Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, as I understand it, is searching for his legacy. Putting Iraq aside, might I suggest that he will find it in the "£350m black hole in new prison plan" (Alan Travis, Guardian, 17 February 2007)? In particular, in the prison numbers which have risen from 60,000 in 1997 to the present 80,000. Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, claims that the government is turning the country into a penal colony. And, its going to get worse before it gets better because reoffending rates are at a record level.
I have no sympathy for John Reid, the Home Secretary, for the present prison crisis some of which he is to blame for creating himself. In particular, announcing that he intended to create 8,000 extra prison places, at a cost of £44,000 per prisoner per year, that's £352m annually. This is on top of the £1.7bn needed to build the prisons. One of the problems is that John Reid made his announcement before asking Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, whether he could have the money to extend his empire. Brown refused on the ground that he has frozen the Home Office budget for 3 years. The cost of Tony Blair's private war with Iraq and the cost of waging a war on a non-existent terror has left a large hole in the Chancellor's pocket. Reid has been informed that he must meet the costs of these prison places by making cuts elsewhere, for example, in the budgets for the police, probation and immigration.
It is intended that the £1.7bn will be raised from the private sector. There is something distasteful about making profits from imprisonment. Those lobbying for more prison places and a larger prison population and longer sentences are those who stand to profit from the English prison business. The public are not aware that they are paying for two prison systems running in parallel, the public and the private sector. There should only be one penal system. And, surely commonsense suggests that the less people sent to prison the better it is for society? Too many criminal laws and too many prisons are not about law and order. You cannot build yourself out of this crisis, only dig a deeper hole. The answer is to embark on a policy of reductionism.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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