Forum for innocent lifers
By Anita Bromley , from insidetime issue January 2011
Anita Bromley looks at the dilemma of maintaining innocence
Lifers maintaining innocence informed that denial of guilt is not a bar to release, soon learn this is a gross simplification. Denial does affect progress through sentence and ultimately impact upon the Parole Board’s decision regarding release.
On January 25th Matrix Chambers will host a conference run by the Association of Prison Lawyers, with Progressing Prisoners Maintaining Innocence [PPMI]. This will provide a forum to explore problems and consider the impact of new developments on this group of lifers. Fundamental to the dilemma are the current risk assessments procedures.
RISK
Release after tariff expiry depends on sufficient reduction in the risk factors, (identified through analysis of offender and offence); to enable the parole board to direct release if no more than minimum risk exists.
Evidence of risk reduction is not through remorse or impeccable prison behaviour, but through successfully completed offence related work, plus risk assessments [usually after this work].
For lifers, risk assessment is on-going, beginning with reports to the Court. The 40-odd page OASys document then opened by the Probation Service is revisited periodically through sentence. The major risk assessment tools, before and after offending behaviour courses, [e.g. Risk Matrix 2000 for sex offenders, HCR20 for violent offenders and DARNA for offenders within a relationship] follow.
Underpinning these are the PCLR to identify psychopathy and the IPDE to select those for a Dangerous & Severe Personality Disorder Unit.
The possibility of open conditions or release requires the OGRS risk assessment which advises the Multi Agency Public Protection Panels, and the Parole Board, of the statistical likelihood of reconviction. This is based on samples of reconvicted prisoners with similar profiles – but not standardised on a lifer-only sample, which would show a far lower rate.
Risk assessment criteria appear set in stone: psychological risk assessment tools, some peculiar to the prison service, provide a template to measure deficits in thinking, behaving, and subsequently any change in these.
Denying the main offending behaviour programmes [CSCP, SOTP and HRP] to those not admitting guilt [even to those volunteering] is not seen as discriminatory. Instead, addressing previous offences is suggested. However, subsequent post course assessment invariably refers to the outstanding “untreated” areas of risk.
The assertion in the new PSO 4700 at 4.14.2 that “the fact a prisoner continues to protest their innocence or deny their guilt is not a bar to release” merely legitimises the practice of dealing with and assessing those denying guilt in the same way as those who accept their guilt. But maintaining innocence can only frustrate the risk assessment mechanisms or skew the resulting risk scores.
For example, the PCLR [a check list of 20 items measuring psychopathy] includes the following, setting those wrongly convicted at a disadvantage:
- 4.) Pathological lying
- 6.) Lack of Remorse or Guilt
- 8.) Callous/Lack of Empathy
- 15.) Irresponsibility
- 16.) Failure to Accept Responsibility for One’s Own Actions
The HCR-20 items include
- C1.) Lack of insight
- C5.) Unresponsive to Treatment
- R4.) Noncompliance with Remediation Attempts
- R5.) Stress
Assessment tools are sometimes stretched to make lifers maintaining innocence fit a profile which the assessor has constructed, predicated upon their being guilty. Thus it provides an interpretation of the thinking and behaving of someone actually guilty, who shows no remorse, does not address offending issues, demonstrates no insight and, on the statistical evidence, re-offends. Thus the lifer maintaining innocence could be seen as more dangerous than one admitting guilt.
A lifer adamantly maintained innocence and actively campaigned to overturn his conviction for murder for 17 years. He was described as having an obsessional personality.
Another, whose case attracted media support, when asked about this in interview, was described as displaying a “grandiose sense of self-worth”, [the second item scored by the PCLR].
PPMI
An article in Inside Time (May 2009) summarised the efforts which the Working Group, “Progressing Prisoners Maintaining Innocence” [PPMI], made since 2004, to bring to the attention of the Ministry of Justice, the Parole Board and interested parties, the myriad problems for these lifers.
Thanks to the 2005 survey of Dr Michael Naughton [University of Bristol Innocence Project], conducted through Inside Time, a guestimate of the problem was provided the Ministry of Justice. Hitherto, its existence had not registered at any level. No mechanism identified, or dealt with, those labelled “deniers” [i.e. guilty] because it was never considered within their remit.
PPMI held public meetings and engaged with other public Bodies involved in the Criminal Justice system, to explore ways of creating a more equitable system which would not penalise those maintaining innocence.
In 2008 PPMI met with Parole Board members and the Ministry of Justice when Dr Naughton presented his paper “The Typology of Innocence”. This opened the way to establish the incidence claiming innocence and recognise their need to progress like other lifers. The Criminal Justice system agreed to consider the varied reasons for maintaining innocence, which might call for different approaches. Chapter 4 of the new Indeterminate Sentence Manual is, however, only the first step.
In May 2009 PPMI ran its first training course for legal representatives regarding the crucial stages of sentence, Independent psychologist Robert Forde offered alternative criteria for measuring dangerousness and progress. Counsel Flo Krause discussed case law, challenging decisions and presenting cases to the parole board.
On January 25th, morning sessions will consider pre-tariff issues [PSO 4700: the new ISP Manual; PSI 33/2009: pre-tariff reviews] and post tariff matters [Revised Parole Board Rules, the function of MAPPP].
His Honour Judge Samuels, Professor Gisli Gudjonsson, Terry McCarthy, Dr Terri Van-Leeson, Jane Catterall, Dr Michael Naughton, Simon Creighton, Robert Forde, Counsels Nick Armstrong and Flo Krause and someone from Public Protection will sit on two separate panels to deal with questions from delegates.
Of overriding importance are the views and questions we invite from lifers maintaining innocence. Please address these to:
APL/PPMI Conference Secretary
PPMI PO Box 3417 London WC1N 3XX
Anita Bromley is the APL/PPMI Conference Secretary
http://www.insidetime.org/articleview.asp?a=879&c=forum_for_innocent_lifers
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