GROSS SENTENCING

Kenneth Clarke

There seems to be a bit of discussion going round about the length of prison sentences imposed for criminal activity. The current Department of Justice is considering offering a discount of 50% for persons who plead guilty at the first opportunity, to whatever offence they have committed. This is all very well, if one knows just what the sentence will be. On the face of it, the offer is 50% of whatever the Judge has in mind at the time. Who can know what that is? If, for example, the maximum penalty for an offence is life imprisonment, than are we to assume the sentence would be half the remainder of one’s life expectancy? The ‘tariff’ sentence is an open question. It is a matter of speculation, depending entirely on what view is taken by the judge at the time. Some judges are more severe than others and 50% off could mean more to some than others. It is all really a matter of some speculation, and the reality is that in these austere times, the quicker a defendant’s case is disposed of the cheaper it is for the state. One has to face the fact that this encouragement to plead guilty is a mater of economics and nothing else. It is an exercise in saving money. It is unfortunate for the government that the question of sentencing in rape cases should have been the focus of attention; but if the idea is to reduce the prison population, than the particular offence for which the reduction is proposed is neither here nor there.

Mr Justice Wills

Today, the 19^th May, just happens to be the day in 1897, 114 years ago, that Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Gaol. Wilde and his co-defendant appeared for trial on a charge of Gross Indecency, in front of Mr. Justice Alfred Wills. He had pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty by the jury on the 25^th May 1895. He was sentenced to two years hard labour, the maximum sentence allowed at the time. Mr Justice Wills said the he thought the sentence was “totally inadequate for a case such as this” and that it was “the worst case I have ever tried”. Wilde apparently tried to speak but was drowned out with cries of shame from the courtroom. I am not sure if the cries were directed at the defendant or the judge, but I think it’s safe to assume that at that time the shouts were directed at Wilde. In the light of what we now know and feel about such offences, the sentence was savage in the extreme and the Judge totally out of touch with humanity. The sentence completely destroyed Wilde’s health and he died in France only three years later at the age of 46.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Out of his sentence came De Profundis (1897), written whilst still in gaol as a letter addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, under extreme circumstances, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898).

I am not suggesting that every prisoner is a budding writer in the making, nor am I suggesting that every prisoner suffers from the same conditions that existed in the 1890’s; but, being in prison, or under any form of custody, is not a pleasant adventure. Physically and mentally it is top of the list of stressful and debilitating experiences. Any reduction, whether for purely economic reasons or not, is in my view welcome. Criminal justice should not be about revenge and pure punishment alone, there should also be a degree of enlightenment and civility.

From De Profundis:

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else – the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver – would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.