Crime wave - or punishment wave?

As I write the current Labour Government in Britain has brought in 3,023 new laws in the nine years since it came to power. Now obviously some of these laws are updating the statute book to reflect modern conditions but this is still TWICE the rate of the previous Conservative government. Some of these laws include banning the import of pistachio nuts, Brazil nuts and chilis from Iran, or potatoes from Poland. Others seem to have a Pythonesque quality. It is now illegal to enter the hull of the 'Titanic' without permission. It is illegal to cause a nuclear explosion (well there's a surprise!). Its illegal to sell grey squirrels or impersonate a traffic warden. OK some of these, despite the apparent silliness, have a sound reason behind them. Others are aimed at restricting our freedom even more and have a far more sinister implication.

At the same there have been mixed signals about crime sentencing policy. There has been an inclination to punish, with custodial sentences, far more crimes than was the case ten years ago. First time burglars now have a 25% rather than a 15% chance of going to prison.

While all this is happening our prisons remain as primarily Victorian edifices, lagging behind, both in space and facilities, to house the growing number of people the government seems intent on incarcerating.

The centre-left think tank 'Compass' makes the following observations in its publication 'The good society':-

'England and Wales now has the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe. And yet the 2003 Criminal Justice Act provides the capacity to vastly increase the rate of imprisonment in the future. When the prison system once again bursts at the seams with overcrowding, where shall we incarcerate the ever increasing number of prisoners - floating hulks, offshore islands, oil rigs, army camps? We have a society that doesn't know what to do with the social problems it has created.

Who are the increasing numbers of people we are locking up? Not career criminals. Their collective profile provides a shameful insight into the injustices and inequalities of the last three decades. The average prisoner age is 27 with a quarter under 22. 27% of these were taken into care as children. The growth of punishment under New Labour's 'tough' approach to crime has been at the expense of the most vulnerable.'

It is clear as the assessment continues that much of the criminal problem is down to three things - mental health, drugs and alcohol. 'Compass' insists that we must put more money into fighting drug and alcohol addiction and stop shoving people whose prime problem is mental illness into prison and instead recognise the symptoms for what they are. We need to stop this knee jerk of locking people up in order to flex government muscle and instead start to seriously investigate environmental and family background reasons why people go off the rails. Much of it could be nipped in the bud if we had the will to do it. Whether we do or not could determine the nature of this country over the next ten years and beyond.