The Church of England has welcomed the analysis and policy proposals in the Ministry of Justice Green Paper Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders, December 2010.
The analysis and policy proposals ‘represent an honest recognition of some of the fundamental weaknesses in our current methods of dealing with offenders, and offer bold and far-reaching suggestions for improvement,’ the Church’s Mission and Public Affairs Council says in its response to the Green Paper.
The Council endorses the Green Paper’s plans for more use of properly-designed community sentences, diversion of mentally ill people from prison and more intensive concentration on effective rehabilitation of offenders through integrated services provided by the voluntary sector in partnership with statutory organisations.
The scope of the proposals, says the response, means that while they offer the prospect of great gains if they succeed, there are considerable risks attached to the process of implementation, not least in gaining the understanding and support of the public for what is proposed. “We commend the Government for being prepared to take those risks for the sake of what they believe to be right,” the Council says.
The response concludes: “We believe that the Green Paper offers a balanced set of proposals whose priorities are consonant with the Christian tradition of teaching about crime and punishment. This has consistently affirmed the necessity of both punishment according to desert and the opportunity of rehabilitation, the latter based on our belief in the redeemability of all human beings. We are happy to acknowledge that the idealism of the concept must in practice be combined with realistic analysis of outcomes, as the Green Paper outlines.”
The response in full:
http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1206139/breakingthecycleresp2011.pdf