to he postponed, under the authority of the courts and in accordance with judicial sentencing policy, to the necessity of preventing them from offending again.

Turning now to substantive law, there can be no doubt, I would say, that in general the maximum penalties are already long enough to give judges adequate scope. A life sentence is, of course, mandatory for murder; and life, or a very long determinate sentence, is permissible for manslaughter, rape, robbery and assaults with intent to do grievous bodily harm. These are only examples of the available maxima. We also intend to legislate to make a life sentence available as a maximum for carrying firearms in furtherance of crime. Within these maxima, sentencing policy itself is, of course, a matter for the judiciary primarily and, perhaps, alone.

I do not think, in the main, that it can be said—although it often is said—that judges sentence too lightly. But sentencing policy is and ought to remain essentially a matter for the judicial as distinct from the executive or legislative branches of government, in particular for the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division. Excessive severity (where it exists in individual cases, and there are sure to be some from time to time) can of course be dealt with on appeal, and such appeals can be used as an occasion to give guidance on policy. When my right honourable friend's proposed legislation reaches the statute book, the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) will also be able to deal in the same way with sentences alleged to show excessive lenience without incurring the constitutional difficulties as to double jeopardy and the ethical restraints on prosecuting counsel, which I pointed out at Question Time last summer.

I personally do not believe very much in the reformative possibilities of prison, though it is right in each case to do our best. I do not think it is, in general, likely to improve a man's character to deprive him of liberty, especially in conditions of three to a cell and slopping out in the morning. Of course, I am sure that incarceration has some deterrent effect. But what is certain is that while a man is inside prison his ability to harm innocent third parties is curtailed and, to some extent, prevented; and there are some people who have to be sentenced to long custodial sentences for this reason alone. It is for this reason that I regard a custodial sentence as the normal penalty to be expected for serious violence.

Of course, not all violent crimes merit custodial sentences at all. For some cases I have always advocated—and I was glad that the most reverend Primate echoed my words—hefty compensation orders followed by an order for costs. Reparation has a moral merit in deterring crime and possibly even in reforming the criminal.

I now come to the reference to the new ways referred to in the Motion. I agree with those who point out—as did the most reverend Primate—that ever since 1907 (that is, over my whole lifetime) other methods of disposal than custodial sentences have commended themselves: probation was I think the first and probably the most valuable of all, and more recently deferred or suspended sentence and community service, to which the most reverend Primate referred, and so on.

These methods are available over the whole field of crime, and have proved themselves. As this is not a general debate on law and order, I shall not further pursue the matter here, except to say, unfortunately, that the really serious crimes of violence on which I am concentrating are not perhaps the most promising fields for the introduction of these alternative methods. It is a field well ploughed, harrowed, sown and reaped, and I am not at the moment sure that other methods of disposal, other than those that have been mentioned by the most reverend Primate, or that I mentioned a moment ago, would have a significant effect on our problem.

I have considerable scepticism about what I might call the sociological explanation of crime which is fashionable in some quarters today. I believe that there is a factor of individual responsibility for doing wrong. I came to manhood in the 1930s when unemployment was rife and poverty far more widespread, and when wages were low. Housing was much worse and education largely stopped at the primary stage. But, as I have shown, in those days crimes of violence were much fewer. Not seldom judges on assize got a pair of white gloves, as we used to say. No doubt, of course, unemployment and poverty can be a source for crime. Long periods of enforced leisure undoubtedly provide an opportunity—perhaps a temptation—for misbehaviour. But except in that respect, I do not believe that there is the correlation that some people suppose.

There is such a thing as individual responsibility, and I personally have never seen a greater sense of human dignity of moral values than I saw in my youth among the very poor. My own belief is that it is really an insult to those suffering from social or economic conditions lower than those that we regard as acceptable to suggest that they cannot be expected to resist the temptation to lower their self-respect. No doubt such suggestions are compassionate and well-intentioned. but I do not believe that they do justice to human nature at its best.

I have always maintained that speed in the detection of crime, conviction and punishment has a favourable effect upon the maintenance of law and order. The delay for which I am departmentally responsible is the delay which elapses between committal and arraignment. I have always put the reduction of this delay high in order of priority among the responsibilities of my office. To achieve this reductions has the additional merit of relieving the innocent from anxiety or imprisonment on remand, and, in a system which relies so much as ours on oral evidence, of increasing the probability of a just result.

At the end of my first period of office, by dint of drastic and largely unrepeatable measures, I had succeeded in halving the figure to about eight weeks in the provinces and about 16 weeks in London and its environs. Alas! these figures had approximately doubled again by 1979, and since 1979 we have been struggling desperately to stand still. Despite the enormous increases in volume, we have made a little progress.

To give a picture of the increase in volume, between 1979 and 1982 the number of committals increased by just over one-third, from just less than 51,000 to just less than 68,000. By the end of this year, alas, the increase is likely to be 50 per cent. over 1979. Nevertheless, despite these figures, between 1979 and last June average waiting times have still gone down from just under 18 weeks to just over 14 weeks. I do not think that we shall do quite so well in the coming months. Currently there are 21,000 cases awaiting trial, 11,000 of which come from the south-eastern circuit.

I return from this short departmental issue to the main thrust of the most reverend Primate's speech. In passing, I have already referred, as did the most reverend Primate, to reparation, but this can only deal with a minority of crimes of violence. Violent criminals on the whole favour a cash economy and are not usually capable of paying much cash compensation, even when the dangerous nature of their proclivities does not preclude a non-custodial sentence.

This leads me to revert to what I thought in some ways was one of the most remarkable parts of the most reverend Primate's speech, namely, his reflections about the moral tone of society in general —to which I have already adverted—and his recognition of what I believe to be the truth, namely, that criminal behaviour is only an extension to an unusually unacceptable degree of the least praiseworthy features of the general mores of society. How about some of the old values as well as the new methods? I am oppressed—and I think that perhaps it is better for a layman to say this than even a Primate—with the physical dangers attendant on wickedness, not only to the innocent victims of crimes but also to the criminal himself. The wages of sin are not necessarily a popular subject for clerical leadership today. It took a Pope, speaking to his faithful in Drogheda, to say "Murder is murder is murder". But I was glad that the most reverend Primate said so too, although perhaps in less explicit language. I am also glad, if I may say so in passing, that he did not attempt to underestimate the seriousness of politically-motivated crime. In my book, politically-motivated crimes of violence are sometimes the most serious crimes of all, precisely because they spring from hatred.

When I hear of American or Irish courts refusing to extradite politically motivated murders, or even give public and unsolicited testimonials to those who publicly advocate murder, I am astonished at their inability to distinguish crimes which are in their nature political, like treason, sedition, or certain types of criminal libel, and those which are intrinsically ordinary crimes fuelled by hatred but motivated politically. In my book terrorist activity is not a mitigation of the offence. It is an aggravation.

Ordinary murder is bad enough. But when I see an Arab diplomat gunned down in central London by a fellow Moslem, I am not inclined to say that the murder is mitigated by its political or religious motive. Politically motivated murder is an attempt to overthrow civilised society by force, and the only excuse for not extraditing it is if a trial in accordance with proper justice cannot be guaranteed in the recipient country, and that is a matter which ought to be within the discretion of the executive.

However, wickedness is not restricted to political crimes. Nor is it restricted to criminals. History is littered with the ruins of societies which have glorified, condoned, or acquiesced in hatred, lust or greed that is the multiplication of wealth unaccompanied by any comparable service performed for others. The idea of divine punishment is rather out of fashion nowadays. I suppose it is because we are inclined to fear being accused of portraying the Deity as a petulant old gentleman upstairs who constantly loses his temper and discharges thunderbolts on the smallest provocation.

That is not exactly how I regard the matter (although I say in passing that the thousands of nuclear weapons stocked on each side of the Iron Curtain are not wholly unlike thunderbolts either in appearance or in purpose). I regard morals as a sort of celestial highway code, disregard of which is accompanied by the greatest possible physical danger in this world not only to those who disregard its prescriptions but also to other and more innocent users of the highway. It is a mistake to suppose that these dangers are less seriously portrayed in the New than in the Old Testament. The Old Testament prohibits the act of killing. The New tells us in unmistakable terms that the origin of murder is hatred, and that we have already incurred the moral guilt if either we indulge in hatred ourselves or encourage it in others.

It is no good inveighing against rape if you glorify lust or encourage it in others, and it is no good inveighing against robbery or mugging if you believe that the acquisition of wealth need not be accompanied by service, or that in business or industrial relations you are entitled to cut corners or adopt an inferior or a second-class standard of honesty. So, if we see what we see on page 3 of a newspaper, or in other media, let us not be altogether surprised if on page 1 or page 5 we read the melancholy recital of homosexual murders, rapes, crimes like the Ripper's, muggings, woundings, burglaries, riots, kidnappings, or child abuse either by violence or sex.

I therefore agree with the most reverend Primate in bringing parents and teachers into the equation. And may I add neighbours, media, and the Churches to the list. Moral suasion and moral reprobation are I believe by far the greatest social sanction against crime. It is not simply a question of discipline or punishment. When I was in the Ministry of Education we used to say that every teacher was a teacher of English, good or bad. How true! How much more true it is—and how much more important—that not only every teacher but every parent, and I would add every neighbour, is a teacher of morals, and every writer in the media is of course even more responsible for the morals of the young and the old. The young are particulary intensely imitative and quick to discern in their elders the slightest scent of hypocrisy.

I can only echo much of what the most reverend Primate has said. I believe that it is the function of the Churches to lead the nation back to a rediscovery of God, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and righteousness, we read, exalteth a nation.