On Monday this week clause 41 of the crime and security bill sailed through the house of commons virtually unopposed. Just over a week since the bi-partisan justice select committee had stated plainly:

“Prison is a relatively ineffective way of reducing crime for other than serious offenders who need to be physically contained for the protection of the public.  For others, prison is a very expensive way of dispensing justice and seeking reform.”

Also the committee called upon the government, ‘to make more radical decisions, and investments, putting the system on a sustainable footing over the longer term by shifting resources away from incarceration towards rehabilitation and prehabilitation’.

It is odd that MPs of all parties can group together and call for a reduction in the prison population one week and then the next week vote for a measure that will result in an extra two years in custody for people currently in prison.

Just to be clear, this new law is not a ban on mobile phones for prisoners. The government already has this; it is done through prison internal rules, the prison service orders. There is also already a ban on prison officers bringing mobile phones into prisons. This new law is redundant; prison officers already have the power to confiscate mobile phones and prevent their use. If the government wants to see improvement in this area they should invest in it properly not legislate to persecute society’s most vulnerable while deepening the crisis of the prison population.

The crime and security bill will also increase police powers to retain DNA and fingerprint evidence. The Howard League opposes these measures in the bill, particularly as they will allow the police to hold the DNA evidence of a child for prolonged periods.

Earlier this week, the home affairs select committee heard interesting evidence from two witnesses on this matter. One who recounted supporting an environmental protestor cordoned off by the police by throwing him a bottle of water. The bottle landed on the ground and the police arrested the young man for littering. They retained his DNA for close to a year.

The second witness recounted how his 70 year old mother, with arthritis in her hands, had her data taken upon the murder of his uncle. Despite the fact that the old lady was physically incapable of holding the murder weapon the police had taken the time to add her to their list of the suspected criminal underworld.

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The Bill proposed today is unlikely to solve any of the core objectives outlined in today’s speech. People will not be made safer by dragging more young people into prison for defiance of tougher ASBOs, just as they won’t be aided by the criminal justice system playing a role in familial difficulties causing criminality. Of course government should support vulnerable families and yes this would reduce crime but support for families is an issue of welfare and comes a little late when your 15 year old son or daughter is locked in prison for defiance of an ASBO. It seems unlikely that family counseling sessions with Jack Straw himself will do little more than pay lip service to the idea of justice reinvestment and community support to prevent crime.

The proposed new law banning mobile phones in prison will add one further offence to the government’s growing list of 3,700 new criminal offences created since 1997. It will join crimes such as the ban on importing Polish potatoes and illegal entry of the hull of the Titanic on the list of unhelpful offences. While some prisoners are co-coordinating serious crime from their cells the majority are simply trying to contact their families.

It is already a violation of prison service orders to have a mobile phone in prison and it is already an offence to smuggle a mobile phone into a prison. It hardly seems the case that prison officers were dying to stop mobile phone use in prison but just did not have the power. Instead mobile phone use in prison occurs because prisons are staggeringly overcrowded and consequently overstaffed. It is a case of systemic failure not a one-off problem.

Finally, the increased collation of DNA data of those in prison will do nothing but further isolate already isolated individuals from society. The message is clear, former prisoners are not eligible for civil rights available to the rest of us but instead must be further segregated from society.

Of course, as with all proposals, the devil will be in the detail but history has taught us to expect nothing helpful to come from a further piece of criminal justice legislation.

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What about having independent scrutiny every time the police want to retain DNA?  I suggest the Crown Prosecution Service or a similar body.  After all, the CPS was created partly because it was recognised that the police should not be investigator and prosecutor and that a separate body was needed to review the evidence to decide whether a prosecution was in the public interest.  Similarly it could review whether retaining personal evidence gathered during an investigation should be retained on the database.

I am not rejecting the idea that some adults, maybe even some children, might have to have their DNA kept for all sorts of reasons.  But that should be the exception and should be a positive decision, not the default position.

As technology develops we should be using it correctly, appropriately and sensibly.  To make a better world.  Not just because we can.

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