What A Way To Mark Gordo’s Coronation!
You’ve just become Prime Minister and appointed your new Cabinet and government. How do you celebrate? Release 1,000 prisoners, of course! What better way is there to celebrate than in the manner of kings of old, who would pardon criminals upon their coronation [how apt] and on royal births.
These 1,000 criminals, including burglars, drug dealers and fraudsters, released early were “carefully selected” by prison governors, according to Jack Straw. He said that the early release of prisoners - 25,000 per year - “will carry on until we do get stability in the prison population.” Anything that those criminals do after their early release is completely and utterly the fault of the government.
Stability in the prison population isn’t going to happen. The release of this 1,000 criminals is “nowhere near enough” to do give the Prison Service the space it needs for new criminals. According to the editor of The Prisons Handbook:
“The Prison Service needs breathing space. If numbers continue to rocket up we are in danger of a loss of control.
But 1,200 is nowhere near enough. We need to have at least 10,000 prisoners released to give the prisons the respite they need.”
That cannot and must not happen. Just build new prisons, or go back to using old ships as prison hulks until new land prisons are built. Releasing criminals before they have served their sentences helps no-one, and certainly not the justice system, which the Ministry of Justice is constantly undermining with the programme of early release.
It is a great way to mark the start of your premiership, Gordon Brown. And a mark of things to come.
Source: The Times
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