'Penal Populism' Is A Hit With The Voters, Polly

An astounding change is happening to life in England and Wales that most people don’t know about, and when they are told they don’t believe it. Most crime, including violence, has fallen by a remarkable 90% over the past 30 years. But only 6% of people believe it, while 61% think crime is going up.

Dear old Polly, always reliably wrong. Here she presents facts on crime, assuming that because the numbers are lower than people imagine, we will all say, 'Ok, OK, that's all right then'... 

This great denial is the background cause of the prison overflow crisis, as politicians (of all parties) stir up voters to demand ever higher sentences as the imaginary cure to their imaginary soaring crime.

No one in politics needs to 'stir up voters'. quite the opposite, they are letting criminals go free in clear defiance of the electorate's wishes, and they'll pay a high prices for it at the ballot box.

All western European countries enjoy this same remarkable social improvement, with research over decades offering myriad reasons why: populations spending longer in education, CCTV, better security for cars and homes, and young people staying at home to play video games of fantasy crime instead of entertaining themselves with the real thing. Removing brain-harming lead from petrol and abortion of unwanted foetuses at risk of future child neglect are other possible explanations.

The Left's anwer to so mamy social issues seems to be to kill peiople, doesn'y it? 

This generation inhabits a far less violent society, with many fewer homicides, thefts, burglaries and serious violent crimes, but also far less casual social violence in brawls and punch-ups. Older folk nostalgic for an orderly golden age when no one bothered locking their front door usually situate it just beyond their own memories, in their grandparents’ halcyon days. But radical social change leads to less acceptance of any violence. Online fraud and cybercrime are the ones that are steeply rising, though they are committed by quite different criminals.

We rather doubt this, if the statistics are saying this, we wonder how they are being manipulated to give the 'right' answer.

Single landmark horror cases – from the Moors murderers to Fred West and Axel Rudakubana – are seared for ever into the nation’s collective nightmares. Too often these freak incidents drive our sentencing policy.

As they should do. 

It’s happening again in the case of two of those responsible for the heartrending death of PC Andrew Harper. Harper’s family, and every chief constable in England and Wales, protested vigorously that they were due to be released under new rules after serving only half of their 13-year manslaughter sentences.

But anything singling out these men will be challenged in court. Blocking early release for all those imprisoned for manslaughter would fill too many cells: besides, that’s rough justice when some have sentences of one year, others for 24 years or life.

The true rough justice is that these murderers are breathing at all; they deserved the death penalty. 

The law is set by parliament for independent courts to apply, regardless of politics: look at Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán for examples of those who break that democratic principle. We should be uneasy at our government declaring publicly that it is chasing after a way to bend laws to lock up two particular offenders.

But we aren't. We are happy that for once they are listening to the electorate.

Was She Discovered Because She Was More Sensible Than The Adults?

Or just because she didn't have an OnlyFans account, unlike all the other female prison officer candidates?

A child was accidentally recruited by bungling prison bosses to look after murderers and terrorists, the Daily Mail can reveal. Emily Frith worked as a prison officer at HMP Erlestoke in Devizes, Wiltshire, while still aged just 17.

And she has the nerve to blame them for being conned by her! 

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: 'It's shocking, prisons are supposed to be secure but nobody even did basic checks on me. Where was the safeguarding? I was a child placed in a dangerous environment and I could easily have been seriously hurt 

So you knew that and didn't mention it at any point? Why not? 

'At the time I thought it was a great job, I was earning a fortune for a 17-year-old. I was shadowing another officer but I was still out there chatting with inmates, helping with bang up, helping with counting. I was doing everything a trained prison officer would do 

Ah. Of course. Too busy enjoying the money! 

'It's embarrassing from the government. No wonder prisons are in the state they are in.'

With David Lamentable MP in charge, could they be anything else? 

Her age was only discovered by accident more than two weeks after she joined when she applied for mileage expenses for driving to training and a colleague noticed the date of birth on her driver's licence.

The implication being, if not for this, she'd still be there.... 

Aren't We Forgetting Something, BBC News?

The family of a young boy who was left with life-threatening injuries after he was thrown from the 10th floor of London's Tate Modern art gallery have said their "little knight" has achieved his goal of being able to run, jump, and swim again.

The boy, who spent months in intensive care, has continued to gain cognitive endurance. His family said although his memory skills were still very limited, they were functional and improving, so he was "acquiring a general knowledge at his own pace, which increasingly allows him to be included with other children".

Bravery was found guilty of attempted murder in 2020 following a trial at the Old Bailey. He was handed a life sentence and told he would serve a minimum of 15 years in prison.

Heartening as it is to hear good news, it's strange that their update on progress doesn't include a mention of the progresss made by his attacker - perhaps because its not quite so heartwarming.

It's The Department For Work And Pensions again

Doling out taxpayer cash to neither a worker nor a pensioner:

A drug addict boyfriend who strangled his girlfriend to death before driving around with her body in the passenger seat is eligible to receive thousands of pounds in benefits while locked up.

Isn't there some clause that prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or scripts? I'm sure that now-deceased jailbird columnist at the 'Guardian' always used to moan about it. So how come this guy can be given taxpayer funds so cavierlierly? 

... the killer avoided prison after being convicted of manslaughter thanks to a diminished responsibility claim owing to his poor mental health. He was instead detained under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983 and sent to a secure psychiatric unit where he will likely be eligible to receive universal credit payments. It means Tape is not classed as a prisoner and will not be transferred to a jail if he is released from hospital. As such, he is entitled to claim for up to £400 a month of benefits, unlike if he was detained under section 45A which excludes a person from receiving the taxpayer-funded money.

*sigh* Can he at least be billed for his board and lodging like they do with miscarriage of justice cases?

It Depends On Your Definition Of ‘Petty Offences’, Of Course

For those unconvinced that prime minister Keir Starmer really wants to fix Britain, look no further than his appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister. Timpson, chief executive of the eponymous family business best known for shoe fixing and key making, is not an MP and has been parachuted into the job by Starmer with a peerage and a seat in the Lords.

His qualifications for the role?

As for Timpson, he is a businessman and chair of the Prison Reform Trust, with an outstanding track record of supporting ex-offenders in work and a commonsense radicalism in his approach to justice.

The Prison Reform Trust does what it says on the tin: it campaigns for reform of the prison system. Rather than jailing more people, this means jailing fewer of them. It means not giving custodial sentences for petty offences to parents who shoplift to feed their children or to people with drug and mental health problems who should be getting support in hospital or the community rather than being jailed, when their problems invariably get worse, sometimes to the point where they take their own life.

It means not introducing a bill that could criminalise homeless people for smelling.

Which no-one actually did, of course!

The bill defines “something that is a nuisance” in relation to a person who “causes or does something capable of causing damage”. A section of the criminal justice bill defines that damage as including “excessive noise, smells”.

Which can mean leaving behind offensive smelling rubbish, like these charming people in the middle of our capital. Which our police seem to do nothing about despite the law being their's to uphold.

On Channel 4’s Ways to Change the World podcast in February, he cited the Netherlands as a good example of what prison policy should be like. “They’ve shut half their prisons. Not because people are less naughty in Holland – it’s because they’ve got a different way of sentencing, which is community sentencing. People can stay at home, keep their jobs, keep their homes, keep reading their kids bedtime stories – and it means they’re far less likely to commit crime again.”

Or is that 'far less likely to get caught again'..? 

In that interview, Timpson said a third of prisoners should definitely be jailed, another third should probably not be there and “need some other kind of state support”, while for the final third prison is “a disaster … because it just puts them back in the offending cycle”.

And for some people, that cycle is their culture and nothing will break them out of it, so the periods they spend in jail is the only surcease their long suffering neighnourhood gets.   

At the Prison Reform Trust, Timpson has campaigned for resentencing as recommended by the justice committee in September 2022. This would mean that prisoners who have served their tariff would be released. Starmer’s Labour was not brave enough to support resentencing when it was in opposition.

Because they knew how unpopular it would be.  

As prisons minister, Timpson is now in the perfect position to show the way forward – to fellow ministers, to entrepreneurs, to the populists and bigots who want to see ever more people locked up.

Funny you should mention populists and bigots who want people locked up, Timpson. They might not be the ones you think you have to deal with in your new role... 

Maybe Reconsider Your Hiring Practices?

A Belmarsh prison officer who derailed a murder trial by investing a false confession after a killer showered her with money and gifts has been jailed for four years and eight months today.

Gosh, maybe employing female foreigners with glamour shots all over their social media isn't such a good idea after all? 

Bujko, who has a masters degree in criminology, made the false claim at the behest of Campbell’s co-defendant Mohammed Moshaer Ali, 31, bribing her with ‘money, gifts and promises’, the Old Bailey heard.

You never see male prison officers falling for this, I've noticed. 

She claimed she overheard a conversation in the southeast London jail’s healthcare unit between Campbell and another inmate, suggesting he and Antonio Afflick-McLeod, 32, planned to rob Ali of drugs on the day of the killing. An examination of CCTV footage of the unit revealed that Campbell was not there when she claimed to have witnessed the exchange.

It's frightening to think not only are they corrupt, they are stupid too! 

She is likely to be deported back to Poland at the end of her sentence.

Good! I bet they don't take her into their prison service.