The ThunderDragon

Our government is putting us in danger by placing violent criminals in open prisons - against its own guidelines. By placing these dangerous people in open prisons, they are leaving us open to the risk of risk of them escaping and re-offending.

They have also started doing this from the start of December by sleight of hand, without actually announcing it at all - just doing it. However, at least it is better than releasing them early. But not by much.

Unfortunately this just isn’t as surprising as it should be that the government has broken it’s own guidelines and put us in potential danger.

Source: The Times

How on earth can driving whilst using a mobile phone a bad enough offence to warrant jail time? Especially for two years! Yes, it’s stupid and dangerous - nobody is claiming that it isn’t - but it sure as hell isn’t worth the potential sentence of two years in jail. Especially at a time when the prisons are so overcrowded that they are releasing real criminals early!

Even the idea of a custodial sentence for such a minor crime is ridiculous, especially considering the current state of the prison system. And two years is an absurdly long length of time in itself. People commit far more serious crimes than driving whilst using a mobile phone and get shorter jail sentences.

This is a policy aimed solidly at the middle-class, aiming to criminalise them. Just give larger fines and more points to the perpetrators, and raise the penalties for actual dangerous or reckless driving and it’s results.

Sources: BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian

The Courts say that Prison Officers can’t strike:

As much as a sympathise with the prison officers, when you do a job like that then you can’t really go on strike. It just really isn’t right for them to do so. I appreciate the problems they are suffering, but as an essential part of the modern justice system, they can’t just go on strike like that.

Certainly the manner in which it has been done has been most disruptive, and potentially dangerous, since “[m]any officers - including union officials - arrived for work unaware of the [strike] plans.”If notice of the strike had been given, then at the very least some civilian cover could have been brought in to avoid at least situations such as at Wakefield prison, where “the 745 inmates - including Soham killer Ian Huntley - [are] being guarded by no more than 20 senior managers.”

The strike has been declared illegal, with

The prison officers should go back to work. They are opening themselves up to a severe undermining of their position of authority within prisons by defying the courts, exampled by inmates at Cardiff prison taunting a picket line in the car park with shouts of “You’re breaking the law”.

They should get a better settlement from the government than they are offered, especially considering that assaults on prison staff have risen to eight per day. After all, considering that they can afford to basically throw £3bn away, they should be able to factor in a pay rise for prison staff.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph

Should we condone this sort of thing, asks Steve Green at the Daily Referendum?

After umming and aaahing I had to come to the decision in the end that no, we shouldn’t. This is vigilante justice, and as pleasurable as it may be to do to someone who is known as a criminal, it is, in the end, just wrong.

We have a justice system for a reason. As much as the Ministry of Justice may be bent on destroying it - such as by letting criminals out before they have served their sentences - it still exists, and must continue to do so. To give into this sort of vigilante justice, just asks for terror to return to our streets, just from people claiming to uphold the law and peace rather than those who know that they are breaking the law in what they do.

Even though an ICM poll today says that “a majority of voters think the government should scrap its prison building programme and find other ways to punish criminals… [with] 51% of those questioned want[ing] the government to find other ways to punish criminals and deter crime,” I don’t think that they were quite thinking of reviving the old punishment of tarring and feathering. Even though the Guardian article suggests it in their analysis, I doubt that a majority really want the prison building programme to be scrapped or criminals not to be sent to prison, but that other alternatives should be found to go alongside prison sentences.

To allow any backtrack down the route of tarring and feathering criminals - especially those who haven’t been convicted of a crime - would be a huge mistake on all sides. It would lead to nothing but trouble for law-abiding citizens. We can’t condone this sort of unilateral action any more so than we can the acts of the [suspected] criminal. After tarring and feathering, what next? The stocks? Pillorying? Trial by ordeal? That’s not justice.

Sources: Daily Mail, The Guardian

A cut in the Prisons budget puts us in danger:

When they said that criminals were going to be released early because of prison overcrowding [and under-funding], they specifically denied that any “dangerous” criminals would be amongst them. Either they were lying or just stupid.

They released the first thousand on the day that Gordo was crowned became PM, and plan to release 25,000 criminals early every year. Despite this, at the same time they are detaining other criminals beyond the end of their sentence.

And yet, at the same time, the Ministry of Justice is demanding that the Prison Service spend £60 million less next year:

Let me get this straight… The prisons are overcrowded and you are already planning the early release 25,000 criminals a year, so you slash their budget by £60m? Yes, that’s very clever. Thus, despite taking more and more from us in taxes, this government is utterly failing to put it to any good use. Instead, they prefer to spend it on bureaucracy.

What the hell are they on? There is no doubt about it that this government has failed miserably on law and order, policing, and prisons. Instead of being “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime,” they have been weak, useless, and completely unprepared to deal with it.

Source: The Times

“A serial killer who modelled himself on the horror-film character Freddy Krueger has killed himself in a top-security mental hospital.
Daniel Gonzalez was found in a pool of blood by staff at Broadmoor in Berkshire after he used a broken CD to cut his wrists.The 26-year-old schizophrenic was jailed for life in 2004 for killing four people in three days in London and Sussex.
Gonzalez… was described by psychiatrists as one of the hospital’s most dangerous inmates… He showed no remorse and told police that he was “on a mission to kill as many people as possible”.” (The Times)

I’m not at all sorry that a man who killed four people in three days and showed no remorse, and declaring that he was “on a mission to kill as many people as possible” is dead. But we should neither have the death sentence, because it could easily kill an innocent person, or ‘encourage’ or even allow prisoners kill themselves if we possibly can.

It would be very easy to suggest that serial killer should be ‘allowed’ to take their own lives - they’re in prison on a life sentence without parole, so why shouldn’t they be able to commit suicide if they wish? But having this as even an unofficial policy is a step along the slippery slope towards corporal and capital punishment. Every reasonable attempt should be made to prevent suicide from occurring - but of course it is neither affordable or even possible to make suicide impossible, and especially not if suicidal tendencies have not been seen. Suicide should not be ‘easy’ in prison. But it should be as hard as finances and practicalities allow.

And should Gonzalez rest in peace? Hell, no.

Image made with the help of the Tombstone Generator
Source: The Times

Despite the rather amusing nature of this story, it hides a deeper and extremely unpleasant Orwellianism.

“A Florida inmate convicted this week of masturbating while alone in his jail cell is reportedly only one of eight targets—along with state taxpayers—of what a Miami Herald columnist describes as “a spectacular case of selective prosecution.”
Given the likely prevalence of such commonplace behavior in state prisons (not to mention boarding schools, seminaries and military barracks), criminally charging any Broward County inmate with masturbation represents a major waste of prosecution dollars.” (ABA Journal)

Yes, it is a waste of money to prosecute for it. But the issue goes deeper. First of all, the female deputy who complained was watching him on a monitor - he was alone in his cell - and has done the same for seven others. It sounds almost like she was channel-surfing for Onanists - and must pay quite a deal of attention to them wanking, since in court she “managed to describe [the] offence in startling detail, eight times, once with… approximating the action with arm motions.”This deputy definitely seems to be on some sort of crusade against bishop-bashing, money-spanking, etc.

That it is - or could be - illegal to masturbate whilst alone is quite disgusting. Had the deputy been visible to the prisoner, then that would be a different story, but since he was alone in his cell, then why should he be prevented from pleasuring himself? It is natural, after all.

This story does give me a great opportunity to post this hilarious video though…
[Warning: Mature content]

via Iain Dale, Tim Worstall, and Caroline Hunt

I’m confused by this:

“Millions of pounds are set to be paid out by the Government to prisoners kept in jail beyond their release dates.
More than 50 inmates, including murderers and rapists, are preparing to submit claims for damages, arguing that delays to their parole hearings breached their human rights. That figure is expected to rise because the number of deferred hearings has trebled from 155 in 2004-05 to 513 last year. Total compensation could top £7 million.” (The Telegraph)

When one thousand criminals were released early just a month ago, and they plan to let 25,000 go early every year, how on earth is this government failing to ensure that those who sentences have ended go free? It seems extraordinarily odd to be releasing some before their sentences are over whilst at the same time detaining other after their release dates have arrived.

When criminals held in police stations because the prisons are full are getting fed takeaway food every night, costing £700 every week at just one police station, why are they enabling criminals to sue the government for breaching their human rights for detaining them after the end of their sentence in prison, and costing the taxpayer £100 in compensation for each and every day of delay?!

They are throwing millions of pounds of our money away because they are too incompetent to fix the prison system. As Nick Herbet, Shadow Justice Secretary, said:

“It is appalling that public money should be wasted like this.
It could have paid for secure accommodation so that violent offenders are not released early onto our streets. Gordon Brown’s refusal when he was chancellor to provide sufficient prison capacity has overloaded the prison and probation services, and re-offending has soared.”

This is a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

But I’m still confused as to how they can be releasing some early because of overcrowding and yet detaining others past the end of the sentence.

Source: The Telegraph

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

Prisoners who are being kept in police stations because prisons are overflowing due to an utter lack of investment - to the extent that they are to release two thousand criminals early immediately, and twenty-five thousand criminals early every year - and they are costing £385 per prisoner per night. Plus, it has also been revealed that prisoners are being fed with takeaway food, with inmates at one police station costing £700 a week to feed on them.

Why are criminals being fed takeaway food on the taxpayer? That is an excessive waste of taxpayer’s money, when cooking for them would would cost far, far less. Prisoners should not be fed in such a manner on the taxpayer. They shouldn’t even need to be kept in police stations in the first place!

Prisoners shouldn’t be fed takeaway food. It is, to start with, expensive and a waste of money. It also, however, opens up the justice system to other abuses - such as being sued for not providing a sufficiently healthy diet, which takeaway food undoubtedly is not.

The Ministry of Justice needs to do something to stop this absurd waste of money and the early release of thousands upon thousands of criminals - but they seem more interested in morris dancing.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC