Children’s prison to close

Castington prison for children is to close – fantastic news. One down, quite a lot more to go. Castington, in Northumberland, is hundreds of miles away from the homes of many of the young people incarcerated within its bleak walls. I visited a few years ago and found lads from inner city London, bemused and [...]

February 23, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Children and young people  One Comment

End of prisoner early release scheme announced

Ending this early release scheme is a welcome step, as the scheme did nothing to increase public confidence in the justice system. Nevertheless, the scheme was originally introduced for the very good reason that our prison system was full to capacity.В  Even with the scheme in place prison overcrowding remained at crisis levels and now [...]

February 22, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Government policy  No Comments

Rape is rape, wherever and whenever

Apparently most people think that in some circumstances rape victims should accept responsibility for being attacked. This raises some interesting questions about our attitudes to victims and crime.В 
The law punishes a perpetrator of a fraud against an employer with additional severity because it is a breach of trust. Yet, when a woman is raped by [...]

February 15, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Lap dancing clubs and local powers

New powers for local authorities to refuse permission for a lap dancing club will be introduced in April. I think this is a welcome move for several reasons. I agree with Harriet Harman that local people should be able to decide for themselves if they want a sleazy club in the neighbourhood. It should be [...]

February 12, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons  No Comments

We should not conduct torture nor should we be complicit

The foreign secretary has lost an appeal court bid to stop the disclosure of secret information relating to the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed. This was a clash of rival principles, state security against the protection of human rights and prevention of torture.
In 2003 the UK signed up to the optional protocol to the United [...]

February 10, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Another announcement about victims

Jack Straw has announced a new national victims’ service. It won’t be a statutory service, but a sort of unit with a paltry ВЈ8 million funding. This comes seven years after legislation was passed to set up a commissioner for victims office. This has not happened, despite being announced several times, until Sara Payne was [...]

January 27, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Victims  No Comments

Myleene Klass and Richard Bradshaw, via Boots the chemist.

I have a lot of sympathy for Myleene Klass, and I must admit that if I was home alone and saw young men in my back garden I would react intemperately. She should have called the police. It is possible that they were intending to burgle her house and the police should be involved in [...]

January 13, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Police  4 Comments

My birthday

It is my birthday today, so I am going to be self-indulgent and talk about issues that are personally close to my heart.
The snow in North London, where I live, was a delight this morning, I spent an hour making vegetarian mince pies for my staff, taking pleasure in looking out onto the white coated [...]

December 18, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

The consequences of a political stampede on anti-social behaviour

The Guardian has a front page story today based on an ICM poll of voting intentions that the Conservative lead is down to 9 points over Labour. So the outcome of the general election is looking a lot less certain than in recent months. We could have a hung parliament, or a slim Labour lead [...]

December 15, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Government policy, Sentencing, Women in custody, anti-social behaviour  No Comments

Some good news

For once there is some good news.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow secretary of state for justice, announced a Conservative government would not now build 5,000 new prison places if elected but would focus on regulating the prison population.
The government justice secretary, Jack Straw, announced on Thursday that women should be sentenced in the community and no [...]

December 8, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons, Women in custody  No Comments