Posts Tagged Crime
Letter of the Law
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Crime, Politics on 13/05/2011
Thousands of criminal suspects will be charged by post under a new Home Office scheme to cut police red tape. The announcement comes as part of a catalogue of initiatives designed to save 2.5 million hours of police time each year. However, whilst the need for bureaucratic reform is long overdue, plans to increase police responsibility may well prove impossible given the swingeing financial cutbacks faced by the force.
Police squeeze could ‘encourage’ criminality, warns economist
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 14/03/2011
Government claims that police cuts will be made without endangering the public are dealt another blow this week. A new Civitas report finds that sudden police cuts could potentially trigger a vicious cycle of crime and disorder. In An Analysis of Crime and Crime Policy, Birmingham University economist Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay finds “a strong and negative relationship between [police] detection rates and crime”.
Mister Very Important Prisoner
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Civil Liberty, Crime, Human Rights, Political Correctness, Security on 21/12/2010
In 1981, the then Governor of HMP Wormwood Scrubs, John McCarthy, composed a damning letter in The Times bemoaning the inadequacies of the prison system: “From my personal point of view I did not join the Prison Service…to be a member of a service where the staff that I admire are forced to run a society that debases.” How times have changed. Not only will (some) prisoners be re-enfranchised, but it seems that drugs barons and murderers can admonish the Prison Service for failing to meet the standards they themselves have set.
Trial by Facebook Friends?
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Civil Liberty, Crime, Human Rights on 08/12/2010
Over the last number of weeks, the WikiLeaks debacle has demonstrated incontrovertibly the power and potential of disseminating information online. However, the ability to access a near infinite databank of knowledge, though arguably valuable for scrutinising politicians, is less welcome elsewhere. The country’s most senior judicial figure, Lord Judge, has condemned juries’ use of the internet to research their cases as a violation of the purpose and integrity of the justice system. Nevertheless, attempts to prevent independent research through oral instructions alone are doomed to fail.
The Prison Reform that Wasn’t There
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 28/09/2010
Yesterday, Jack Straw defended his record on prisons at a Fabian event at the Labour Party conference (via Next Left). Juliet Lyons of the Prison Reform Trust felt let down that New Labour had not put a stop to rising prison numbers when they were in office. The problem with her complaint is the lack of a viable alternative to prison in a great many cases. Despite years of campaigning, reformers have yet to come up with a solid evidence-based reform to our current prison system.
Report exposes hidden costs of community sentences over custody
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 28/08/2010
The internationally respected former Home Office criminologist, Professor Ken Pease, has shown that it will not be feasible to save money by releasing convicted prisoners from jail. According to Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime, not only does the available evidence suggest that offending will not be reduced, the Government’s hope of cutting expenditure on prisons can only be achieved by ignoring the impact on victims of crime – costs that the Home Office itself has acknowledged and quantified.