Professor Dirk van Zyl Smit recently argued at the annual International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research, that not since the end of sentences for hard labour has any statute provided formally for the purpose of punishment, except for loss of liberty. It remains the view, first expressed by Paterson, that prisoners are sent to prison as a punishment and not for punishment. Therefore, a priority for the new Minister of Justice, Jack Straw MP, must be to draft a new bill to become a new Prison Act. Moreover, the new Prison Act should specify prisoners legal rights. For example, it is a human right for all convicted prisoners of voting age to be allowed to vote in general and local elections.
There needs to be a new Prison Act for the simple reason that the last one was passed in 1952, and times have moved on particularly in the area of prisoners rights. Whilst it is accepted that a prisoner loses his right to liberty by the fact of his imprisonment, there is evidence that prisoners are losing other rights without justification. For example, in the prisoners media case it was argued by the prison authorities that because I was a prisoner I was not allowed to contact the media without the permission of the prison authorities. I argued that this restriction breached my human right under Article 10 of the Convention as it prohibited my freedom of expression. The judge ruled in my favour.
The main problem, as Professor Dirk van Zyl Smit points out, is that the Prison Act 1952 was not drafted to spell out prisoners rights, but rather to enable government to manage its prisons. By including prisoners rights and duties into statute would resolve the uncertainty which surrounds the law in this area at present.
There needs to be a statutory footing to resolve the anomaly of a life sentence prisoner who has become post-tariff. By this I mean that within the life sentence is a period which serves the twin aims of retribution and deterrence (the punitive element), and a post tariff lifer then enters the treatment stage or is detained purely for public protection, and it is both legally and morally wrong to continue to punish that lifer by subjecting him to the same regime as those undergoing punishment.
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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