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Claims by the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, that the US has cut its
crime rate by locking up more criminals are not backed up by government
statistics.

Howard received a rapturous reception at last week’s Conservative Party
conference in Blackpool when he announced the government’s plans to get
tough on criminals. These include building six prisons over the next five
years to cope with 3600 new inmates. Howard said that ‘prison works’ as
a deterrent to crime, and speaking later on BBC₂‘s Newsnight,
claimed that the crime rate had fallen in America as the prison population
had risen.

Statistics from the US Bureau of Justice tell a different story. Since
1975, the number of prisoners held in federal and state prisons has more
than trebled while the number of households ‘touched by crime’ – defined
as those which experience an attempted or completed crime – has not changed
(see Graph).

In Britain, the Howard League for Penal Reform – named after a 19th-century
judge who believed that prison was ineffective in reducing crime – is furious
at the Home Secretary’s claim. ‘I don’t think there’s one state in the 50
there where reported crime has gone down. In contrast, in Germany there
has been a concerted effort by the judiciary to use prison less, and that
has gone along with a drop in reported crime,’ says Frances Crook, the league’s
spokeswoman.

Neither the Home Office nor Tory Party headquarters could say which
statistics Howard had in mind when he made his assertion. ‘I’ll speak to
his speechwriter,’ said a press officer at Central Office.

But Crook remains unimpressed. ‘Howard’s comments might make him prime
minister,’ she said of the reception his speech received, ‘but they won’t
reduce crime.’