By Laurence Kotlikoff In response to the latest banking scandal – Barclays’ rigging of Libor rates – David Cameron is calling for better banking culture. Good luck with that. What the prime minister should do is rethink the feckless reforms of the Independent Commission on Banking. This is a throwback to the Glass-Steagall Act, which… [Read More]
Tough prison sentences contribute to reducing property crime, according to a new Civitas report. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, a Birmingham University economist, shows that prison is effective at reducing crime, especially when targeted at serious and repeat offenders. The report, Acquisitive Crime, shows that for some crime types, longer custodial sentences lead to consistent reductions in crime.… [Read More]
As the City reels from the revelations of the interest-rate fixing scandal, a new Civitas report shows that the Government’s reforms of UK banks leave the public exposed to the mis-selling and risk-taking of bankers. The Government has promised to implement the proposals of the Vickers Commission, which are meant to safeguard the banks and… [Read More]
Two prisoners lost their High Court battle yesterday, as Mr Justice Sales rejected their challenge to the legality of a levy on prisoners’ wages. Reaction to the decision varied from delight to disappointment. Yet, in finding for the Secretary of State, the Court merely confirmed the legality of the scheme; it did not endorse the… [Read More]
Many offshored British manufacturers are realising that they are better off in Britain than in China, according to a new Civitas report. In The Boomerang Economy, David Merlin-Jones examines the increasing number of UK companies, which expected to benefit from cut-price labour in China, deciding to bring production back to the UK. Full press release… [Read More]
By David Conway Eamonn Butler is joint head of Britain’s premier libertarian think-tank, the Adam Smith Institute. In his very readable, well-informed book, The Rotten State of Britain, he explains how rotten a state Britain turned during Labour’s thirteen-years in office that began with its election victory in 1997. On the night that ended seventeen… [Read More]
The Government says Britain has a serious social mobility problem, but a new Civitas report shows this is wrong. The government’s social mobility strategy is based on a flawed understanding of the evidence. Social Mobility Delusions, by sociologist Peter Saunders, reviews the evidence on social mobility in Britain and finds: Social mobility is the norm… [Read More]
Last week’s statement on family migration and amendments to the Immigration Rules came as part of the Home Office’s dogged effort to drive down non-EU immigration. Although the changes have a far wider scope, much of the media hype has centred on those relating to ‘foreign criminals’, and in particular their ‘abuse’ of Article 8… [Read More]
While police forces and the prison system grapple with the swingeing cuts inflicted by the Coalition Government, a new Civitas report reveals that policing strategies that target individual offenders could help protect the public. Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles, by two Cambridge University criminologists, Lawrence W. Sherman and Peter W. Neyroud, argues that… [Read More]
In light of the Coalition’s renewed efforts to increase work in prison, the theme of yesterday’s CECJS conference (Centre for Education in the Criminal Justice System), ‘Evidence Informing Practice’, seemed particularly opportune. Practitioners, academic experts and policymakers as well as, perhaps most importantly, former prisoner learners, all concurred that offender learning in practice must be… [Read More]