Crime

Has Ken Clarke just signed his own political death certificate? Whether you agree with his liberal sentencing reforms or no’, there’s little doubting that the Justice Secretary has just stumbled quite emphatically on Radio 5. It looked bad enough for him when, discussing an idea to cut the sentences of those who plead guilty to sex attacks, he blustered that, “No, I haven’t put this idea to women who’ve been raped because I haven’t met one recently.” But then it turned even worse when a rape victim called in to describe her tragic case: she had been dragged through the courts for almost two years in search of justice, only

Despite the focus on the government’s controversial plans to reduce the prison population, the troubled Prison Service continues to cause headaches for Ministers in another way — by failing to get on top of the security problems plaguing the estate In the 1990s, when Michael Howard was in Ken Clarke’s position, the concern of ministers was escaping inmates. The Prison Service has made huge strides on this, despite ongoing issues with the open prison estate and day-release of some inmates. But now the ever-present problem is lax internal security and especially drug-infestation. The jailing this week, for two years, of a prison officer based at Feltham Young Offenders Institution is

The name ‘Ken Clarke’ and the word ‘sacking’ are inseparable to the chattering classes at the moment, but so was it ever thus. There are signs though that the normally insouciant Clarke has been shaken on this occasion. He has given an interview in defence of his contentious prison reforms to the Times this morning (£). In a clear message to concerned voters, Tory backbenchers and sceptical government colleagues, he denies that he is ‘soft on crime’. For example, he will tighten community sentences: “I want them to be more punitive, effective and organised. Unpaid work should require offenders to work at a proper pace in a disciplined manner rather

Labour’s cartography department has been hard at work all weekend to produce this. It is, lest you haven’t heard Yvette Cooper today, an “interactive web-map” of the job losses announced by police forces so far, all across the country. You can interact with it in ways that include clicking to view a larger version. So far as web campaigning goes, this is probably fertile ground for the Opposition. No one likes the idea of more crime — and “more crime” is often conflated with “fewer bobbies” in the public debate. Yet Labour’s point is diluted, somewhat, by one simple fact: that their former Home Secretary refused to guarantee that police

Libby Brooks’ piece in The Guardian today is shameful. Writing about the violence that followed last weekend’s march, she  argues that the ‘relevant question is not whether or how to condemn those acts – but if any coherent agenda lies behind them and how important it is for that to sit neatly with the agenda of the whole’. She even quotes approvingly the idea that the violence can be beneficial as it might push the government to do a deal with the moderate elements of the movement and wants us to remember that ‘the vast majority of damage on Saturday was sustained by property, not persons (84 people were treated

The Sun has launched another sortie against Ken Clarke’s restorative justice programme. The paper reports: ‘SHOPLIFTERS could escape prison by just paying for what they pinch and saying “sorry”. Jail sentences and tough fines will be SCRAPPED as the default punishment for nicking from stores under controversial plans soon to be unveiled by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke. Instead he wants thieves to make face-to-face apologies to victims and pay compensation.’ The Ministry of Justice has responded by saying that it ‘strongly believe[s] offenders should make more financial and other amends to victims and are in the process of consulting on plans for this.’ The substance of that statement contrasts with