John Redwood on prison reform

I notice that John Redwood has suggested that burglars and car thieves should not be sent to prison but should pay compensation instead and that this would do more to help victims and achieve the government’s target of reducing prison costs. He makes the argument that victims are doubly victimised by having to pay the [...]

January 25, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Sentencing  2 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

Queen’s Speech debates and faith restored

Last week you would have been forgiven for thinking I had rather lost faith in Parliament as I showed my  disappointment with the latest raft of legislation proposed to separate vulnerable individuals who end up in prison from the rest of society.
However throughout this week’s parliamentary debates on the Queen’s [...]

November 27, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons  One Comment

Conservative party conference

I am sitting on the train coming back from the Conservative party conference, where Andrew Neilson and I have spent a couple of days.  We met shadow ministers and went to fringe meetings.  Apparently, or so Dominic Grieve told me, there are 12,000 people registered to attend the conference, which is exceptionally high.  Although a [...]

October 6, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Prison officers  No Comments