ABSTRACT
The major liberal reforms of the 1960s were not explicit in Labour Party manifestos. The repositioning of the Labour Party on home affairs under Tony Blair ushered in a period of bipartisan rivalry over ‘toughness’ on crime. The long arc of penal reform, which stretched back not only to the report of the Gladstone Committee of 1895, but also to the seminal work of John Howard in the late 18th century, reached its zenith in the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Criminal justice policies in other societies hold the potential for importation, as do those of Britain for export. The ultimate conclusion to be drawn is that radical attempts to redress problems arising from an imbalance between principles, such as that between just deserts, rehabilitation and deterrence, and policy, such as the pursuit of penal moderation, need favourable times in which to become established.
