The former prison chief lambasts a justice system in meltdown after Tony Blair's decade of failure on crime and punishment Yesterday's announcement that the prison population now exceeds 80,000 is the latest low point in what one can only describe as the Government's headlong and self-induced race to absurdity as far as the conduct of imprisonment is concerned. The reasons for this dreadful figure are not hard to find. If you produce legislation that results in longer prison sentences, more people will be in prison. If you do not resource prisons, to enable them to conduct work, education and training, prisoners are more likely to reoffend, as proved by the fact that the reoffending rate among adult males has gone up from 55 per cent to 67 per cent in the past five years. If you continue to have a dysfunctionally organised prison service, you will continue to have dysfunctional organisation of an overstretched system. And so on. Many people have been warning the Government about this for years but, instead of listening to those with practical experience, it has preferred to take advice from people who know nothing about running large organisations, let alone an operational service. When, as now, the whole is run by a home secretary who, within weeks of taking office, publicly described the Home Office and the overburdened immigration service as not being fit for purpose, and recently disparaged the probation service to prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, you do not exactly have a recipe for getting out of what is an increasingly dire situation. Leaders undermine the morale of their own troops at their peril. If, at the same time, you continue to bombard them with a continuous torrent of flawed legislation, much of which replaces previous legislation before the ink on it is dry, you create a mess that can only be cleared up by long-term planning, based on discussion with those who understand not only what needs to be done but how it might be done. That requires ditching current plans that are marching the whole system into even greater chaos.
Yesterday's announcement that the prison population now exceeds 80,000 is the latest low point in what one can only describe as the Government's headlong and self-induced race to absurdity as far as the conduct of imprisonment is concerned.
The reasons for this dreadful figure are not hard to find. If you produce legislation that results in longer prison sentences, more people will be in prison. If you do not resource prisons, to enable them to conduct work, education and training, prisoners are more likely to reoffend, as proved by the fact that the reoffending rate among adult males has gone up from 55 per cent to 67 per cent in the past five years. If you continue to have a dysfunctionally organised prison service, you will continue to have dysfunctional organisation of an overstretched system. And so on.
Many people have been warning the Government about this for years but, instead of listening to those with practical experience, it has preferred to take advice from people who know nothing about running large organisations, let alone an operational service. When, as now, the whole is run by a home secretary who, within weeks of taking office, publicly described the Home Office and the overburdened immigration service as not being fit for purpose, and recently disparaged the probation service to prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, you do not exactly have a recipe for getting out of what is an increasingly dire situation. Leaders undermine the morale of their own troops at their peril. If, at the same time, you continue to bombard them with a continuous torrent of flawed legislation, much of which replaces previous legislation before the ink on it is dry, you create a mess that can only be cleared up by long-term planning, based on discussion with those who understand not only what needs to be done but how it might be done. That requires ditching current plans that are marching the whole system into even greater chaos.
Brute force sovles very few problems. But it's the only thing that is talked about. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
It is the same pattern of change for the sake of change and legislate new laws instead of operating the existing ones effectively, that makes the Blair regime so ineffective administratively.
Which can be an end in itself. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
"Before you decide whether the system is fit for purpose you have to decide what that purpose is. In this country there is too much pressure on the criminal justice system because it is supposed to solve society's ills. But it is not the answer to everything; it can't be used to cope with the mentally ill, the homeless and problem teenagers. That's not what it is designed for; it can never be fit for that purpose. Politicians have created a panic about crime so the public now fear there won't be enough space in prison for all the people who are guilty of offences. They have trapped themselves in a debate where they tell the public there is nothing wrong with the system, then enact more criminal laws to change it."
In this country there is too much pressure on the criminal justice system because it is supposed to solve society's ills. But it is not the answer to everything; it can't be used to cope with the mentally ill, the homeless and problem teenagers. That's not what it is designed for; it can never be fit for that purpose. Politicians have created a panic about crime so the public now fear there won't be enough space in prison for all the people who are guilty of offences. They have trapped themselves in a debate where they tell the public there is nothing wrong with the system, then enact more criminal laws to change it."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2026804.ece keep to the Fen Causeway
