The prison population has soared this century in the UK. Some of that is the result of longer sentences for serious offenders. Some of it is currently too many remand prisoners awaiting trial, where queues have lengthened in courts. Some of it is more foreign prisoners.
Yesterday the Justice secretary told Parliament of his plans to bring Ā supply and demand for prison places Ā into better balance. There is a large building programme underway. He is going to speed up expelling foreign prisoners. He proposes different punishments to prison for non violent offenders. He has been taken by the fact that 55% of all those convicted of a lesser offence who spend a short time in jail reoffend after the experience, whereas only 22% of those who are given a non custodial sentence for lesser offences reoffend.
Prison loses prisoners their jobs, maybe loses them their families and their homes. Prison can put them under the influence of hardened serious criminals who groom them for a life of crime, telling them of the problems for ex offenders once released. It is difficult we were told getting Ā bank accounts, insurance and credit fresh from prison.
With electronic tags, probation, community work, curfews and requirements to attend interviews, classes or work the offender can be punished and given the chance of rehabilitation. I think there is much in this, and added the importance of getting thieves and fraudsters to pay some compensation to victims out of what legal earnings they can achieve.
Of course the government was right to require longer custodial sentences for those who are a physical threat to the rest of us. It needs to help the courts get over their backlogs. Ā It needs to be ambitious to say good bye to foreign criminals Ā and make sure through Border Force they cannot return.
October 17, 2023
Good morning.
Para left out ed
I would be very careful with drawing conclusions from this. We do not know what offenses have been committed and by whom and under what circumstances. There is a large body of well meaning but misguided people who do not like the concept of prisons full stop. They would, if they have their way, have them all closed. These people can be compared to the environmentalists of the 60’s and 70’s who, to be fair, had a point. Nowadays they are mostly made up of hypocrites, jumping on a bandwagon in the search of profit and power, and look at where this has got us !
We should have the, ‘Three strike rule’. If you commit a serious offense three times, you go to jail for life !
We should also look at the laws that are created and the polices pursuit of them. Arresting people for quietly praying near an abortion clinic, or reading text from a Winston Churchill speech is not a criminal act. And neither disagreeing with someone or having an alternate, even if unpleasant, point of view.
I think if you work through the problem one will find that it is not those that have to deal with the consequences of laws created, such as the Online Harms Bill, but those that create them in the first place.
October 17, 2023
“It needs to be ambitious to say good bye to foreign criminals and make sure through Border Force they cannot return.”
Are there any spare prisons in Ruanda ?
October 17, 2023
I’m sure they’ll be very ambitious …. and achieve very little since the Human Rights Lawyers will be “on their case” from the getgo.
October 17, 2023
What a load of nonsense. Soft on crime soft on punishment has been the Tory way. Murders and a like given whole life sentence with a minimum ofā¦. In other words the minimum sentence for killing people. 9 years last week for stabbing her husband in the chest!! 18 female prison officers from same prison convicted for intimate relations with convicts! Prisons allowing drugs, drink and sex !! Prisoners called residents!! Prison and prison life better than their dirty chaotic home life! Everything provided for free! How about austere conditions and hard time? Stop the academic left wing criminology outlook rubbish.
October 17, 2023
40,000 criminals shipped in and put up in four star hotels without knowing who they are. Currently being given amnesty to cut back log! Manchester bomber? Allowed to freely come in and out. Does this minister have a clue about these sort of people? Left wing Probation unfit for purpose, parole board the same.
October 17, 2023
Both risible statements. The first typical when a government is in trouble. Do something that should have been done all the time. Secondly rely on the Border Force. Underfunded, so under staffed, poorly managed, not fit for purpose.
October 17, 2023
After 13.5 years who’d believe the Tory’s on any policy promise that should have happened 13.5 years ago!
We will remove the structural deficit by 2015,16,17,18 etc. Of course you would, NOT.
We will reduce immigration to the 10’s of thousands……………….1.2 million and counting. Of course you would, NOT.
We are the party of strivers and entrepreneur’s. 5.6 million on benefits and rising, 46% net tax payers, highest taxes ever and rising under stealthy frozen threshold taxes. Of course you are, NOT.
We will not privatise the NHS………not when there is 7.6 million on English waiting lists due to mass immigration and rising. We have noticed. Who’d want it?
We are the Party of free speech says the Tory’s non Equality Act’s spokesperson awaiting the arrival of the on- line Safety Bill! No, you are the minority people and issues Party who forgot the English. Gone all woke in everything and all leaders and senior in every public sector organisation of every description.
The Tory’s are the Party who have rubbed the noses of their supporters in the mud!
Goodbye Tory’s, hello REFORM.
October 17, 2023
I wonder just how many Hamas sympathises have crossed the channel in small boats
October 17, 2023
ā Too many prisoners or too few prisons?ā
The United States not only jails so many, but the sentences they serve are much longer than UK criminals receive. Hundred year sentences are not unknown in America. This emphasises that a life sentence will mean exactly that.
So the answer is – too few prisons.
A supplementary question is – How does America afford to maintain so many jails ?
I note some states also execute murderers, though they also remain on death year for a long time (which is not very cost effective). Many in the UK would approve of the reintroduction of capital punishment.
October 17, 2023
I think it depends on the offence. Following a 2021 government initiative to keep dangerous criminals in gaol longer, the courts must now pass increased sentences if offences have been motivated by ‘hostility towards a personās race, religion or sexual orientation’. Whereas general assault or criminal damage cases often receive suspended sentences or less, prison is used to punish an offender who also insults the victim’s race/religion etc. The intention behind the change in the law was to deal more severely with dangerous criminals, but I’m not sure how dangerous to the public someone who mouths a few words of racial bigotry actually is. Nevertheless, prison sentences have been made longer in such instances.
Now we find there isn’t enough prison space. It seems the government can’t build prisons fast enough to cope with all the criminal legislation it passes.
October 17, 2023
They do not keep them in jail longer! Killers should be hung, the deal was to keep them locked up for the rest of their life instead of capital punishment. Bulgers killers? How many let out to kill or injure again?
October 17, 2023
are we building ANY prisons?
October 17, 2023
Imprisonment for refusing to use Mr rather than Ms but no imprisonment for assault, burglary and violence against women. The Labour party is pure, unadulterated, undiluted scum on a level never seen before in British politics. The Tory party’s refusal to expose the rank evil of Labour and its leftist allies isn’t too far behind
October 17, 2023
The Tories arenāt that far behind, jail time if you donāt pay your TV licence ā¦Iām sure some government think-tank are discussing ways to imprison net-zero malcontents
October 17, 2023
+1
October 17, 2023
“You cannot be sent to prison for failing to pay a TV licence fee, only for failing to pay a fine in connection with a conviction for not paying the feeāand the latest available figures for England and Wales show no one was jailed for this in 2020 or 2021.” source fullfact
October 18, 2023
catch22
October 17, 2023
If you have few serious early deterrents to crime. Police who do not even turn up when there is clear evidence of thefts, robberies, shop lifting, muggings, violence… then people learn that crime pays and it grows and grows and thus you need ever more prison places in the end.
October 17, 2023
@LL; How many wrong attitudes start within the home and at school, by that I mean zero support from parents when the school does try to take the appropriate action against a wrong doing child. Of course the police should be turning up when a crime has been reported but that is to late, those serious early deterrents to crime you talk about come well before, to many otherwise good parents simply want the pleasant or easy child rearing experience, not the bad nor difficult, wanting to be their child’s ‘best friend’, not their Judge, ‘punishment’ starts at home, not the law courts, or should do.
October 17, 2023
Authorities still not very clear on whether the Luton fire ādieselā car was a hybrid battery fire or not, I wonder why many people must know this now yet we hear nothing or have I missed it? Imagine a similar fire on a large RoRo ferry, where cars are even more closely packed in! They sink rather quickly too.
October 17, 2023
got it in one LL, we need to actually put them out and close the door firmly
October 17, 2023
Can’t we impose many more prisoner electronic ankle bracelets and move a full hotel’s worth to one of the poor areas where hotels can never sell-out? Must be much easier to monitor all of them in the same building?
October 17, 2023
The sentence for many prisoners should be immediate and permanent exile to their country of origin.
In a different culture many criminals would not commit the crime they committed here because of harsher sentences, less access to be able to commit their crime or no community acceptance to commit their crime.
October 17, 2023
@Javelin; permanent exile to their country of origin
But most criminals in the UK are of British origin, the HO is merely playing into the mindset you display, easier than explaining early release or alternate sentences, sending foreign criminals home will not substantially alter UK prison numbers, indeed if done on a reciprocal bases it might make no difference.
The average criminal believes they will not get caught (however good or bad Policing is), whilst others commit crimes out of necessity, if they end up doing ‘porridge’ it’s a bed, three meals each day, whilst sharing a cell with two others is better than sharing a doorway or underpass with others. A Tory Home Secretary, or was he Party leader by then, once said “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, if only they had kept their word on the second bit, instead social and employment imbalances became worse.
October 17, 2023
@Javelin; “in a different culture many criminals would not commit the crime”
That would be why serious crime is rife in many cultures, why some areas of the world are effectively lawless. In some countries when visiting it is often advised to carry a decent amount of usable cash in your wallet, so if you’re unlucky to be mugged you’ll loose the cash but hopefully not your life…
October 17, 2023
Spot on …..and the policy in every other country in the world
October 17, 2023
Build more prisons. Make sentences longer. Remove the ability to serve only 50% of the time. Create Three strikes law, meaning anyone who receives a third custodial punishment will be imprisoned indefinitely.
Make prisons an unpleasant experience instead of the three star hotels they currently are.
Criminals inside can do know harm to the public.
October 17, 2023
@OA; “Criminals inside can do [no] harm to the public.”
True, but have existing whole life sentences stopped murders, rapes etc?
Although I can see the idea of a ‘Three strikes law’ being popular with those who believe in the TVL fee and its non-payment remaining a criminal custodial offense, I can see a ‘Three strikes law’ being popular with those who want stronger deterrents against even low level tax frauds etc… š
Be careful of what you wish for, the next govt might just use it against those you have not thought about.
October 17, 2023
“True, but have existing whole life sentences stopped murders, rapes etc?”
They’ve definitely stopped the criminals re-offending.
October 18, 2023
@OA; To late by then, once such crimes have been committed lives have been lost & life long trauma caused.
October 17, 2023
“Although I can see the idea of a āThree strikes lawā being popular with those who believe in the TVL fee and its non-payment remaining a criminal custodial offense, I can see a āThree strikes lawā being popular with those who want stronger deterrents against even low level tax frauds etcā¦ š”
Perhaps you can tell me how many people are serving a custodial sentence for refusing to pay the TV licence fee?
October 18, 2023
@OA; No I can’t, but those who support the TVL fee might well answer “Not enough!”.
I note you did not ask the same about tax evasion…
October 18, 2023
I’ll tell you Jerry. None, not one person is in jail for failing to pay the TV licence. Nor should they be.
Tax evasion … Phew that is quite a broad subject and I confess to not having a lot of insight into it. So would rather not pontificate upon it. I’ll leave that one with you.
October 18, 2023
@OA; You appear to be deliberately missing my point, or perhaps you just can not grasp that others might in the future ‘miss-use’ a ‘Three strikes lawā. The TVL and Tax were just examples.
“Tax evasion ā¦ Phew that is quite a broad subject “
No more than many crimes some would like to see covered by a ‘Three strikes lawā, after all a criminal is a criminal, whatever the crime, lock ’em up throw away the key…!
October 17, 2023
And you’re happy to pay the additional taxes required to cover all the additional costs that your suggestions will require?
October 17, 2023
Yup.
October 18, 2023
Well I’m not, I’d rather the government went with interventions that have proven to be both more effective and cheaper than prison is.
October 17, 2023
I agree.
Also,it is surely a false statistic to state 55% of those imprisoned for supposedly minor offences reoffend but only 22% of those not imprisoned reoffend (or more accurately are caught reoffending) because most of those sent to prison for supposedly minor offences are already reoffenders and are merely continuing their established reoffending habit when they leave prison. What is likely to stop their reoffending is making prison so bad an experience for them that they will actually adjust their behaviour to avoid going back to prison.
October 17, 2023
ball and chain, little exercise time, maximum in cell time, no tv, no visits….
October 17, 2023
What a load of nasty nonsense. Half the people in prison have mental health and drug problems. If society wasnāt the dog eat dog jungle so beloved of Tories, we wouldnāt have half the criminality we have. A sensible drugs policy would be a start.
October 18, 2023
Drugs certainly are a major problem. Once the druggy/criminal is in prison, they are off drugs. Prison actually can help addicts.
Blaming the “Tories” for a lily-livered woke approach to criminality is the usual pathetic response of the loony left.
October 17, 2023
Too many prisoners, Sir John, and too much social change taking place too fast. To understand what’s been happening in our society, House of Commons library documents are always worth a look, I find. One shows a huge increase in the prison population from 1990 to 2010. Another document shows migration numbers as flat up to the end of Margaret Thatcher’s government, but then rising rapidly under Blair and his successors. I’m sure various other factors also come into it, but a country that opens its borders to large numbers of people who will struggle to earn a living other than by crime is going to be in trouble. From the 1940s to the 1970s, roughly, there were plenty of jobs for migrants that offered them a stable existence and the possibility of integration in our society. That ended, and now their descendants are often involved in drug gangs, with accompanying violence. The situation was aggravated when Blair opened the floodgates to East Europeans, not all of whom earn a living here honestly.
Today’s politicians unfortunately have to deal with the problems created by yesterday’s politicians.
October 17, 2023
@Hat man; Most criminals in UK prisons are BRITISH nationals!
As for immigration under Blair, many who migrated to the UK between 1997 and 2010, even if the migrant came here illegally, came TO WORK, often doing jobs our indigenous population of similar age and skills would not get out of bed for, and still don’t, hence why farmers and hospitality etc are now complaining; by and large illegal migrants only turned to crime, or got sucked into the underworld, after changes in the law made employing illegal migrants a serious crime for any would-be employer, likewise for Landlords renting accommodation, even LEAVING the UK became a problem, now the hard right complain about rising crime, hotel bills & rough sleepers…
The worse thing the UK did, during the John Major govt,, was to opt-out of the Schengen Agreement/Area, doing so has caused us more problems than had we joined, as has withdrawing from the Dublin Convention as part of Brexit.
October 17, 2023
…….todayās politicians unfortunately have to deal with the problems created by yesterdayās politicians…….NO, TODAYS POLITICIANS still doing the same!
October 18, 2023
@Timaction; Yes, politicians today are still making the same mistakes they did decades ago, being to scared to face down vestige interests or the hard right.
October 17, 2023
So Suella Braverman tells āglorifiers of terrorismā: āThe police are coming for youā except they are clearly not doing at all. More interested in harassing Laurence Fox or people āmisgenderingā trans people.
Then we have have Sunak calling the appalling murders in Israel by a Russian word āPogromā. A word that perhaps circa 2% of British people know the meaning of. So is this helpful? Does not communicate very well to the 98% Sunak does it? The BBC still sitting on the pro-Hamas side of the fence it seems the London Mayor seems to be too.
So Richard Curtis says sorry for some rather tame fat jokes in his movies. Did he also say sorry for violently exploding some sensible climate realists and children in another one?
October 17, 2023
LL,It’s obviously a crude attempt to link Hamas to Russia-and very typical of how desperate the UK is with it’s risible propaganda efforts.
October 17, 2023
@LL; Are the BBC sitting on the pro-Hamas side of the fence, or perhaps they are sitting on Palestinian side of the fence, OR perhaps just sitting on the fence being *neutral*, as news journalists should be, and what most of the UK press are not.
As for Sunak using the word “pogrom”, it was spot on and appropriate, used as a noun, as you would know had you bothered to check your dictionary; by the way its a Yiddish word, not Russian.
Do we really need to have everything dumbed down so that even the Daily Star reader understands (what to think), you might, the majority do not.
October 17, 2023
Also, UK can’t support Netanyahu long-term. He failed in the no. 1 job of a leader of state which is to defend his country. Netanyahu failed at a basic level here (in the sense of such a large attack on Israel from right under Israel’s nose).
October 17, 2023
The excellent Dr Claire Craig in a tweet today:- āGlobal excess mortality. The silence is extraordinary.
After a period of higher than expected deaths there should be a deficit.
Only places with deficit are in Eastern Europe.
mortality.watch/heatmapā
Eastern Europe, where they had low Vaccination rates and perhaps sometimes rather different or even fake vaccines.
Looking forward to Andrew Bridgen in the Commons on 20th Oct will any MPs turn up to listen? Or will they be ordered not to do so? Where are the many corporate manslaughter criminal investigations?
October 17, 2023
Well done LifeL.
20th Oct Bridgen Excess Death debate ‘should’ be the only topic worth talking about right now.
Everything else, in my opinion, is just a sideshow.
This debate is IT .. and I bet my years salary most MPs will be missing that day.
More prisons may be needed.. once they have gone through all the manslaughter charges.
(‘I was just following orders’ didn’t work in Neuremberg either)
Tooley Stu
October 18, 2023
@Tooley Stu; “once they have gone through all the manslaughter charges”
Nonsense, no one was forced to be vaccinated, even those whose employers mandated the vaccine had the option of taking effective redundancy or being fired. More chance of an unfair dismissal verdict than one for manslaughter…
Strange how those who deigned Covid 19 existed used to claim the excess deaths seen at the time were due to people dying of Influenza plus a Comorbidity or two; now they claim any death following a CV19 vaccine is caused solely by the vaccine, any Comorbidity is either ignored or asserted to have played no part in the persons death.
October 19, 2023
Well they were lied to that it was āsafe and effectiveā by companies & government experts without any evidence that it was amd prevented for travel, working, operationsā¦ fraud & coercion certainly.
October 19, 2023
@LL; You claim to accept science, yet as soon as science doesn’t tell you what your political opportunist principles wants to hear you rubbish science quicker than any woke, politically correct, group-think, quango file their expenses!
October 18, 2023
@LL; Eastern Europe, were miss-reporting is rife, Eastern Europe were lifestyle deaths are less common etc etc.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics, as they say….
October 17, 2023
could we introduce ‘the Police are coming for you – burglar, car thief, mugger, shoplifter’?
Fat chance of that…
October 17, 2023
I’m sure the criminals who are emptying shops of their stock on a regular basis, safe in the knowledge that the police won’t bother doing anything about it if the value of their thefts is below Ā£200, will be deterred by the thought of an electronic tag or a few hours “community work.”
Personally, I’d favour the stocks, with plenty of rotten vegetables on hand to pelt them with.
Sir John, your Party has been in Government for nearly 14 years. Why do we have an appalling crime wave and over ten thousand foreign criminals in our prisons – 12% of the prison population? Plus another 40,000 foreign criminals who have been shipped in and are currently enjoying luxury accommodation in 4 star hotels?
October 17, 2023
@Donna; “Personally, Iād favour the stocks, with plenty of rotten vegetables on hand to pelt them with.”
Personally I would prefer to sort out why people commit crimes, risk such a punishment, once again the hard right seem more interested in their gaolish retributions than actually dealing with core problems.
October 17, 2023
Treating the causes is usually cheaper as well, placing a lower demand on the exchequer and therefore taxpayers.
October 17, 2023
Why? In many cases it’s because crime pays and the chances of being (a) caught (b) prosecuted and (c) jailed have all fallen.
When it doesn’t pay; the chances of being caught increase and so does the risk of jail, crime will fall.
It would, of course, help if the Government didn’t keep importing criminals.
October 18, 2023
@Donna; Perhaps if we made work pay better than crime pays, for many of these people; perhaps if people had a right to a decent home; rather than a right to a prison cell, after all it is much cheaper to build council housing (like we used to) than build and staff prisons.
As @Peter Parsons points out above, prevention is cheaper than punishment and cure; mature adults really should not need to commit a crime, get banged up, before getting a right to proper free skills training, or do OU style college and Degree courses, whilst having right to time away from (prison) work for study.
October 17, 2023
I found in my career over many decades that most hard working working class Labour supporting left wingers in inner city factories were the ones demanding such tough punishments Jerry.
Your regular use of the “hard right” label towards people you simply disagree with is a cheap shot.
October 18, 2023
@MiB; Oh the irony, using a cheap shots yourself, “working class”, “left-wingers”, but then complaining about the use of cheap shots! Many Labour voters do not self describe as working class, nor left-wing, simply voting for the polices, not the politics, neither the Attlee, Wilson nor Blair govts would have been elected on the combined “left-wing” & “working class” vote alone.
Funny how the hard right like to dish cheap shots but object to being on the receiving them.
October 17, 2023
No time for that messing about, throw them out, NOW!
October 17, 2023
possibly because it has become an easier life than finding a job?
October 17, 2023
Similarly if you have no deterrents to boat and illegal immigration just like crime the numbers just tend to keep increasing. Hardly rocket science.
October 17, 2023
push back mid-channel, and tow back if found in our half. Two weeks of that and the problem will fall away.
Uproar of course – but problem getting solved.
October 17, 2023
The backlog in court hearings is a disgrace this government has long neglected. It represents another way this rotten government attacks us.
The Justice Secretary is surely very pleased with the help given by the police who manage to see only seven per cent. of reported crimes leading to a charge or summons. And reporting crime is greatly discouraged too, with so many activities (like credit card fraud) now effectively decriminalized and more (like shoplifing) on the way to being so treated.
October 17, 2023
The Home Office’ own figures show that for the year ending March 2023, only 5.7% of recorded crime offences resulted in a charge or summons in England and Wales. While this was an improvement when compared with the previous four quarters, it was far lower than in the first quarter of 2015, when 15.5% of recorded crimes were solved.
The best way to deter and prevent crime is to ensure that the police succeed in catching more criminals. As the public are well aware, this means putting more uniformed officers (not PCSO’s who cannot make arrests) on the streets. Merely driving around in their cars deters nobody.
About 2.5 million people here have a criminal record for cannabis and about 35% of the prison population are currently incarcerated for weed offences, which shows that our police are good at plucking low hanging fruit. But anybody who goes into our town centres for a Saturday night out can smell it being smoked. Maybe its time we reviewed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which has clearly not solved the problem.
October 17, 2023
Given that Sunak’s latest bright idea – not in the manifesto – is to progressively ban the sale of tobacco I doubt that he’ll liberalise the laws on weed. Both predicated on the odd idea that banning something will prevent its use rather than, in some cases, promote it.
October 17, 2023
Best way is to have a population which accepts the basic contract: the Rule of Law and Government by Consent.
October 17, 2023
exactly.
October 17, 2023
They could start by decriminalising non-payment of the bbc poll tax, I canāt think why this hasnāt happened, it would be an immediate boost in the polls. They should also stop adding fatuous new offences, like the one going through parliament now which imposes penalties, including in theory prison, for people who transgress green regulations such as what time they may use their washing machines. The public canāt really yet be aware that this sort of thing is happening. Likewise the new powers being surrendered by parliament to the WHO, a quango under strong influence of the CCP. What is going on – do 200+ Conservative MPs really want to lose their jobs come next year?!
October 17, 2023
+1+1
October 17, 2023
You cannot be sent to prison for failing to pay a TV licence fee, only for failing to pay a fine in connection with a conviction for not paying the feeāand the latest available figures for England and Wales show no one was jailed for this in 2020 or 2021. Factcheck, it seems perhaps it has been quietly shelved through sentencing delays and lack of spaces.
What punishment should there be, if someone doesn’t pay for a service but uses it? A house signal blocker on their home and electronic devices? Community service doing what? It is no different than shoplifting, really.
October 18, 2023
Why should you have to pay for a service – the BBC – if you don’t watch the BBC, let alone be criminalised for it?
October 18, 2023
When the BBC is ever bought up, Donna, people on here keep telling us we don’t have to pay for a TV licence and how they get around it to watch other channels.
October 17, 2023
On the face of it, it looks like an outbreak of common sense!!!
What a shame it ever had to get so bad in the first place.
People in prison for non-payment of TV licence, while violent thugs and drug gangs plague whole estates!!
People in prison for ‘hate speech’ ( well only certain people) where no one has actually been physically harmed or threatened, yet violent thugs are given chance after chance after chance, now even more so with Mrs May’s ‘protected characteristics’ which must be set fire to.
October 17, 2023
Michelle, how many people do you believe are in prison right now for non-payment of TV licence?
October 18, 2023
It doesn’t matter how many now or how many I believe are in prison for such a crime. The fact is people have been imprisoned for it and for other non-violent crimes.
I also know that people have been let out on bail for violent crimes and gone on to commit further fatal violent crimes. See the difference? That’s what you need to comprehend.
October 18, 2023
I don’t think anyone should be imprisoned for not having a BBC licence I think their home should be blocked of signal to receive the BBC tv or radio. From full fact and other organisations I read, they havent been imprisoned since 2020, I thought you might have other facts to refute that.
I comprehend very well that plenty of people are imprisoned for minor crimes, like the 72-year-old chap who got imprisoned for a single lockdown offence and others I put in another post.
I also don’t think violent criminals should be let off sentencing, and I actually think child sexual criminals should be locked up as much for their own safety.
October 17, 2023
Well, what does one do when one has overfilled a country and totally screwed the lives of those already living there?
Population increase plus social upheaval = more crime.
There is bound to be more crime ( whatever is deemed a crime that is).
The same happened in the late 1700s and had the comfortable and leisured classes wringing their hands.
New huge prisons are on the agenda, just delayed by planning objections ( must be some rich, influentials near the proposed sites?) These super prisons were, several years ago, regarded as conspiracy theories along with all the other ( now true) suspicions.
October 17, 2023
Too few prisons and too comfortable.
October 17, 2023
The prison building scheme is well behind schedule and in any event decades too late. The prisons are understaffed so some are āout if controlā
Both the courts and probation service seen as not important so regularly subject to budget restraints. Criminalisation of low level drug use totally failed so users steal to fund their habit.
Tag management outsourced for a two penny budget so no resource to monitor and follow up. Criminals just laugh. Community work. Have you seen the (non) effort they put into it and so the rubbish spouted by Ministers etc goes on.
The party of law and order. Another joke.
October 17, 2023
Nigl, why do you think the prison building scheme is well behind schedule? If someone quotes to build then doesn’t complete the work on time, they shouldn’t get any more contracts; they should have to finish with the extra costs at their own expense and not get paid until the work is done and signed off.
October 17, 2023
Happy, happy future.
Being carted off from our 15 minute city to the nearest super prison for using the wrong word or thinking the wrong thought! Or maybe simply for being in favour of something like Brexit?
All utterly, utterly disgusting.
And to think how po-faced this country used to be about the sort of regime it has now become!
October 17, 2023
Agree more prisons, but not prisons that just lock them up for 23 hours a day, have some form of planned rehabilitation, skill training, even basic education for those who left school as a complete failure. etc etc.
Very violent or high risk prisoners will of course need to be kept in high security prisons with a limited amount of mixing between them.
It goes without saying, or should do, that prison officers need to be kept safe with sufficient numbers and with proper trading and pay to reflect the risk involved, and since drugs and contraband appear to be now common place in prison, strict security must be enforced on visitors and staff.etc .
October 17, 2023
I went a couple of times to a prison restaurant, they train the inmates to cook and serve food, this rehabilitation does go on. Some prisons make furniture and other goods. Perhaps we need to hear more about the good work rather than just the worst.
October 18, 2023
a-tracy
Indeed we had a family member who in the past worked in both the Private Prison service and within the secure NHS establishments, both used some limited form of rehabilitation and contract work.
October 18, 2023
Alan, I think the Justice Secretary and the Prison Service need to start telling people of some of their successes in rehabilitation, the training, that people are getting jobs after finishing their sentence.
I personally don’t know anyone who has been to prison. Some very poor people in my family are actually the most vocal ‘punish them’ people I know. I don’t know enough about the people who are in prison to comment on them and why they re-offend, but the second time they re-offend the soft soaping visitation concerns should stop, they should be told re-offend and you’re going to be housed where it suits the system not near to your family and friends in a tougher regime.
October 17, 2023
Yes deport foreign nationals, back to their own Country with no right to return.
Would suggest that when/if immigrants become a UK National, then part of that qualification is that they need to remain free of convictions (other than driving offences) Failure to comply also means deportation.
Speed up the system so that fewer people are held pre trial unless considered dangerous, or are a flee risk.
October 17, 2023
Perhaps the time has come to re-evaluate what make a crime worthy of being locked up, where soft criminals become hardened ones, and drug addicts are created so easily.
Criminals should be in an environment where they can actually do something to make amends and work to some schedule to lessen their sentences by contributing something by physical application – I’m not suggesting chain gangs, but clearly prisons, in their present form only make things worse.
It’s not ever more prisons we need, it is a government that acts in the best interests of the UK. By allowing so many foreign criminals into the UK, HMG has created an impossible situation.
Criminality starts at the top, and when we can no longer trust our government that alone encourages others to emulate those in command.
When we look at the deceit, the unnecessary new laws, the war against motorists, and so many more oppressive actions from HMG, it is so easy to see how so many imagine criminality is the best career move.
October 17, 2023
“He is going to speed up expelling foreign prisoners”
No he isn’t. Why do ministers even say nonsense like that when we have ample evidence that there is absolutely no chance they will do it, or more accurately be allowed to do it ?
October 17, 2023
This Conservative Government will have us all locked up soon, their ban, cancel and control policies are certainly heading that way.
Although as noted foreign criminals are give 4 star treatment, money and perks while the UK Pensioner is threatened with prison for just being alive.
Oh to live in a ‘free’ prosperous Country as we were promised when voting Conservative
October 17, 2023
Meanwhile we have no one who will see to the anti social behaviour that ruins lives.
Why would that be, from a regime that never stops preaching about human rights, the right to enjoy oneās property in peace and all such hypocrisy?
Presumably the authorities donāt want happy, friendly neighbourhoods? They want suspicious, divided, miserable, stressed communities!
Ohā¦not for THEM though!
October 17, 2023
WHY is it deemed ok to play rock-concert-loud music in the garden and blast though the streets blaring it out from a car at all hours? Let off noisy fireworks whenever the fancy takes rather than on a designated day? Sit in a car running the engine, disturbing people in their houses? Or making loud-speaker phone calls?
Not to mention fly tipping because the council no longer takes bulky itemsā¦even for money!
And yet a āwrongā word and you are clapped in irons!
October 18, 2023
I’d include door-knocking for political canvassing and cold-calling people offering services to be banned.
I seem to remember a ban was achieved on charity Direct Debit promotions?.
October 18, 2023
Stalin would be proud!
October 17, 2023
If I understand it correctly, more than half the prisoners are foreign nationals (?). If so, they should be deported immediately, back to their countries of origin. If they can commit crimes here, they can live with the possible risks they face in their own countries.
October 17, 2023
Hi sir John
It won’t happen the lawyers will be on the prisoners case saying it human rights
We have thousands of criminals arriving in the UK by boat, we don’t return them,
we give them free room and board we pay them to stop here costing 7 million pounds a day,
Thank you
October 17, 2023
The answer is neither too many prisoners nor too few prisons, it is: Too Much Crime.
Reduce both by better sentencing of non-violent offenders, such as assessing these raw concepts:
āYou shall serve your time out of prison but wearing an HMP zig zag hazard uniform to alert the public of the risks to pose, or serve your full sentence in prison. Your uniform will be marked with the words of your offence, such as Drugs, Fraud, Theft, Vandalism accordingly.ā
āYou may work in an HM Rehabilitation Factory 5 days each week: to gain credit to reduce your sentence by studying and gaining educational qualifications, charity admin work, working on cold case files to assist police in solving crime, inventing crime prevention devices, or other non-risk work for the public good.ā
Giving offenders a choice and incentive for being better citizens should help turn the tide. Training former offenders into qualified bricklayers, paid with reduced sentences, could cut the cost of building the extra prisons we might not then need.
October 17, 2023
What a world we live in:
Labour have vowed to crack down on transphobic hate crimes, moving attacks on peopleās identity into āaggregative harmsā. Proposals for those who use the wrong pronouns or name to fall into the same bracket as assault and harassment driven by racial or religious hatred were first introduced in 2021, and will be reinforced by Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary Anneliese Dodds. Speaking at Labour conference, she said Labour would introduce:
āstronger laws so those who carry out anti-LGBT+ hate crime get the tougher sentences they deserveā¦we will modernise the gender recognition law to a new process.ā
And people still plan to vote for these crackpots!
October 17, 2023
If you remove all the immigrants from the numbers in England & Wales our prisons arenāt full ā¦there are 10,000 foreign nations in prison making up 12% and there are 14,000 identifying as Muslim
I wonder how many channel boat people are now in Jail ?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/872042/leading-religions-of-prisoners-in-england-and-wales/
October 17, 2023
Many years ago we practiced self-policing within the family. As a result there was proportionately more polcing than there is now.
Then the State starting saying “give us loads of money leave it to us!” and so, as someone else wanted to take responsilbility, we started to take less responsibility for ourselves and our families.
To start to get things back on track the government needs to recover policing, court and prison costs from the criminal’s families. That will start us back onto the road to self-policing.
October 17, 2023
The Police have practically disappeared from the streets and this visible sign and lack of presence has encouraged criminality . The law should be allowed to take a much tougher stance in dealing with the public particularly in vulnerable areas and the Police deserve a much bigger respect with the public than they do at present . There is little doubt in my mind that illegal migration and the way we deal with it at the present time adds to the problem ; the influence and role that is at work in the way illegal migration occurs makes nonsense of our control system ; we have to show toughness and not be influenced by bodies like the ECHR .
October 18, 2023
Perhaps Sir John could table a question ( better than I could) asking for some analysis of typical hours spent in a working month of the average policeman formerly on the beat, or nowadays in a car responding to crime.? It should include attending crime scenes, form filling, interviewing witnesses etc.
October 17, 2023
O/T but maybe of interest to some here:
gov.uk 02/10/2023 āSix companies through to next stage of nuclear energy competitionā.
October 17, 2023
………………………..just 13.5 years to late. It maybe, just maybe, there’s an election in the next year. They won’t be built by then so the process can be abandoned on their interconnectors, joined at the hip to the EU energy policy/ give up our fishing rights agreement. That’s reality, not farce under the Tory’s net zero religion.
October 17, 2023
British or Iranian?
October 17, 2023
An absurdly slow and incompetent government as usual.
October 17, 2023
How many essentially British?
October 17, 2023
Only RR SMR is āessentially Britishā. Four of the others, EDF, GE-Hitachi Intāal, NuScale, Westinghouse are clearly not. Holtec Britain Ltd although registered in Britain is a subsidiary of a US group and proposes a US design.
greatbritishnuclear.blog.gov.uk 09/10/2023 āCompanies selected for next stage of nuclear energy competitionā gives access to the websites of the six competitors.
October 18, 2023
Thank you for that detail in answer. Pity our Government doesn’t state this very clearly in the ‘House’.
October 18, 2023
Surely we just let RR do it? We arenāt in the eu anymore, why isnāt any politician trying to push it through? There is absolutely NO justification for allowing a foreign company to do this. RR have just announced they will be making redundancies soon, surely this project will provide future proofed orders.
Reply This is a huge and costly project where the effectiveness and safety of the design and value for money need to be assessed. Competition is a good idea to determine this. I trust whoever wins will have to base the activity in the UK.
October 18, 2023
I agree, John, but then we’re told projects are over-running all the time and costs are going up. How are costs going up, if an agreed price from the outset to get the awarded contract?
So if you are an honest supplier who prices in for all contingencies you don’t get the work and a **** company can get it by being dodgy?
October 17, 2023
I would hope that in the parliamentary discussion regarding the handing of people’s independent health sovereignty over to the World Health Organisation due thought will be given to how and where punishment will be meted out to those who refuse any treatment that has been passed into law. Will there have to be separate prison cells for vaccinated and unvaccinated “criminals” for example? In a recent discussion with a research cardiologist over the covid vaccine I was told that not only is there no such thing as a safe vaccine, but that it is only the individual that can decide on what treatment they accept. “Anything else would be contrary to medical ethics” he explained.
October 17, 2023
From the MsM “Rishi Sunakās stealth tax raid is equivalent to a 6 pence rise in income tax and will cost the public an extra Ā£52bn a year by 2027, according to a leading think-tank.” – The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
This Conservative Government thinks no one can see what they are doing to this Country.
If there had been as much focus on creating an economy as they have put into destroying it we would have a bright future,
October 18, 2023
We once had the EU running out treasury ā¦only to be replaced by quangos running the treasury
October 17, 2023
Might I suggest a flogging for some crimes? The criminal takes his punishment, recovers then gets back to their life. If he went to prison, he would lose his job, become dependent on the state for bread and board, then be unemployable after he comes out.
A public flogging would also serve as a good deterrent to others.
October 17, 2023
Too many prisoners or too few prisons ?
This question even though the hapless Tories have already legalised burglary, shoplifting and the smoking of cannabis in public spaces.
13 years of Tory disaster.
October 17, 2023
If, as we are led to believe, 90% of crime is repeat offences then clearly the punishment is insufficient or of the wrong type. Just building more prisons will not reduce offending.
October 17, 2023
We are told our farms can’t get labourers, and there is accommodation on site that used to be used by foreign labour, so if the lower-level criminal is tagged, give them the option of working on the land rather than being in a lockdown brick prison, give them the same pay as a foreign labourer less their accommodation and food, then they can pay back the victim surcharge and fines.
Religious do-gooders always call for rehabilitation rather than imprisonment for crimes; give them a couple of community punishment workers each to do good work for them with tags and night-time curfews.
Someone like Pryce and Huhne could have worked on community punishment in the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, or telephone helplines for Age Concern or samaritans on tags with nightime curfews at nights and weekends as their punishment.
October 17, 2023
Instead of Rwanda, I wonder if Bulgaria, Romania or Hungary would build basic humanitary prisons for UK foreign prisoners who would be deported to their home countries after sentencing; perhaps that would frighten them sufficiently to behave themselves when we take them in. There are sufficient people who speak English to take on the prison warden jobs.
October 17, 2023
Dear Sir John
From experience of two people who l know well, and have helped on many occasions, there seems to be many shortcomings in the probation services.
The offenders are required to attend probation meetings of which some are useful but the majority have no value other than proving the person shows up.
The person who l know, and have very often driven to probation, has been arrested ( by police and on occasions forced entry into his home) and sent back to jail.
To most of us seems quite straightforward to attend a meeting once a week, but if that journey is over 20 miles with no straight forward public transport and you have no or very little money even though the fares are sometimes refunded (with difficulty). He also has various appointments that need to kept and to people that are not fully functional, as many ex offenders are, l feel that they are being let down and consequently sent back to jail.
Even simple things like issuing a bus pass could help and more help to gain employment. Many are in the same position and need the support to get life back on track and become useful citizens most in this position want this but struggle to achieve with out the correct help.
The person l am writing about has been convicted of shoplifting to support a self drug habit.
October 18, 2023
Your last line sums up the common reason for petty shoplifting.
October 17, 2023
Always analyse the root cause, don’t treat the symptoms.
Ask: Why are there more prisoners?
Possible answers include:
Immigration
Cultural differences
Poor parenting
There will be others, of course.
October 18, 2023
Inability to pay bills so resorting to minor crime?
Casual drug offences, including the use of weed?
October 18, 2023
XY the prison population dropped from Mar 2020 and started to rise again from Oct 21. It is just getting back to 2019 levels now which was also lower than it was in Mar 17.
This is interesting as the number of incarcerated is due to go up sharply next year.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1138135/Prison_Population_Projections_2022_to_2027.pdf
October 17, 2023
So Jordan and Egypt have announced that they will not accept ‘refugees’ from Gaza. Indeed Jordan has said that it would upset the demographic balance of their country and result in disruption. In the light of this and the murders in France and Belgium, surely we can all agree that there is no possible justification for the virtue-signalling idiots of Westminster to import any of these people into a country already awash with immigrants.
October 17, 2023
For minor offences, we could and should bring back cruel and unusual punishment at the lower end of the scale. I refer to the stocks and the cat-o-nine tails, not the rack or public hanging or the oubliette. Financial crime is the scourge of our age. Ideally, offenders should stay in jail until they have produced marketable goods in prison workshops to the value of double the amount stolen or scammed or embezzled. Half would go to the victim and the other half to the State to defray its expenses.
October 17, 2023
I wonder if trials are taking longer not only because of lack of capacity of courts but also because of increasing human rights, increasing influences of identity and race, increasing need for interpreters, and increasing complexity of law.
October 18, 2023
Spot on, I imagine.
October 19, 2023
‘He has been taken by the fact that 55% of all those convicted of a lesser offence who spend a short time in jail reoffend after the experience, whereas only 22% of those who are given a non custodial sentence for lesser offences reoffend.’
The number of offences each offender commits follows a power law.āThat is, a few criminals commit many of the offences.āEd West explains well how a Dublin car crash quelled crime in his article ‘The Power Law of Crime’.
A prison sentence for ‘petty’ offences, e.g. burglary, is only given after many convictions.āThus those in jail are already serial offenders and are likely to re-offend on release.āAn inept burglar caught early avoids prison and changes his ways.āSo the Justice Secretary’s simplistic statistic above is not enough to support imprisoning fewer crooks.