Some Observations 8

I know this is old news, but I really felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity of commenting on the seemingly inexorable rise of the dreadful Louise Casey. The Prime Minister no less announced last week that she was resigning as Victim Commissioner in order to head up the post mortem into the recent riots. She will have particular responsibility apparently for developing policy concerning the 120,000 or so troubled families felt to be responsible for the vast majority of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Seeing as she had been tipped to become a possible Labour Peer, to now have the full endorsement of the likes of Eric Pickles is quite remarkable to say the least, but possibly just serves to confirm her true right-wing credentials. Somehow I don't see any enlightened liberal policies resulting from her highly-paid endeavours, but it's just possible her track record on not fully engaging brain before speaking out may be her undoing.

It was good to see a piece about HMP North Sea Camp on last Sunday's edition of BBC Countryfile. I've written about this particular open prison before and it's interesting history having been constructed in the 1930's by Borstal boys who marched from HMP Stafford and spent many years not just building a hutted prison, but also reclaimed many square miles of agricultural land from the wild Lincolnshire coastline. Such open prisons are extremely important in being able to help long-term prisoners adapt to eventual release, providing as they do varied full-time employment opportunities.

The sad thing is that prisons like North Sea Camp are pretty dilapidated and there have been rumours that it may succumb to Ken Clarke's spending cuts. This would be a very unwise move in my view as there are now so few working farms connected to prisons and the therapeutic value of often seriously damaged individuals working with animals cannot be over emphasised. The programme is still on BBC i-player and well worth catching. Keen-eyed viewers may spot some narrow gauge railway lines as until fairly recently there was still a small working system, but I suspect it fell foul eventually of MoJ Health and Safety regulations. What a shame.

Finally, am I the only person pondering if there might be some connection between G4S taking over HMP Birmingham and the disappearance of a set of pass keys? This is about as serious as it gets in terms of prison security and may involve changing every lock in the jail at vast expense. G4S have announced a number of redundancies and staff morale is quite likely to be extremely low.