Posts Tagged prison
Linking the Offender and Benefits Databases
Posted by Nigel Williams in Crime, Economics, Social Security on 04/01/2012
The Ministry of Justice and Department for Work and Pensions are to be congratulated for linking together databases of offenders and benefit claimants to see what can be learnt about individuals appearing on both systems. There is enough overlap, people that at different times offend and receive benefits, to reveal some patterns, provided one is careful not to assume that all benefit recipients must also be offenders.
Crime, Poverty and Imprisonment
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 28/09/2011
By David Fraser
The Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, has claimed that recent falls in crime have occurred at a time of increased prosperity. He concluded that therefore the way to reduce offending rates further was to improve prosperity levels generally, and added that there was no link between imprisonment and crime. However, such arguments are not only contradicted by recent empirical research, but by decades of experience from the UK and other countries.
- Read the full comment here.
Deterrence is contagious!
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 16/02/2011
Via Chris Dillow, we learn of another fascinating study by Francesco Drago and Roberto Galbiati based on Italy’s experience of its 2006 Collective Clemency Bill. It suggests that creating credible threats to return ex-prisoners released on license to prison if they re-offend does not just reduce their re-offending rate. It also reduces offending amongst their peers.
Reoffending Prison(Provid)er
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Crime, Education, Security on 18/01/2011
After a year of industrial unrest, damning assessments, and accusation of falsifying records, the country’s largest further education college has once again come under fire. The Manchester College (TMC) now faces an investigation by the Skills Funding Agency over its offender learning at HMP&YOI Reading, after a whistleblower alleged that the education provider regularly receives overpayments of public money.
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.
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.