Ken Clarke has followed orders and executed his non u-turn with panache. The 50% guilty plea discount is now a dead duck, which leaves a hole in his departments budget that is not unadjacent to £130 million. Suddenly there's no mention of the 'secret' deal with the Treasury that supposedly would protect Ken's rear end if, for whatever reason, the reduction in prison numbers did not materialise.
The suspicion now is that virtually all the shortfall will have to be found from 'efficiency' savings elsewhere in the MoJ and the Prime Minister's singular failure to confirm the position regarding the Probation Service almost certainly means that significant cuts are round the corner. In a piece of exquisite timing, you can almost hear the vultures circling with this upbeat launch of the new Community Justice Partnership. Consisting of a consortium involving Nacro, Working Links and Sodexo, they intend to bid for a good chunk of the forthcoming contracts in the prison, probation or other services that will becoming available shortly.
"The Community Justice Partnership will harness the shared values and goals of each organisation to deliver a fresh and innovative approach, delivering at large scale and through new collaborations with the public sector. Beginning with Essex Probation Trust, the Community Justice Partnership will be joining forces with public sector bodies across England and Wales to help provide better services for less cost."
Of course the whole tenor and purpose of David Cameron's announcement on sentencing is to reassure the right wing that the government intends to 'be tough on crime.' So although announcing that Indeterminate Public Protection sentences would be phased out, apparently they will be replaced with more mandatory Life Sentences. This will seriously upset judges who, quite rightly, object to having their room for manoeuvre constrained.
Mr Cameron said that the government intended ending the practice of prisoners being released automatically at the half way point if they had committed rape or other violent crimes. This seems to indicate a return of the involvement by the Parole Board in such cases which should be beneficial, not least in encouraging participation in prison groupwork programmes and in reducing recall rates.
The suggested imposition of automatic prison sentences for offences involving threats with a knife, whilst sounding tough and reassuring to some, will indoubtedly lead to problems further down the line in terms of being able to define exactly what is meant by 'threatening' as opposed to mere possession. The suspicion is that this measure alone will result in significantly more short term prison sentences, when the aim has been the opposite of course. But then the whole charade only serves to illustrate yet again how criminal justice policy remains firmly trapped between the competing demands of either political or economic expediency, rather than any rational debate.
I listened to Cameron's press conference with interest and he struck me as a man who's more afraid of the Mail and Sun than a growing prison population and the additional expenditure this will entail further down the line. He's trying to buy time for his government, talking tough to appease the right wing press and his own backbenchers when I'm sure he must realise that what he's committed them to will in reality be unsustainable without putting yet more money into the CJS, which we all know just isn't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteSo if my probation officer says he's comin to my house next week for a piss test is he actually or is he just saying it so I stay clean
ReplyDelete