To think prison reform wasn't the top of most voters agenda?

[malificent7]

I get it is important due to overcrowding but I'm a bit surprised this is one of the first topics in the headlines.
I am all for youth hubs to target knife crime....excellent idea but releasing lots of prisoners who apparently shouldn't be there will give Reform lots of ammunition what do you think?

"I’m ok with some people being released. People like John Worboys/John Radford, not so much"

Everybody, (unless they have received a whole life sentence like Wayne Couzens, the murderer of Sarah Everard, or the nurse Lucy Letby) gets out at some point. There are around 65 prisoners who have a whole life sentence.

Warboys was given a life sentence with a minimum of eight years. What that means is that he can apply for parole after eight years but that the Appeal Board will decide if he is released or not. After a public outcry the decision to release him was overturned.

There are around 8,200 (9.4%) prisoners with a life sentence subject to a minimum term. And also, unfortunately, still around 2,800 prisoners serving an IPP sentence.

As well as this there is something called an "Extended Determinate Sentence". This is a sentence that can be given to a violent or sex offender who poses a significant risk of committing further specified offences after being released.

In this case, they can apply for parole after two thirds of their sentence. There are also around 8,200 (9.4%) prisoners on an EDS.

Of the other 68,200 (78%) prisoners currently in prison they will all be automatically released at different stages. There is no choice in this.

Most of these prisoners are released at the half way point (although a few violent offenders sentenced since 2022 will only be automatically released at the two thirds point).

"I’m ok with some people being released."

Just about everybody gets released and almost 80% are automatically released at the half way point of their sentence.

Some even get released much earlier. There is a scheme called "Home Detention Curfew" (HDC) or, colloquially, being released "on tag" which allows certain prisoners to be released three months early with an electronic tag. In 2023, around 16% of all prisoners released were released early on HDC.

Is he the Timpson who wrote some lovely little books on understanding adoption, fostering and attachment issues?

Might have been his dad?

I gave one of his books to a TA when DS was having a difficult time in school when he first started. She said it gave her an insight to WHY he was struggling.

It does seem on paper a good move.

I broadly agree. But how are we going to fund improvements in criminal detection, apprehension, trial, conviction, sentencing and rehabilitation while also spending hundreds of billions on net zero, radical education funding, “smashing” people trafficking gangs (🙄), processing immigrants, “fixing” the NHS (🙄) and on and on?

There isn’t enough tax to pay for 2% of any of this, however many companies and rich people are targeted - assuming they don’t just pack up or put their money out of reach.

We all know that the average Joe and Jo would have to pay. Which would be political suicide.

It is. My friend works with prisoners for Timpson’s. They do a huge amount of good work.

I think it’s a really good appointment, it is nice to see someone with actual experience leading. Prisons don’t work, they need some big changes. Why not start now .

I don’t disagree with you either. But I would not oppose an increase on taxes to fund and adequately staff effective public services, including the justice system. Similarly, I would not oppose a co-pay system of healthcare (similar to that in the Netherlands) to fund an ongoing cheap/free (for those who can’t afford to pay anything) health service. My point was to highlight the hypocrisy of those who want services which cost money to implement, staff and maintain but who never want to pay a penny more towards funding them, and who criticise those who are employed to manage and run them for wanting decent pay and conditions while not being prepared to do the job themselves.

It is interesting that this is an appointment ready to announce on day 1 of a new government. Timpson is CEO of the Group, to allow him to extricate himself from those responsibilities must have meant that this is a plan hatched a long time ago. There would have been work within the business, as well as within the shadow cabinet to allow this to happen.
So it might not be everyone’s first priority but it’s a done deal, something to announce and let the press chew over while they get on with other stuff.
i wonder what he has boxed up and press ready for next week?

I think we’re happily in agreement (depending on the extent of increase in tax for ordinary earners). 👍

Well I work in prison healthcare and any prison I have set foot in has at least one prisoner with dementia who barely understands they are in prison. Some have enough to fill a residential home.

So them for a start.

It’s code for de criminalizing a lot serious crimes and letting those people walk the streets. The same as the illegal immigration policy being about giving illegal migrants and amnesty and basically opening the borders. As if the they could be more open than they are now.

As with any job you don’t actually know how big the ‘mess’ is before its you in the hot seat trying to sort it. The reality is labour will have to continue with the Tory processes (of releasing early) until they can implement their own model. I think crime, nhs and schools are up there for me and if Starmer is looking to focus on one of the 3 right now then that feels ok.

However as with any party the proof will be what they actually achieve.

If there is meaningful change in the way things are run, it doesn't necessarily have to cost the taxpayer any more.

Look at all the lucrative contracts for vested interest private businesses the Tories indulged in. Billions of pounds diverted away from actually funding services.

If services are properly funded and staffed, then a lot of the problems caused by an underpaid overworked burnt out workforce are reduced. Recruitment and training costs are reduced. Employees can get on with doing the job they are paid to do instead of training never ending new staff who leave as soon as they find out how awful everything is.

They already are tinkering with crime figures by pretending that men are women in the statistics, eg for violent crime. Without resources men will not be rehabilitated , will be out on the streets/ in their victim’s homes again much sooner. I am all for more resources to provide proper facilities and education in prisons, but we also need proper protection for especially women in the community.

Course it is, with a side order of ' this isn't your fault, poor you, what would you like to be made to feel better for the horrible situation of you being held accountable'.

An election was always going to be called sometime this year. Apparently Sue Grey has been in talks with senior civil servants since January to build relationships and put things in place for a potential handover, and I imagine the Labour Party have been talking to other potential partners, like James Timpson, for at least the same amount of time.

I voted Labour on Thursday, but I’m also very concerned that letting criminals out of prison appears to be top of their to-do list. I hoped they had got past the bleeding-heart liberal mindset

So you have a copy of their 'to do' list, in order of priority?

Government isn't just one department. Each department will have its own priorities and we need to wait and give them time to make changes, before attacking them before they've even been in power for a week.

Just for e.g: someone imprisoned for a non-violent, non-sexual crime, with a family with no criminal connections back home who has stood by them.

As opposed to, say, someone on remand for attempted murder who has previously served sentences for offences of increasingly escalating violence, who is believed to have links to organised crime or gang culture.

That they build more prisons and keep people in them for their full sentences.

Look at all the lucrative contracts for vested interest private businesses the Tories indulged in. Billions of pounds diverted away from actually funding services.

How did this utter nonsense ever take hold? It’s boggling.

@LadyCrumpet they can't staff the prisons they have got.

Prison officers are leaving left right and centre, they are employing practically anyone they can drag off the street which leads to a load of officers who aren't up to the job.

Who either leave immediately or just go for corruption.

But that doesn’t tackle the issue of repeat offending (or even better stopping it before it happens!)

Not sure I like this policy, a lot of police say the only way to stop repeat offenders from continuing to offend is to get them off the streets as these people have realised its easier to rob a house every 1-2 days for 100 quid than it is to work 8 hrs a day.

So I wonder if prison should be for the violent and those who are a menace to society along with the ex-head of the Post Office?

Also prisons can’t be built overnight, so we need a short term solution to manage the problem.

I don’t see why, for example, someone who has failed to pay their Council Tax should be in prison. They are not a threat to wider society and surely can be managed with things like curfews, tagging, etc.

Thank god he’s actually dealing with issues that need dealing with and not just doing meaningless headline grabbing.

On the whole the courts will not issue custodial sentences for the first type of offender anyway. The prisons aren’t full of fare evaders and speeding motorists. Even burglars and car thieves walk. If non-violent offenders are locked up it’s generally for being a frequent repeat offender for whom all else has been tried.