More news I like
Oct. 3rd, 2010 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerThis time from an interview with Ken Clarke, the Conservative Secretary State for Justice. And someone on the liberal end of the Conservative Party:
I should add that the last few Labour people in the same role have been reprehensible, in my view,and horribly, horribly authoritarian. This is a vast improvement.
Backed up by sympathetic allies among the Lib Dems, Clarke has been talking about a “rehabilitation revolution” in the justice system. Plans include widespread restorative justice, diverting drug addicts and the mentally ill out of jail, and a sentencing overhaul. The result could be thousands of people convicted of minor crimes being given community alternatives to prison.
“The speech to judges I made, they were my views,” says Clarke, “shared actually by 90% of the people who’ve got anything to do with the criminal justice system… It helps that I have Liberal Democrat coalition partners..."
Occasionally, he goes further, once with a comment that could rile his colleagues on the right, who fear the Lib Dems are watering down the party's agenda.
"It is my view that we have the possibility, if we get it right, of delivering more as a coalition than a Conservative government with a small majority in parliament could have delivered. I think the present situation, in the national interests, from the national point of view, is better than a Conservative government with a tiny majority over two opposition parties would have been."
I should add that the last few Labour people in the same role have been reprehensible, in my view,and horribly, horribly authoritarian. This is a vast improvement.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:53 pm (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/20/conservatives-heroin-addiction-treatment-overhaul
(this was from before the election just setting out the Tory position, it's now firming up - it's a big concern for us)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:59 pm (UTC)http://www.samefacts.com/2010/09/crime-control/british-drug-and-alcohol-policy-iv-the-controversy-over-methadone/
A key issue for me is that a person who is not reducing their methadone level is not necessarily 'making no progress'. They might be coming off sex-work, or re-establishing contact with their children, or simply gaining weight.
And those who actually are making no progress, due to being messed up people, are better stabilised on methadone than raising money to buy heroin.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 10:23 pm (UTC)He completely failed to understand one very simple concept: banning something WILL NOT stop people from doing it, no matter how severe the punishment. There *has* to be an alternative, be it therapy, medicine, distraction, whatever.
if Clarke sees that, all the better.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-04 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-04 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-04 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-08 11:28 pm (UTC)Is this really good news? (That's a genuine question I'd like to know the answer to, not a rhetorical one)
The impression I get from the police blogs is that they already spend much of their limited non-paperwork time arresting the same old incorrigible troublemakers, who receive and break community sentences again and again but never seem to end up in jail, or when they do only for very short periods - and then the police get the blame from the public for the fact these people are still on the streets.
Meanwhile, the impression I get from reading a magistrate's blog is that they have very little leeway afforded to them by the law and sentencing guidelines - yet they get the blame from the police for the situation.
And the government - well, they currently need to bring down the cost of the prison service, so I'm inclined to take Clarke's motives on all this with a pinch of salt.
But what's actually going on? I'd love to have some real data to look at but I'm not sure where to start.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-09 07:27 am (UTC)Focussing instead on sorting out the person committing the crime, so that they take some kind of personal responsibility for it, and trying to improve their situation so that they are less likely to reoffend, is much more useful to society. There are studies which have shown up to 30% drops in recidivism from this approach (although it's not been around for that long, so there are few long-term studies).
no subject
Date: 2010-10-09 01:09 pm (UTC)It is not completely pointless. It is guaranteed to prevent them from committing further crimes for the duration of the sentence. Whether that's the most useful thing in the long run is debatable of course, but for someone who continually commits minor crimes and is, as you suggest, unaffected by prison, a prison sentence is a net benefit to society if the cost of imprisonment works out preferable to the crimes that would have been committed in that time.
Focusing instead on sorting out the person committing the crime may work better in many or even most cases. But even if it does reduce recividism on average, what do you do with those it doesn't affect?
Much of the current system seems to be built around an assumption that an offender will work upwards through progressively more serious crimes. At the low end the focus is on rehabilitation, and if this fails it is assumed they will be imprisoned for something more serious later. This doesn't seem to address those who simply repeat the same minor crimes endlessly.
How many of these people are there, and how much crime is due to them? That's what I'd like to know.