Here's the latest example of our chaotic government. The boss says one thing, lets get tough on crime, whilst his ministers say and do the opposite

(link) In support of his battle with the government to prevent privatisation of the Probation Service, the assistant general secretary Harry Fletcher of the probation union, NAPO recently said,

"....re-offending by those on community sentences was at least 13% lower than those released from jail."

(link) Emergency measures to hold prisoners in police cells are due to end on Saturday, the Home Office has said. The arrangement known as Operation Safeguard came into effect in October to ease an overcrowding crisis in prisons in England and Wales.

The number of inmates topped 80,000 for the first time in history last month.

Data from the National Offender Management Service shows the prison population now stands at 79,627.

Hoorah, the prison population is falling. This must mean that crime is falling........... doesn't it?

In the first post in some time (due to work commitments), we find that the government is introducing a "holistic solution" to the overcrowding in our young offenders institutions. Young offenders could be placed in childrens homes - places ordinarily a refuge for the vulnerable. These plans are contained within the Offender Management Bill, which went through its first Reading in the House of Commons on the 22nd November 2006, and also contains the provision to change Probation Boards into business-like Trusts, giving the Home Secretary new powers in the provision of services from the private sector.

It appears that the government haven't considered (at least) one important thing; there is a disproportionately large number of criminals in prison from the care sector.

For anyone who didn't watch this brilliant investigative journalism, then it's currently available online.

All of those crimes filmed in the investigation, by those who are supposedly supervised, would not happen if the criminals were in prison. The predatory paedophiles would not be befriending children if they were not released early. Whilst community based schemes may be the correct solutions for some people, in this particular case they were clearly not. This is partly due to the complete and utter incompetence of the probation service - and partly due to lack of resources.

The buck stops with you, Mr Reid. The only solution is to build more prisons.

Prisons work.

The first post by me in some time is a news review - several related stories on the probation service have hit the newspapers today. Apologies for not posting more often, but I have been too busy at work. Expect a normal service for the time being.

According to figures published by the Parole Board, a record number of life sentence prisoners freed on parole were recalled in the past 12 months. 140 "lifers" were returned to prison last year, compared with 90 in 2004-05 and 26 in 2000-01 (Times; Mirror; Mail).

In a related issue, John Reid the Home Secretary, has argued that the probation service isn't working as well as it should to tackle the rate of re-offending (Guardian). Another example of the Probation service's failings is that crime victims who give information in parole hearings can risk their attacker finding out because confidentiality is not guaranteed (Telegraph).

And finally, thanks to the BBC, we find out that serious offenders released to bail hostels can come and go as they please - without supervision - to the point where two child sex offenders were filmed befriending children (BBC; Telegraph).

To listen to the torrent of soft-on-crime propaganda being fed to the media by our ruling elite and leading intellectuals at the moment you might be forgiven for wondering if those of us keen to restore a belief in justice, punishment and a confidence in prison might be mistaken.

Over recent weeks, the soft-on-crime lobby, comprising assorted ranks of New Labour politicians, senior members of the judiciary, the director of the prison service plus countless prison reformers, criminologists, sociologists, and criminal support groups have been waging a battle for hearts and minds. On the other side of the battle line has been the media itself, journalists who have been replying with news headline after news headline exposing the numerous failures of a Home Office not fit for purpose, exposing shocking cases where dangerous prisoners have been released to seriously offend again, or have been given sentences widely thought to have been too lenient.

Here is a typical example of the modern "soft-on-crime" policies currently being pursued with such blind zeal in Britain today.

(link) A violent criminal who murdered a man after fleeing a prison boat trip has escaped for the second time - while on a shopping trip to Debenhams.

We find out today that all child sex offenders will be barred from working with children.

And 1000 of these crimes are violent. One murder, four manslaughters, fifty six woundings and more than seven hundred assaults, one hundred cases of possessing an offensive weapon, one incident of causing death by reckless driving, one hundred of obstructing police and sixteen other violent attacks have been carried out by criminals since the early release Home Detention Curfew scheme came into force.

Overall 7,896 offences had been committed by prisoners whilst tagged. A total of 131,000 have been given HDC between the start of the scheme and the end of June 2006, but there is little effect on the 2 year reoffending rate from this scheme. Today's report said there is "insufficient evidence" that tagging helped to reduce re-offending or rehabilitate criminals. This scheme was introduced to deal with an earlier prison overcrowding crisis - offenders serving between three months and four years are eligible to be released on an electronic tag up to 135 days before the end of their sentence.

The one murderer - Danny Cann, 27, a convicted robber - killed Stephen Cox in North London in January 2005 by battering him to death with a baseball bat and a hammer in revenge for a headbutting, only weeks after walking out of jail on HDC. He was jailed for life at the Old Bailey last December. Cann should have been wearing the tag at the time of the murder but was not. It has never been found.

None of these crimes would not have been committed, if these criminals had been in prison. Furthermore, it is more evidence that non-custodial sentences do not work; we do not have any evidence to show that reoffending is decreased, and the fact remains that nearly 8,000 reported crimes would not have been committed if these criminals had been in prison for the full length of their sentence. Schemes such as these are not a solution to prison overcrowding - the only solution being building more prisons, well before they are needed.

Interesting that the figures have not been announced in a press release on the Home Office website. You can rest assured we will be returning to this issue in more detail, even if the Home Office are not happy to.

This article is a critique of some arguments presented by three prison reformers in a BBC report published today which explored the current prison overcrowding crisis(link).

Needless to say, the building of more prisons did not feature highly in the recommendations of the prison reformers.

Over the last few days, we find out that our prisons are full. As of the 5th October, there were only 160 spaces available in the whole country. In August, the Home Office were found out, when their secret plan to release hordes of dangerous criminals early to our streets was made public. People cannot rob you when in prison - but if released early, they can. This policy has some secondary effects as well - it also demolarises the police. There is nothing more demoralising for police (and victims of crime) to see offenders released early.

The Home Office said "all options" we open to reduce the prison population.It did not take long for the leading classes to decide prison isn't the answer - not because it doesn't work, but because they are too foolish to have spotted this problem a year ago, and build more prisons before it came to a crisis. Now we hear that fewer people should be put in prison in the first place.

So "all options" that they are considering is a wholesale retreat from the one of the most effective ways of reducing crime - putting criminals in prisons.

The best kind of crisis management is that which avoids the crisis. Unfortunately, the chaotic Home Office do not know this. We need to build prisons, not next year, not next month, but now. That is the safest way, and one of the most economical, to deal with the increasing prison population and reduce crime.

Last week on my own blog I rather casually suggested boot camps as a possible cure for some of the ills of our society, but admitted that I didn't know just how effective, or ineffective this criminal justice sanction is in practice.

This article is a summary of my investigation into boot camps.

No one can deny that there is an increasing outcry for a tougher criminal justice system from the public. Hence sound bites and spin like "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." from our government. And yet, in the world of academic criminology it's business as usual.

The latest buzz words are "restorative justice."

(link) A new 'soft justice' row erupted last night as it emerged teenage burglars are being told to paint posters instead of going to jail.

There appears to be a lot of anecdotal evidence these days that our police are increasingly reluctant to tackle crime. Whether this is a resource problem, a reluctance to fill in forms, apathy because they know that the courts will often put criminals straight back onto the streets, or orders from on high to manipulate crime statistics I cannot say.

I'm sure many of us have a friend or a family member who can tell similar stories to the one below that appeared in today's press. We certainly seem to be getting more reports like this in the media than we did in the past.

(link) A primary school teacher punched in the face by a drunken thug was stunned when police refused to arrest her attacker.