Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

We have lost two eminent supporters

We have lost two eminent supporters recently.  Lord Lyell and Lord McIntosh both died last week.
Nicholas Lyell had been the MP for Bedford, John Howard’s home town.  As a barrister, a QC and an MP he was knowledgeable about our issues and generally supportive of many of our concerns.  I remember him speaking at one [...]

September 1, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

28 days

Professor Ken Pease astutely points out in a report published today for a right wing think tank that offenders are prevented from committing crimes against the general public while in prison (they can of course beat, scald, rape and attack staff and other inmates but let’s leave that aside.) But he suggests that keeping prisoners [...]

August 28, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Government policy, Headline grabbing, Overcrowding, Prisons, Sentencing, Uncategorized, Victims  One Comment

Policy developments

I haven’t got around to doing a blog for ages because we have been rushing around organising events. I am not going to comment on the hustings or conference on community sentences because there are detailed reports on the website, but there have been some interesting policy developments that are worthy of comment.
In the [...]

July 29, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Headline grabbing, Uncategorized  No Comments

Real work in prison

We had a very interesting meeting with the new minister for prisons, Crispin Blunt, and subsequently sent him a briefing on work in prisons. Our conversation ranged broadly across penal policy and I am optimistic that Mr Blunt could turn out to be one of the most progressive and effective prisons minister I have [...]

July 16, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons, Uncategorized  2 Comments

Budget cuts

The BBC is reporting that tomorrow’s budget will include a promise to force local authorities to freeze the council tax. This may not be all the good news that the journalists are claiming. There are areas of local authority spending that have ramifications for individuals but also for how we all feel about [...]

June 21, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Uncategorized  No Comments

Making real savings

So Nick Clegg says he is going to bring in “a new approach to penal reform” which will end “mass criminalisation of young people” and Labour’s “build and fill ‘em approach to prisons”. He told the Guardian at the weekend that: “I’ll be doing this with Ken Clarke in the weeks ahead.” Good [...]

June 7, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Uncategorized  2 Comments

My friend Rudi Vis

My close friend, Dr Rudi Vis, died on Sunday. Rudi Vis was the MP for my local constituency, Finchley and Golders Green from 1997 and stood down in May after having won two more elections.
I am posting this because he was a great supporter of the work of the Howard League. Rudi ran [...]

June 2, 2010   Posted in: Howard League, Uncategorized  No Comments

Women first

Should the media always mention that the three women who were killed in Bradford were prostitutes? Yes and no.
The BBC has slightly improved in its terminology recently; instead of automatically labeling the women as prostitutes every time reporters now sometimes say they were women working as prostitutes. Identifying them first as sex workers, [...]

May 28, 2010   Posted in: Headline grabbing, Uncategorized, Victims  One Comment

Criminalising children

And so two young boys, aged 10 and 11, have been found guilty of the attempted rape of an 8 year old girl. They will now be sentenced, most likely into child custody, and join the sex offenders’ register.
As I said before, criminalising young children does not help young victims and does nothing to enhance [...]

May 25, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Headline grabbing, Uncategorized  2 Comments

Smoke without fire…

The coalition government has published plans to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants. This has caused a flurry of criticism and some of it for good reason. My concern about publicising the identities of defendants is that it might make the victim more easily identifiable and jeopardise the likelihood of her coming [...]

May 21, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Uncategorized, Victims  No Comments