Prison is not always the answer

When the Tories took control of Barnet Council, speed humps were abolished there. Now the Tories running Swindon Council are abolishing speed cameras. This is great news. A series of chicanes is far better at slower down traffic in villages or small towns than a big brother camera. The siren voices are already being heard ("but if it saves just one ickle child...") but the Tories who have the cojones to stand up to the self-styled safety lobby should be backed by every decent driver in Britain.

Today also sees the trailing of new tougher sentences for careless drivers. If you are using a mobile phone and you cause someone's death while you are driving, you will face gaol. This is just about as stupid a notion as gaoling anyone for simply carrying a knife and shows quite how bereft of ideas the government now is. If mobile phones are that dangerous, why even allow drivers to use hands-free kits? Why allow drivers to have car radios - surely they can get distracted by the need to turn the volume up or down, or to change channels? Why not ban passengers as they can be a distraction too?

Losing a loved one in a traffic accident is truly one of the worst things can happen and I don't want to demean that loss. Frankly if a relative of mine were killed in a road accident I'd want the other driver to be hanged, not simply gaoled, and I'd pull the lever myself.

But in the cold light of the day is it really necessary for society to condemn a driver for a momentary lapse that results in the death of another road user to send that driver to gaol? Isn't gaol meant for those who are a persistent risk to society such as burglars, robbers, muggers, rapists, paedophiles and murderers? What will we really gain by gaoling careless drivers apart from even more overcrowded prisons?

Would you shop your parents to the police?

Emma and Helen Cox are 21-year-old twins. Their mother, Tracey, has brought them up in a supposedly loving family environment. And yet Emma and Helen reported their mother to the police and she is now facing jail - for drink-driving.

I've often wondered in what circumstances one would ever report one's nearest and dearest to the police. Murder, obviously. But drink-driving? When no one was injured or killed?

The idea that Tracey Cox might be sent to jail when nobody was injured or killed as a result of her actions highlights yet again the need for our prisons only to be used as a last resort. Surely banning Tracey Cox from driving for a number of years, forcing her to attend classes and making her undertake humiliating and time-consuming community punishments would more than suffice? None of us condones drink-driving (even if many of us must admit we've done it over the years) but I do wonder what is achieved by jailing people when nobody was injured or killed.

Too white? Too muslim?

Dhiren Barot and Omar Khyam are terrorists. Barot masterminded a radioactive plot involving limousines packed with nails and explosives and Khyam plotte to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. They have been moved to different prisons after complaining that their fellow inmates were "too white".

Imagine if someone in a prison demanded a transfer because their fellow inmates were "too black" or "too muslim". Such a demand would rightly be turned down. But yet again we bend over backwards to protect these evil psychopaths' so-called rights. Apparently these evil sons-of-bitches were attacked while in prison: the joys of jails and their internal hierarchy. It's the same basis on which paedophiles and nonces are welcomed to prison by inmates. 

Barot and Khyam are not "too muslim": they're simply "too alive" for my liking. 

Prison reform: a case in point

If any story sums up the stupidity of our criminal justice system then it must be the case of Joseph Booth. Booth is an 18-year-old lout for whom the word "feral" was invented. A convicted mugger, he ripped off his electronic security tag (he was being monitored after being convicted of a string of violent incidents) and murdered an innocent student in what has been described as "a savage attack".

Booth was not in prison despite having convictions for threatening behaviour, assault, battery and robbery when his victims were punched or threatened with a knife. If he was not a menace to society from whom we deserved to be protected, I don't know who is. And yet he was not in prison - instead a liberal judge, working within guidelines laid down by liberal government ministers and bureaucrats, allowed him to roam the streets where he was subsequently able to murder Seffar Khan.

No doubt some will whine that our prisons are full and that is why Booth was not in jail. That may be true and we do need more prisons. But we also need to look at who is in prison. Are all of our prisoners truly a danger to society such that they need to be incarcerated? After all, should not prison be a sentence of last resort other than when the prisoner in question is a violent criminal from whom we are entitled to be protected? And is not someone with a criminal record of violent offences the precise type of person who should be in prison?

Part of the problem is that too many people go to prison who should not be anywhere near a jail. One person I know, who confessed to fraud and who had met his police bail conditions for 9 months prior to a court bail hearing, was placed on remand - in other words, imprisoned - for a month recently. He was not a flight risk. He was willing to surrender his passport. He was not violent. And while he had confessed to fraud, it was his first offence and he had admitted it. It was not as if he is a serial confidence trickster - and yet he was sent to jail pending a subsequent hearing a month later when he was eventually sentence to community service and received a suspended prison sentence.

Why do I mention his case? Simple. By being needlessly sent to prison for a month, he occupied a cell that could and should have been available for a violent offender from whom we are entitled to be protected. I do not in any way condone the fraud he committed, but I do wonder about the common sense exhibited by our judges, particularly when prisons are overcrowded and our streets are replete with thugs such as Booth. The judges who failed to send Booth to prison and who allowed him to be tagged have blood on their hands - but so do the judges who needlessly clog up our prisons with people who should not be in there.

Benefit fraudsters let off lightly again

Paul Osborn is a member of the Tory cabinet on Harrow Council. He has pioneered the use of technology to pursue benefit fraudsters in Harrow and yesterday another fraudster, Kato Solomon, was found guilty of obtaining £100,000 in benefits by pretending to be unemployed and in a wheelchair in a manner more befitting the comedy Little Britain. He was given a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for 2 years.

As I have argued elsewhere on my blog, prison should be reserved for those who are truly a danger to society such as murderers, rapists, violent offenders and paedophiles. I do not like to see white collar criminals or council tax dodgers in jail - I think that society can find other ways to make them repay their debt to society.

A suspended sentence for Mr Solomon is a slap in the face to the people of Harrow and no deterrent at all. At the very least he should be compelled to repay the money he has stolen from the taxpayer, lose the modified home paid for by the taxpayer and spend hour upon hour helping the truly disabled that he so callously impersonated for personal gain.

Yet again the judicial system fails us.

Localism in action

Direct Democracy campaigns for localism. One of its policies is for directly elected sheriffs to be responsible to voters in their neighbourhoods for policing. The hope is that this encourages us to vote for me such as Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona since 1993. You can see his website here.

Sheriff Arpaio has come forward with the superb idea of making convicted drink drivers wear pink shirts, form chain gangs and perform public burials of homeless alcoholics who died of their alcohol abuse. In the past his chain gangs have performed other community tasks, such as litter or graffiti removal.

He is a tough man. He runs the world's only chain gang for women and his brand of retributive justice - where tobacco, coffee, porn, films and television are all banned - remains popular in Arizona. The average prison meal costs 7p to produce, less than is spent on food for the guard dogs.

The sheriff does, however, allow inmates to watch one television channel: The Weather Channel, "so they know how hot it's going to be".

Thanks to the spineless attitude of our political leaders and the intervention of the ECHR, such popular prison policies are unlikely to be enacted here in Britain even though they are sorely needed. I have written many times before about the need for only those who are a danger to society to be sent to prison (by which I mean violent offenders rather than white-collar criminals). Rehabilitation has its place but the pendulum has swung too far.

If we are serious about penal reform, there must be a place in our prison system for the approach advocated by Sheriff Joe.

Today's Hero & Zero: Gordon Brown & the judicial system

Today's Hero is...Gordon Brown, for announcing a £140 council tax rebate for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some new money would have been nice, instead of expecting the MOD to pay for this from existing budgets, but this rebate is a start. But why stop there?

Soldiers put their lives on the line for the rest of us so we can live in freedom and peace in Britain. They give up many of their rights in return for certain privileges. Those privileges are too few. It is time not only that soldiers were properly equipped when serving overseas but for soldiers to be exempt from all taxes while serving on active duty and for soldiers to be properly cared for on their return from the front - be they injured or being demobilised.

So it's two cheers for Gordon Brown for the council tax rebate. But you still have much to do to honour the sacrifices of our service men and women, Gordon.

Today's Zero is...the judicial system. Tim Brady was yesterday jailed for ten weeks. What is the nature of his heinous crime that has made him such a danger to society that only a custodial sentence will suffice to protect the public from this first time offender? Did he kill someone? Is he armed robber or a mugger? A sexual predator?

No, he is none of those. He was caught doing 172mph in a Porsche on an A road and has the dubious honour of being the fastest man ever caught in a speed trap in Britain. Let me make it clear that I do not endorse breaking the law and I certainly do not endorse driving at 172mph, even on an empty motorway at 2 in the morning.

But when prisons are overcrowded and they are full of the dregs of society, do we really need to send a speeding motorist to prison for ten weeks?

My Two Cents...on the prison officers' strike

Today Britain’s prison officers are staging what they are calling “an unofficial strike”. In fact it is an illegal strike. Less than half the members of the Prison Officers Association voted for strike action but they have walked out, leaving prisoners locked in their cells all day long.

The prison officers are complaining about poor working conditions and a lower than inflation pay rise. An independent pay review panel recommended a 2.5% pay increase this year but the government has instead only agreed to pay 1.9%. In this respect they are right to be angry.

The basic role of government is to provide for our security. This means that we need to adequately equip and properly pay our armed forces, our police and our prison officers.

It should be a number one priority for the next Conservative government to make sure these men and women who keep us safe are properly paid and adequately equipped.



That said, the action taken by the Prison Officers Association today is reprehensible and irresponsible. Prisoners, for whom I of course have little sympathy, are caught in the middle. Understandably they will not treat this strike too kindly as they are locked in their cells all day and not fed. Listening to Radio Five this morning I was astonished by the conceit of union officials who shrugged their shoulders and said that resolving this dispute and looking after prisoners today was none of their business. This strike is illegal.

In the same way that Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers who went on an illegal strike in the early 1980s, the government should make it clear to the prison officers if they don’t go back to work, they too will be fired. This strike undermines the support many of us are prepared to give to their cause of being properly paid and adequately equipped.

Today's Hero is...Anne Owers

Today’s Hero is…Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons. She has decreed that prison warders should show respect to prisoners by knocking on cell doors before entering. This isn’t an April fool.

She is my Hero for exposing what most of us have long known. She and her ilk sum up everything that is wrong with our prison service. This is the perfect opportunity to hound her out of a job she is clearly wholly unsuited to doing.