Now the Tories have an issue to get stuck into...

Nicholas

Hey, Ken, how about getting your colleagues in coalition to repeal New Labour's bad laws? You know, the ones where people get sent to prison for thinking bad thoughts, saying bad things, looking at bad things or, in the case of the police, photographing bad things*.

*Generally, except for photographing police persons, "bad things" about sex, race or religion - the trio which define us but which is now being used to define others.

Just a thought.

david1

Surely it would be better if the Coalition passed a law making it illegal, 'not' to carry a knife. Afterall we'd better start to learn how to defend ourselves, for when Ken floods the streets with muggers and rapists.

cuffleyburgers

How many inmates are in for minor offences against the insane drug laws especially as regards possession and use of weed?

It is time this illiberal nonsense was stopped.

Plus everything Nicolas said.

Dennis Churchill

On what policies would Clarke AGREE with the majority of Conservative party members?
Imagine two lists, one with policies that the majority of Labour or Lib/Dem party members agreed on and one with those that the majority of Conservative party members agreed on.
Now if you were advising Clarke on which party he should join in order that he would agree with the most policies ,which party would that be?

justathought

Strictly speaking prison does work, but as many prisoners freely admit also, crime pays.

How is it that in a financial centre like the UK it is so hard to detect and sequester the proceeds of crime which could then be used to off set the costs of the penal system?. Admittedly the poor detection and discovery of hidden assets is not Ken's remit but really more attention at that end would address the costs issue .

Why is it that so many are now being prescribed the drug of choice on the NHS while in prison at a cost of an additional £20k per year?

Why are these people not working while in prison and when they get out?. Why are these places better and more comfortable than the council housing and homes of our elderly citizens?

There are charities and local authorities around the country who need full time volunteers and these needs should be matched to the inmate population.

In the meantime I would suggest that a better regime inside the prisons would help prepare some for life on the outside, certainly getting up at 8 am and doing a days work would be a good start.

Jonathan Woolf

Dennis Churchill - absolutely right. The real issue though is that Cameron also subscribes to this nonsense, being from exactly the same left / wet wing of the tory party. No wonder the Tory leadership so loves being in Coalition with its fellow travellers in the Lib Dems. Silver spoon patricians are always soft on crime because they, and everyone they mix with, are far too well-heeled to live near it or suffer from it.

Ed Balls, with his traditionally old Labour hard line stance on crime, will be looking forward to attacking this. Outside the posh bits of central London, this policy will deservedly be shockingly unpopular.

finchy

Let's not forget Douglas Hurd - "Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse."

It's incredibly difficult to prove or disprove a causal link between prison and crime rates. I venture that the fall in crime over the past decade had nothing to do with stricter sentencing and more to do with benign economic conditions.

My personal view is that violent offenders should be locked up to protect the public, but otherwise prison doesn't really work (and is extremely expensive - £30k+ per offender per year).

finchy

P.S. And as Alex Hocking points out in the comments section, your economic analysis the linked article is nonsense.

TomTom

We imprison a lower proportion of criminals than elsewhere but have far higher crime rates. Why not deport foreign prisoners, execute murderers and have a Prison Lottery so the winning 10% are executed ?

There must be a better way than paying Prisoners benefits to terrorise the law-abiding because the prisons budget is too low

Scary Biscuits

Is this really a blue-on-blue issue? I always thought Clarke was a Liberal.

Vulture

That fat slug Clarke is lying as usual.

Never was a reputation for hail-fellow-well-met honesty less deserved. He's a typical arrogant Liberal lawyer whose pro-EU, pro-corporatist be-kind-to-all-criminals mindset was formed in the 1960s and he's just too damn lazy to re-examine those assumptions.

Now he's pretending that a grubby political necessity ( cutting costs by letting criminals rob free) is an enlightened piece of penal reform.

The man is a James Naughtie with a capital K.

startledcod

As I have posted elsewhere there is a solution to this problem, both reducing the cost of incarceration and making it more of a deterrent - export.

We should sub-contract the holding of prisoners to, say, Romania. They would be paid per week per prisoner with standards related to food, warmth, education, rehabilitation and no drugs.

Even flying a prisoner there and back business class would cost less than one week in a UK jail. Relatives would receive two return flights every three months dependent on good behaviour and maybe some bus journeys.

I cannot see a flaw, can anyone else?

AF

Another approach to this sorry state of affairs may be to lock up habitual offenders for much longer periods,or anyone with drug or alcohol problems in order to spend time trying to seriously get them off their habit and rehabilitate them(reading writing etc) before they are released,it cannot be done in couple of months.If the revolving door system is the problem then shut it.Perhaps much longer sentences will have a sobering effect.Any repeat offenders should have no privledges.
Another solution could be concidered where costs are of concern,seek out European countries whos prison costs are considerably lower than ours and send three time offenders there to complete their sentences,(this would be a good source of revenue for that country).Perhaps this might reduce the numbers of recidivists.
Clearly this is a major problem and it requires a lot more thought than Ken Clark has put to it,I think money or the lack of it is his first concern,it's a sorry state of affairs when we cannot afford to protect the public from criminals.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

For a start, if you want to cut the number of prisoners, how about repealing laws that have no right to be on the books, such as drug use and prostitution?

Repealing will also dramatically cut the cost of policing, and so budgets for Law and Order will be under less pressure.

Once that is done, rehabilitation should be integral, but not a replacement for, incarceration. Rehabilitation should be conducted in separate premises and could, at times, be non residential.

The use of very short, inconvenient, solitary sentences should be considered. If someone has been disorderly, then perhaps a few weekends of solitary with no distractions, away from their friends and watering holes, might make them realise the error of their ways. Such sentences could be arranged, for first offenders, so as to not interfere with their work, for we do not want to risk putting them into a situation where re offending is more likely.

TrevorsDen

Do we really think crime has fallen in the last 13 years as Andrew Neil (quoting the Crime Survey) said on Daily Politics?

I think not. So there is something not quite right with the last govts policy. It seems to me that if non dangerous criminals were not locked up then there would be room in the system to keep dangerous criminals in longer.

Equally the hysterical right have to tell us where the money would come from to build and run all the new prisons their policy demands. There is of course more to Clarkes policy than just not putting people into prison, but the hysteria of the loonies will not recognise that -- any more than they remember that the Tory party has a long history of liberal Home Secretaries.

But the erudite argument about why we put so many people into prison for so little effect is somewhat pointless. The Country has no money. If we look at how much we are spending and then look at what we are drawing in in revenues - then it becomes clear we cannot carry on like this.

So really this story is going to be repeated several times across the govt. It really is no use the Tory tendency complaining about the deficit and then whinging when the cuts bite home.

Noa

Once more permit citizens to carry concealed firearms whilst going about their lawful business for self defence, or keep them for home protection.

Marcher Baron

Whatever your views on whether prison "works" or not, nobody can deny that while criminals are banged up, they're not on the streets committing more crime. Trouble is, too many people are in prison for the wrong reasons and many of them should be in mental institutions, not clink.

michael

The ballet run (joy), 3yr old on board, 'Sub zero Saturday' 09.45 AM I was pulled, pulled for a "random stop and search Christmas breath test" - what ever that is.
- An intimidating eyeballing wrt last night's consumption.
- A big blow...absolutely no evidence of Christmas spirit.
- A fair cop? All but heel and toeing Officer 'Fulton Mackay' spotted that my tax disc was three days out of date.
- Another eyeballing / interrogation loaded with rhetorical cynicism enforced by a £60 put up and shut up religiously repeated every other sentence.
- Accepting that a replacement disk was on my desk, he let me off. I'm still bemused.

Perhaps it was the fact that the vehicle is based in Manningham , (about 3 miles from the SOC) where 67% of cars remain uninsured.
- You can't get a tax disc without a cover note.
Had I not been let off I may well have chosen to go to court, at which point, having lost my rag, I would be staring at 99 years for contempt!

Liz Brown

On sentencing, send all foreign born criminals back to their country of birth - no appeal - straight onto the plane - end of. That will relieve our prisons and the hard pressed taxpayer. Simples

Noa

TrevorsDen - 1:44pm
"But the erudite argument about why we put so many people into prison for so little effect is somewhat pointless. The Country has no money".

If criminals are not confined in prison they are either working (hah!) or drawing benefits and social security.

So the logic of this approach is that it's cheaper, and it may safer, to condone crime and free the criminal.

There are various solutions, but what is proposed is not the best.

TGF UKIP

I'm thoroughly enjoying all this. The thought of how the numbers of those who now wonder how they could have been so daft as to vote for the Cameron Tories must be multiplying by the thousands every day, really does warm the cockles of my heart.

yank

Noa
December 7th, 2010 2:19pm

Once more permit citizens to carry concealed firearms whilst going about their lawful business for self defence, or keep them for home protection."

.

Yes, you all really do need to re-liberalize your firearms laws.

The incidence of occupied home invasion here in the US is 1/2 of that there. Why? The invader risks his life here, and knows it.

And in states so enlightened here, an elderly woman walking down the street is not just prey, but perhaps an armed citizen ready and willing to defend herself. The predators never know... and we like that.

Remember, the cops will always arrive in time to fill out their reports, while standing over the victims.