Cherie Booth QC: How to cut the prison population
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Independent Minds
Over the last few years, as a part-time judge, I have on occasion given custodial sentences to the guilty. I have no doubt that prison is the right place for those responsible for violent or serious offences.
But we can't ignore, either, the troubling fact that the number of people in jail has more than doubled in the past two decades. The prison population, already at a record high at 84,000, is expected to keep rising.
The building of thousands of new prison places each year has failed to keep pace. The result is badly overcrowded prisons with all the problems this brings. As anyone who visits our jails knows, they are packed not with violent thugs or master criminals but with those with mental health and addiction problems.
It is why the Howard League for Penal Reform believed there was a need to examine anew the role of prisons in our society. The Commission on English Prisons Today, of which I am president, is an independent review by experts and practitioners. We were asked to think radically about the purpose and limits of our penal system.
The commission calls for the replacement of short prison sentences with effective community-based punishments. This will lead to a reduction in the prison population and allow the closure of some prisons. There must also be clear acknowledgement that criminal justice is a blunt tool which cannot in itself provide lasting solutions to the problem of crime.
Given that prisons are expensive yet re-offending rates of former inmates remain high, there is a financial case for examining whether there are more effective and better value options. With increased pressures on public finances likely, this argument seems certain to carry more weight.
At the heart of the commission's recommendations is a call to devolve more power over our penal system – and the resources that go with it – to a local level, which will help to tackle the present public alienation from the criminal justice system.
With local authorities as lead partners, the commission recommends local partnerships should be formed to bring together representatives from the criminal justice, health and education sectors. Prison and probation budgets would be fully devolved to their control, giving them the tools to effect change. Such an approach would put communities back at the heart of the justice system.
The writer is the president of the Commission on English Prisons Today
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Comments
Remember the child protection case you took on for your mates in a SSD Cherie? The one that cost the taxpayer a million pounds so you could look good, prove a point and rob an innocent mother of her child...
Two startling examples of what a brutal, heartless bitch you really are.
You are a disgrace to the legal profession, you are a disgrace to motherhood, a disgrace to socialism, in short Cherie... you are the pits.
Well, here's a heads up for you, I am one of the many, many people out there that is doing our damned best to get your husband tried for war crimes, we the people are going to break your husband and see him in the dock at the Hague, he won't become President of the EU, he will face justice for his crimes and you know what Cherie...?
There are several people that you know that are quite, quite willing to take our case pro bono when it comes...
And we the people are going to get him, you won't be so cocky once that happens.
Since when where communitites supposed to be at the heart of Criminal Justice and what do you actually expect to achieve from such an approach in respect of transforming the prison system beyond soundbite politicking.
As to the prison population consisting of large numbers of Mentally ill people; indeed but it is Judges that have ignored the probation officer reports that indicate a condition when sentencing that has led to this situation; presumably from fear of media responses.
If you truly want to radical reform this area you need look no further than yourself and your peers
Mr. President I beg to move. Sir, I am with you all the way to the prison. Sir only thing I hate is the heater in the car we are travelling. It is too stuffy. Sir, Mr. President. I am your humble servant picked up from the streets, slogged the life to the age of 12. The just a small piece of fish, yes sir, just a small piece of sardine did the trick. It was not done and I took this from the bakers. That is the fault of the baker. He was taking the purse of the lady who was not looking. I was caught between the pounce and the fish.
Sir. No one wants to listen to me now at the age of 54 and still in the prison of the Yolk lands.
?The Commission on English Prisons Today, of which I am president, is an independent review by experts and practitioners. We were asked to think radically about the purpose and limits of our penal system.
The building of thousands of new prison places each year has failed to keep pace.?
My suggestion is to donate few houses that are vacant, left by the floods and fires. May be that will help. Sir President.
Sir. Mr Tony Blaire?s houses are vacant also. His office alas gone .. Alternatively, please write a book on the Prisoners Run away daily from UK. Many thieves and hackers will read. With royalties, you can build a house for yourselves and my pet. I am so happy Mr. President. I move.
I defer, if this is the way we would look at the real life and, as it ought to be.
Tell me one thing that can be done without money.
Let us go out of the prison and look at how we locked the people in there. The police to start with. If they were good, we would start looking for the real rapist and thieves, muggers and the arsonists.
Let me elaborate. In India, not in UK, the inspectors tell the police stations that they are going to come on one particular day. Say Thursday. The prisons are half-full. What do the police do? Grab any and lock the men on the streets. Next day the inspectors see the police is doing a good job. They go and the innocents locked go too. The cells were filled up to show the working of the department.
If this were plugged to certain extent, you would have the cream of the thugs and not just the suspects. What the suspects doing ant way? Eating free meals?
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Unsurpisingly she is unaffected by this dilemma. Having made herself a millionaire through milking the human rights act (thanks to her husband's position, she was in the right place and right time to set up a practice), she can now live in an affluent area which is unlikely to be inhabited by any of the downtrodden that she seeks to protect.