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?

Not the exact point of the thread, but approx 10k prisoners are foreign nationals. Perhaps he can come up with a legal plan to deport them.

That's already in hand with as many countries as possible. Speedy deportation to Albania has been a prime example of this in 2023-2024.

I would expect this to be caveated.

Prisons and making them work are a huge part of law and order and that is falling apart. Courts are backed up, prisons are full to bursting and there isn’t enough staff, let alone experienced well trained staff. Rehabilitation seems to have been a low priority and it shows.

I'd much rather have Starmer and James Timpson sorting out this particular mess than Farage and whatever thick, useless knuckle dragger he’d choose. Say what you like about Starmer but he’s chosen well.

Letting people out of prison early or not sending them there at all, has been going on for a long time already. It's not something "new" that's about to start.

Child abuse images, drug dealing, having a knife. None of them go to prison now. You don't know what is going on, if you think they do.

The current state of prisons and the wider CJS is an emergency situation. Earlier in the week our big chiefs at work told us they already had a meeting planned with whoever was in power this weekend. I was surprised it was so soon after the election but that shows you what a priority it is.

The whole system is on its knees and close to entirely collapsing. It will take time. There's no overnight solutions but thank god it's being taken seriously. Timpson is a brilliant appointment. He knows his stuff.

It's true the general public don't really care. But we need a functioning CJS for all our sakes.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this announcement. It gave me hope frankly because I've been unable to enjoy Labour's victory because of my concerns about Labour's poor track record on defending women's rights. There was a pragmatism in this appointment that made me hope for pragmatism elsewhere.

From evidence given to a Justice Select Committee. Figures are MoJ’s own.

Overcrowded prisons will not rehabilitate prisoners

@FinalCeleryScheme not just Boris no.

@cardibach i think the point is quite obvious. People who have worked, who have known what it’s like to struggle, not had everything handed to them

I’m a little surprised to see Labour supporters all behind James Timpson. His brother was a Tory MP and minister. This is from the Wiki page about him, on how Labour campaigned against him in a 2008 by-election:

In the run-up to the by-election, Timpson was the target of a "toff" campaign by Labour, which attempted to paint him as "a rich man" who would not "understand the problems that people face day-to-day" in contrast to their candidate, Gwyneth Dunwoody's daughter Tamsin Dunwoody.

I guess it just shows that Labour is appallingly inconsistent and nasty.

It's irrelevant whether the electorate thinks it's an important issue or not. The fact is that prisons are at crisis point NOW and it needs dealing with. There simply is not enough time to put them on the back burner because populist issues get dealt with first.

Timpson is an inspired appointment. Don't forget he said that the third of current prisoners who shouldn't be in prison were mainly women. He's not advocating letting Satanic Sid the multiple machete murderer out into the community with nothing but an ankle tag.

It may not have been high on the agenda of voters, but it is a crisis that that the new government would have to address quickly.

Or it shows that in the last 16 years things have changed and they aren’t living in the past.

His experience in the area shows he is a good choice to help lead the reform that is undoubtedly needed in the system

Or perhaps James Timpson is not his brother. Hence he's in the Labour Cabinet.

He is not responsible for Tory brother. Nor for Labour press campaigns 7yrs before Kier Starmer even stood as an MP in his first election.

Me too. James Timpson is brilliant and has done a lot for newly released prisoners. It's about time someone thought outside of the box instead of "lock em up".

Er, they had the same family and upbringing. How can one be a rich, out of touch toff, and the other a great bloke?

Brown was the PM in 2008. This wasn’t a campaign by Corbyn’s weirdo Momentum people.

I think the replies prove my point about Labour inconsistency and nastiness.

I'm glad that they are looking at this, even if prison reform isn't on the public radar. This country needs large scale social reforms and the prison population is part of this.

It also makes sense to me that with his background in law, Keir Starmer is perhaps starting in an area he feels more knowledge about.

Prisons crisis is one of the six items on Sue Gray's 'shit list' of urgent things that need tackling NOW.

(NHS, bankrupt local authorities, uni funding, collapse of Thames Water and public sector pay disputes being the other five.)

Our local police stations have had most of their custody cells requisitioned from last week until October for the detaining of prisoners as there is no room left in the prison system for them.

Police station custody cells are completely unsuitable for long term prisoners and just don't have the necessary facilities in place to cater for them. It also has the knock on effect of not having custody cells available for the usual short term use.

It's an all round miserable situation so I'm very glad that something is being done to improve things.

It needs doing. Prisons are not safe and people are dying in there. A custodial sentence should not be a death sentence.
Overcrowding means rehabilitation is not happening, and people are coming out more likely to reoffend than when they went in. I know some very damaged people who are going in and out of prison (addiction and mental health problems, with ASB and acquisitive crime offences) and each time they come out, they are straight back to where they were.
Under the last government prisoners were being released early due to overcrowding without having proper assessments, and left to an under-resourced and overstretched probation services.
The majority of women in prison would be better served by non-custodial sentences. Prison is expensive, even more so when you also add on costs of taking children into care. And it isn't working.

James Timpson is an excellent appointment.

We need to do something with both prisons and prisoners, and also those people who are heading down that path. And if we can these people before and on a better pathway before they end up in prison has to be better.

Prison are not fit for purpose, to many are over crowed, to many prisoner have mental health issues which are not able to look after properly. Prison guards, like police officers and teachers are being Social workers, mental health workers because we have little or no mental health workers because of the consistent under funding of places, workers and even training places by the Conservative party over the last 14 years.

Appointing Timpson is genius he and his family really understand rehabilitation of offenders and the need for ex prisoners to integrate back into society.

Huh?

@Another2Cats

Yes, I know. And I wasn’t suggesting that we lock everyone up forever 🙂

My point was that I don’t think that a serial rapist should be considered for release after only serving eight years. It should not have taken a public outcry before the decision to overturn him was made. And I think we’d have more space to keep these dangerous men detained if we abolish the IPP sentences.

Amen to that. I am sick of governments which decide their policies based on what they think makes a good headline and what's popular.

Not all important work is popular and glamorous. This is a perfect example of something that is really important and urgent - our prisons are full to the point of dangerous overcrowding, our CJS is at breaking point, we can't sentence new offenders because we have nowhere to put them, and there are lots of people in prison who simply shouldn't be there.

And the tories did nothing about any of those problems, except make them worse by underfunding the system and underpaying the staff.

The signs so far point to Keir being a competent grown up politician who has appointed people with experience and expertise where possible, and who is focussing on the areas of greatest need rather than what's 'popular'. That's incredibly refreshing after what we've seen for the past 14 years.