Civitas Blog

There has been a lot of press interest in the proposal of the Sentencing Guidelines Council (SGC) to give sentence discounts of up to one-third for pleading guilty to a crime. However, a second set of draft guidelines (released on the same day) proposes lighter sentences of up to one quarter merely because the 2003 Criminal Justice Act increased the period of supervision after early release.

Today, we are launching a new weblog, to allow us to comment immediately on the issues of the day. The system allows readers to respond, although comments are moderated before publication and will not, therefore, appear instantly.

Tory proposals to reform immigration policy will, no doubt, lead to talk of racism. Making false accusations of racism has become the weapon of first resort of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia who refuse to accept that there are any valid reasons for limiting the influx of newcomers.

Most developed countries have an immigration policy, usually because of two main concerns. First, there is the sheer weight of numbers. The more crowded the country, the more necessary is an immigration policy. The UK is already one of the most densely populated parts of the world, with double the population density of France and eight times that of America. England, on its own, is more densely populated than India. The consequences for house prices, traffic jams, school places and hospital waiting lists are there for all to see.

The police performance figures show that only 18.8% of offences were detected and sanctioned in 2003-04, slightly fewer than last year. Consequently, public confidence in the police remains below the half-way mark, with only 47.7% believing that the police do a good or excellent job. And yet many chief constables are complacent, regularly complaining that the real problem they face is exaggerated public fear of crime.

We can make some rudimentary comparisons with other countries. In England and Wales we have 241 police officers for every 100,000 population. In America, there are only 230 police officers for every 100,000. How do crime rates compare? In 2001 the USA suffered from 4,157 crimes per 100,000 population. The figure in England and Wales was more than double, at 10,608 crimes per 100,000. Perhaps the American police are getting something right.

The Guardian reports how several local hospitals have been prevented by Whitehall from improving their services. Why? Because the changes would look bad in the run-up to a general election. Hospital improvements often involve closing an old building and starting again in a new and better one, but defenders of the old service are often able to kick up sufficient fuss to make politicians back away.

As a result, hospital managers throughout the country have been told that it is the ‘wrong time’ for change. The interference is affecting maternity services in North London, and emergency services in Hartlepool and Edinburgh, among others. Nigel Edwards, policy director of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS managers and trusts, is quoted as saying that political pressure now means that managers are only ‘able to change anything during an 18-month window between elections, or in safe seats’.

The remedy, not recommended by the Guardian, is de-politicisation. All NHS hospitals should be removed from political control to the management of wholly independent local trusts, able to serve the interests of patients without interference borne of electoral calculation.

According to the Populus poll for The Times, cutting crime and anti-social behaviour is the issue most likely to make Labour voters turn out to vote for the Blair Government.

Crime has been falling since the mid-1990s, but the Government is reluctant to do the one thing that unambiguously works best. It is putting enormous resources into funding alternatives to prison, such as ‘thinking skills’ programmes and the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme, but so far they have been nowhere near as effective as prison.

For a fuller discussion of the cost-effectiveness of prison take a look at Prison is a Bargain.

Chocolate bar manufacturers in the UK are doing away with so called ‘king-size’ bars, ostensibly to do their part for the war against obesity and, no doubt, to reduce the pressure from health and safety groups clamouring for further regulation. Super-size Snickers and Twix bars may be a thing of the past as early as next year.

The industry’s Food and Drink Federation deputy director general Martin Patterson defended the move, claiming that the companies have to do their part and encourage people to eat less junk. (I was under the impression the company was doing its part by making great snacks and creating wealth for its shareholders, but perhaps I simply don’t have enough compassion for my nougat-addicted countrymen.)

Eliminating these bars isn’t enough for Sustain, the food and farming group pushing for tougher regulations regarding snack foods: ‘[This move] is half-hearted, and the industry won't be able to claim it is behaving in a responsible way until it stops its aggressive advertising of unhealthy foods to children.’

Thank goodness Sustain can save all these sugar-crazed youngsters; it must take enormous pressure off parents to actually do their jobs.

In his speech at the Labour Party Conference yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Blair listed ten policy objectives whose accomplishment he intends to make the central task of any Labour administration that might be returned for a third term at the next general election.

One of these ten objectives is the provision of child-care facilities for as many children between the ages of 3 and 16 whose parents wish to avail themselves of it between the hours of 8am and 6pm. The manifest purpose of the objective is to enable all parents, especially mothers, to undertake full-time paid work.

The majority of new laws are initiated by the European Union. Many are not even rubber-stamped by Parliament. When John Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in the 1680s to defend the emerging democratisation of this country, he laid down the four main characteristics of a free society. The fourth was that the legislature “cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.”

The people, he said, had given Parliament the power “only to make laws, and not to make legislators”. The government had no power to transfer their authority to make laws and place it in other hands. (From John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1689, s. 141.)

Perhaps a few of our Parliamentarians should read Locke before they give away any more of our freedom to govern ourselves.

At my local pub, there is a sign at the bar explaining that staff will do everything in their power to accommodate people with disabilities. The landlord explained to me that it was an attempt to protect them if they get inspected and their toilet facilities are deemed inadequate.

‘Why not just put in new toilets?’ I asked.
‘Sure. Why don’t you give me the ten thousand or more pounds it will cost?’ he replied.

The reason this is an issue at my neighbourhood watering hole is that 1 October sees the Disability Discrimination Act come into effect. Applying to a wide range of businesses and services, the act states that reasonable efforts must be made to accommodate disabled patrons through ramp access, adequate toilets, and so on.

Most people’s first instinct would be to consider this a great step towards equality, or at the very least, a good intention. After all, it is hard to imagine that a bar, nightclub, restaurant, etc. could shun potential paying customers or worse, humiliate them by ignoring them or being openly hostile. Yet, many disabled people are pointing out that it happens—therefore, they reason, this law is necessary.

However, laws such as this are based more on statism than a sense of fair play. It gives the state the power to tell an owner of private property how he has to conduct his business. While I would enjoy seeing prejudiced business owners be made to suffer for their ignorance or laziness, I cannot condone the state using the law to give me that pleasure. If business owners want to alienate a potential client base, let them—and watch them lose business as competitors eagerly pounce on the opportunity to snag customers.

Activists ignore the risk of punishing, or even closing, businesses such as my local that would do everything in their power to be helpful but may not be able to meet the letter of the law’s new standard. How, exactly, is that emancipating anyone, let alone the disabled?