Draw Breath

One of those hidden problems was raised in yesterday's Northern Ireland Questions . Paul Goggins, Minister of State in the NIO, revealed that 30% of prisoners in Northern Ireland (or 59% of prisoner receptions according to the Northern Ireland Committee report (pdf, p.6) on the NI Prisons Service) that provoked the questions) are there for fine defaults. As some members pointed out, given the limited number of imprisonment options here, fine defaulters tend to get lumped in with more serious criminals, including in Maghaberry.

One of the most important issues surrounding imprisonment for fine defaults is the strange impact the policy has on women, especially regarding non-payment of television licences. Alistair MacDonald raised this during NI Questions but the Minister of State did not have figures to hand. Of the women in Hydebank Wood in 2006/7 (pdf, p.11), for instance, close on two thirds were there because of default either on fines for motoring offences or because of non-payment of television licences.

This problem created something of a stir in England and Wales in the 1990s. As this article by Christina Pantazis and David Gordon from 1997 points out, the BBC's TV Licensing regime has a deleterious effect on poor people, of whom single mothers and the elderly made up an increasing proportion from the 1980s onwards. Poor people are naturally the least likely to be able to pay a fine, are likely to be already in debt and are unlikely to be able to manage their finances in response to new demands.

What Pantazis and Gordon didn't point to was the shift in the BBC's enforcement regime when it outsourced to Capita . From what I heard at a conference last year, the BBC Capita got a bonus if they brought in a new licence (as did the officers if Wikipedia is to be believed). Since they called during the day they were more likely to find women at home (very likely poor women or single mums) and once they found someone without a licence they would offer to sell one (and procure that bonus). This gets anyone who can afford to pay the agent off out of the equation, leaving the poorest ending up in front of magistrates and then facing fines. And they tend disproportionately to be women.

In fact, in the mid 1990s fully 57% of women in prison in England and Wales were there because of a default on their TV licences.

Something had to and did give (as outlined here (pdf) with the introduction of various payment methods that moderated the doorstepping tactic and closer guidance to magistrates about matching the level of fines with the person's capacity to pay.

Strange thing is, if yesterdays NI Questions this shift doesn't seem to have been extended to Northern Ireland. We still may have a regime that locks up women to a disproportionate and, if the lessons of England and Wales are anything to go by, needless extent. In the words (pdf, p. 9) of Robin Masefield giving oral evidence to the NI committee, "we have tended to adopt the approach in Northern Ireland of the default being a period of custody, we actually have a significantly higher rate of fines being paid than England and Wales."

This, as Masefield says, cannot be right.