Labour have already acted on prisoners by appointing an expert in the field as prisons minister. James Timpson (of the shoe shop fame) has been put in the Lords and made Prisons Minister, 10% of his company's employees are ex inmates and he has worked for many years with the prison service to rehabilitate prisoners and reduce reoffending. This appointment was announced at the same time as Patrick Vallance was elevated to the Lords and made Science Minister along with Richard Hermer as Attorney General (legal advisor to the Government). 3 top experts in their fields with no political axe to grind so the advice they give to the Government will be impartial. A bit of a change from when Suella de Ville was Attorney General....
The ‘hurting’ Tories are so funny, they now moan about issues and the general state of the country, but hardly a peep from them during the last 14 years of, well, mayhem really.
The new government has a stark choice - do nothing & send no one else to prison- or … target early release for low level crime & ensure there are places for violent offenders to protect us all - I’d prefer to be kept safe from violence than a shoplifter. I don’t like it but there is, in my view, no other choice
It seems the right wingers are in for a bit of a shock as to what their beloved MP's have been up to... or not... for the last 14 years and just what a shambles they made of government. It's been so wonderfully refreshing to see a new Labour government simply being grown ups and trying to fix problems. It should be astonishing that the PM simply meeting with every nations leader is seen as astonishing. That all mayors were sat down together to discuss going forward and how they could collaborate. That a health secretary in less than 5 days will have met with GP's, dentists and the first talks face to face with junior doctors and the BMA. That the home secretary is getting on with the job of illegal migration and reappropriating millions of pounds destined to Rwandan back pockets. That a foreign secretary has met with multiple foreign dignatories. Appointing ministers with interest in a brief or experience. And it's just day 5. And half of one of those days was waiting to visit the king and 2 were a weekend. But the question people really should be asking... is what the hell were the tories doing with their time? They had a majority. They had all the information at their hands. They could do anything, yet they did nothing. Storing all the problems for a new govt and kicking cans down the road. Prisons, health, pay deals, borders, trade, infrastructure, energy, environment, housing, training. All being worked on. No anti wokery nonsense, no trans battles, no demonising of minorities. It's f***ing wonderful some grown ups are actually in government again!
Do you mean the Tory criminals that gave away Tax payer's money on PPI to their donors? or giving Rwanda 100's of millions of pounds for an idiotic stunt?
OP was willing to admit the prisons were at breaking point a year ago but now it's a daft idea to try and regulate this by releasing some none violent offenders early. Said we'd have a problem with it two month ago in a Tory government but it sounds like he's just upset we now have a Labour government and is reaching.
So would you prefer that the justice system grind to a halt and new offenders just be allowed to roam the streets without serving any sentence that's even less justice and more dangerous as at least the ones being released will be low risk ones who have at least served some time behind bars.Yes it's not ideal but what's the alternative the Tories have literally ruined every single government department in the last 14 years everyone from defence to the NHS from the home office to the DWP. This isn't labours plan it's a plan they've had to carry on with that was developed by the Tories when they were in power to mitigate their failure. Maybe give labour a bit more time to sort out 14 years of Tory negligence and incompetence before starting to try to blame them
Surely there's a happy medium. Instead of the holiday camp, prisoners running wild and prisons struggling to recruit staff.
If you solve your ‘prisons struggling to recruit staff’ part, then most of the rest will fall into place. The under resourcing of staff, facilities etc, etc resounds through all the public sector as well.
1 I brought it up quite a few times the state of prisons and the justice system in general. 2 I didn't vote tory. 3 sorry i just don't think releasing offenders who have served 40% is right. The idea of prison is 1 for deterant 2 punishment and 3 justice for the victims, not sure 40% of what a judge gives is any.
The govt are trying to react as quickly as possible to issues set before them. If The prison crisis can be eased a little by the early release of ‘those committing ‘lesser crimes’ then so be it. I don’t know but I would imagine they’d be released on licence probably with tags, and perhaps made to report to a local police station. Just an idea, but not sure if it’s do able, passport confiscated until original sentence lapses?
You've just been appointed prisons minister. You're informed that there are at most 300 spare vacancies in prisons across the whole country. You are informed there are ridiculous court back logs and that the inherited prison system cannot cope after more than a decade of chronic underfunding and cost cutting outsourcing. There are no imminent opportunities to increase capacity. You have little to no money in at least the short term and any newly built prisons are many years away. Given that prisons will likely run out of space to house new inmates within weeks.... As prisons minister, what do you do? What action, what decision do you take right now to stop prisons breaching?
