Britain’s judges must be scratching their wigs in disbelief following John 
Reid’s plea to them to limit jail sentences as our prisons are full.
The Home Secretary and law chiefs have told the country’s learned legal professionals, along with our magistrates, to only use jail for the most dangerous and persistent criminals – but hasn’t that always been the case? Hasn’t prison always been a last resort?
I wonder how they feel about being told not to “squander” taxpayers’ money on monitoring non-dangerous and less serious offenders. Talk about teaching grandmother how to suck eggs.
The shortage of cells is so desperate that Norwich jail is to reopen a wing declared “unfit” by inspectors. How long before these prisoners complain that their human rights are being violated at being placed in “unfit” cells?
Norwich is the home of the former disgraced Home Secretary Charles Clarke, could a bigger embarrassment be heaped on him? It is a city he represents, was he totally ignorant of what was happening on his own turf?
Alternative sentencing has been tried and failed, like electronic tags which are easily removed, I hope this is not to be used as a preferred option, what effective alternatives does John Reid and his law chiefs have in mind?
It is ludicrous that sentencing is to be decided on availability of cells. How will this work, will judges and magistrates ring up the Home Office before sentencing to check there is space? What does this say about our justice system? What verdict would our learned eagles pass on John Reid’s interference?
Update: 25 January, man avoids jail for downloading porn to prevent prison overcrowding, and prison ships planned.
Will TV licence evaders continue to be imprisoned for non-payment of fines in future!?!
Ellee
A little off the point but your opener ‘judges must be scratching their wigs’ made me wonder if the public knew that the Government have announced an end to Wigs starting this October? This I might add goes contrary to every survey of the legal profession that I’ve ever seen. I won’t fill up your site with the reason for retaining them, but I do note it is another example of change that was not needed or asked for by those it affects.
James
James, So why are wigs being abandoned if it goes against surveys conducted in the legal profession? My view is that people want, and expect, to see traditional figures continue, it is an inherent part of the British culture.
I see that Cabinet papers came out the other day advocating chemical castration for paedophiles and electronic chips for parolees , why not extend this exciting new thinking and clear some space by reintroducing corporal punishment…well you could make prison nastier and shorter .Is this so very different to Mingers ideas about working to pay your debt off.?
Seriously … The whole problem is we have lost all sight of a prison sentence being a matter of justice not just convenience. The clearest possible signal of regaining the moral high ground would be the reintroduction of the death penalty for those crimes where quite evidently justice can be served no other way.
It is clear until that point that we prefer to look the other way and serve our own convenience at the expense of the victim. Minger also advocated sentences that mean what they say . Firstly his party wouldn’t let him and then the Prison guards will say without the system of reward they cannot control the prisons. This gives some idea what a cushy holiday camp the whole experience is and why the Liberal party is a pointless waste of energy.
PUNISHMENT is nothing to be ashamed of it is the primary purpose of prisons and rehabilitation is only a minor side issue .Make prisons nastier. Make sentences mean what they say and I guarantee you will get a lot less people in them. Do you know the standard of living “inside� is actually higher than on the neighbouring estate in IZ and MUCH higher than is Children’s homes .
DISGRACEFUL CONTEMPTIBLE and brought about by misguided Liberalism. When are the vast majority of the country, who have called for capital punishment consistently, going to get what they want and need . When are the arrogant Liberal elites going to be brought down.
Same question really
What do you think Ellee ( he said sweetly )…..
Good point Ellee. It seems a little odd for judges to be blamed one week for being weak and the next for sending too many people to jail.
Newmania, Good point reminding us what Reid said about life meaning life. I don’t agree with capital punishment though.
Sorry for the brief response, just dashing out now for a working lunch, I’m hoping to write another post later which will be right up your street.
The Prime Minister assured the the House in Question Time today that there was to be considerable investment in prison building. He asserted that H.M. Opposition had always opposed this spending. But I can never tell who is actually right, it seems all a game of statistics.
But I must say I don’t think the Leader of H.M. Opposition did too well today. I thought he flogged the break-up of the Home Office issue a bit too much, obviously doomed to get nowhere with it. The Prime Minister is simply too experienced at fielding questions like this.
We have too many prisons and too many prisoners within those prisons. It is right that judges and magistrates need to be reminded that prison should only be used as a last resort. However, it is wrong that the government keeps sending out mixed messages as this only leads to confusion by those trying to implement government policy. On the one hand they are saying tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime; and on the other they are saying softly, softly.
During the 1990s the government latched on to the rather hazy concept of public protection. It is right that the public are entitled to this. However, it gives rise to a legitimate expectation and the public do not feel that it is being met. Instead of trying to meet this, the government concerned itself with the issue of public confidence. However, public confidence is not obtained by deception. The public do not have confidence in the system.
In my view, the only way in which the public will have confidence in the system is when the government starts to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sometimes the truth is unpalatable. However, I feel that this is a better way to tackle this crises. I say this because whatever spin is put on this it remains a mess.
If your house is dirty you clean up the mess. Trying to sweep it all under the carpet or rearranging the furniture is not a solution. In this instance it requires both the public and the government to assume responsibilities. There are good role models in the Netherlands. At present the public has got the system it deserves, and wallows in the mess it has helped to create. The government is obviously in this mess too. The molehill has been allowed to grow into a mountain. If you flatten the former you don’t have to climb the latter.
We have too many prisons and too many prisoners within those prisons. It is right that judges and magistrates need to be reminded that prison should only be used as a last resort.
From someone who should have been locked away for life, I find your comment a little rich.
It is ludicrous that that sentencing is to be decided on availability of cells. But the situation has been one entirely of NuLabour’s making.The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have said the money for ID cards – £8 billion, according to the government, but up to £20 billion according to independent estimates – would be better spent on conventional policing and security measures.
Blair still disagrees.This is a classic instance of NuLabour having squandered the public’s money on marginal obsessions while pressing issues like prison building and prison maintenance remain totally unaddressed.
So not surprisingly ministers are now urging judges to jail only most dangerous and persistent criminals to ease overcrowding.
serf: I was locked away for life. You will find a rich source of comment coming from a mine of useful information.
Ellee-I don’t agree with capital punishment though.
Why not? Don`t you approve of justice and can you not see that the scales cannot be balanced by a stay in Butlins. How can it be right that a murderer a guilty and bad man is shown so much more mercy than he /she showed his victim and what right does the state to deny justice. What about right and wrong ?Does that not matter anymore.
IT Are you quite sure about those figures you are quoting £20 Billion. Thats half as much as the country spends on food a year. I am finding it hard to belive even this profligate governement could manage that.Have you popped in an extra nought ?
Newmania, regarding how much the ID scheme will cost.I’m afraid NuLabour is even more profligate than you had thought…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4590817.stm
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2005/IDCard_FinalReport.htm
Whats wrong with building new prisons on some of the more remote and uninhabited islands that are of the coast of Britain?
using prisoners as a labour force whilst they are being built would also reduce costs.
Prison should be a punishment, and if that means being made to work for your keep then so be it.
Many prisoners live and recieve better conditions than the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, this should not be acceptable.
We should pay foreign countries to take our prisoners from overcrowded prisons. problem solved.
Buster George and Wayne, Some good points. Alas, the existence of the European Prison Rules (yes, such a set of rules really does exist) theoretically rule your ideas out. The European Prison Rules are designed to ensure that European states are in line with article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights-the prohibition against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. Using prisoners as a source of labour or opening prison islands would be open to endless and complex legal challenges via the European Prison Rules and the European Convention on Human Rights.Thats why European govts don’t use prisoner labour or open prison islands. As for sending prisoners abroad, which countries would actually want to take them and how would appeals, sentencing reviews and releases take place? According to which country’s laws?
See here for more on the European Prison Rules:
http://www.legislationline.org/legislation.php?tid=160&lid=4905&less=false
Newmania, we will just have to agree to differ. For obvious reasons, I do not want to get into a debate about capital punishment on this post.
Wayne – this is something I’ve been saying for a while. My thought was a sibarian jailhouse. It would be far more cost effective for this country. Then again, there would probably some human rights someone or other screaming about how they can’t see their loved ones and how we should, as tax payers foot the bill for the travel at least!
Alternativly, strike a deal with Israel and get them inlisted for a while. Put them on the boarders and lets see if they feel crime really pays.
Prison shouldn’t be the holiday camp that its become under nu-labour.
It would be great to time travel back to 60’s where criminals drove mini coopers and blew the bloody doors off. None of this PC mindfield and Orwellian society we’ve become.
As for the judges and their wigs, I think it’s out of order. Not to get to Fiddler on the Roof about it – It’s Tradition. I don’t want anymore of this countrys values and traditions eroded.
Yes but Ellee, this is getting very, vry much like 1788, when they sent the first convicts to Australia. The prisons were overflowing, the hulks sat on the Thames and here we are again.
If anything encourages crime, it’s statements from John Reid.
The government have known about this problem of prison overcrowding for some time, and – typical of them – they haven’t done anything meaningful about the problem.
With regard to wigs. The Blair administration is determined to remove many of our traditions. Do you remember when Gordon Brown refused to address the CBI in a dinner suit? Brown also got rid of the old Chancellors’ brown briefcase. Tony Blair suddenly announced the office of Lord Chancellor was going to abolished. Now wigs will no longer be used in court. Not only has this government a contempt for parliament that we have never seen on such a scale before, they erode rights, freedoms, and traditions with the same contempt.
I always laugh at the “too many prisoners” comment. What is the correct number?
I’d suggest that until everybody in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods can come home with a reasonable expectation that their house won’t have been broken into, there aren’t enough people in prison.
Alas, the existence of the European Prison Rules (yes, such a set of rules really does exist) theoretically rule your ideas out. The European Prison Rules are designed to ensure that European states are in line with article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights-the prohibition against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. Using prisoners as a source of labour or opening prison islands would be open to endless and complex legal challenges via the European Prison Rules and the European Convention on Human Rights.
I would have left the EU and got out of the Human Rights Act but that’s for another time.
If you send them to a country like Russia which is outside the EU they should be theoretically outside the jurisdiction of the EU. We can call it ‘outsourcing criminal punishment’.
As for sending prisoners abroad, which countries would actually want to take them
I don’t know but I was thinking poor countries who could actually make a profit out of it.
how would appeals, sentencing reviews and releases take place?
Video link and when they are released we could send them back on a plane
Then again, there would probably some human rights someone or other screaming about how they can’t see their loved ones and how we should
We would give them a video link and that is it.
Wayne when are you running for PM?
You have my vote!lol
Newmania, we will just have to agree to differ
Of course Ellee , some other time
IT- WOW!!!!!
That is truly astonishing
Why, I wonder do we imprison a higher proportion of our adult males than any other european country…?
I just ask the question.
As for sending prisoners abroad, which countries would actually want to take them
A significant minority of our prisoners are actually foreign nationals. Where to send them is fairly obvious.
I was locked away for life.
Which is presumably why you are alive and on the loose????
I see no reason why imprisonment should not be subcontracted abroad to some responsible power where the costs are held down .
I would suggest India ..well I would suggest the North Sea but lets settle for India. Saves us money .No danger of escape ( Which is becoming a problem) and , with no cruel treatment, it would be a more forbidding experience.All good then…strange diseases and squalid conditions would be a bonus but there is no need .
Incidentally still stunned from ITs links on the cost of ID cards the approx amount spent on food by every man womnan and child in the country is £60 Billion. About £50 bio. is gambled largely by the poor in the foul state gambling monopoly.
This puts the various ID card figures in context.
Another figure you might like is the cots of the Home Offices Marsham Street HQ with cafes naturally lit atrium , meeting places ,bells and whistles…a cool £1.4 bio. and they can`t even keep their files up to date
RAGE RAGE RAGE
IT, a belated response, but will it infringe the prisoners’ human rights to be placed in cells deemed unfit for use?
Yes Ellee, of course it would.
We are decades behind other countries in finding civilised- and socially beneficial solutions to this problem.
Wayne when are you running for PM?
In about 20 years…
I would suggest India
I would suggest madagascar. Its an island nation in africa
I note that journalists now fall into the category of extremely dangerous and persistent criminals who need to be jailed, whilst users of child pornography can be left to wander the streets at will. Such a clever lot, some of our judges, I can’t think of a better way of making Dr. Reid pay attention to public outcry than these cases. (That is; once the stories are in the hands of the dangerous criminal journalists!)
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