From Radio Four’s Law In Action programme :
The prison population has risen rapidly over the past 13 years – up 78% to nearly 80,000 – yet over the same period crime has fallen substantially.
I’m not asking for ‘yet’ to be replaced with ‘as a result’, although that would be my personal view. I suppose the word ‘and’ is just too neutral for the unbiased BBC. No agenda here.
(You can also hear Lord Hurd of the (anti-prison lobby group) Prison Reform Trust on the Week In Westminster – the balancing view being represented by … er … no one. And anti-prison lobbyists on the Today programme this morning, balance being provided by …)
Can’t remember who it was last week onthe radio, but it was some head honcho of the prison service stating that it would be wrong to build more prisons.
Imagine the head of Tesco suggesting that they should build fewer stores!
Not so long ago we had the BBC breakfast show interviewing a pseud with a nonsensical title of ‘professor of criminology’ and a victim of crime. When the victim of crime quoted an article in the Daily Mail about crime statistics, both the presenters and the pseud, as one, said ‘you don’t want to believe everything you read in the Mail’
Well here it is from the horse’s mouth so to speak from today’s Daily Mail, the author of the Policeman’s blog.
“Despite working at the bottom of the policing pile, as I do, I have firm ideas about policing which are reflected in the work of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Arizona.
He charges his inmates for their meals, banned smoking and porn magazines in his jail and cut off all TV. He made them work on chain gangs in the heat and when they complained, said: ‘It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers have to wear full battle gear. They didn’t commit any crimes. If you don’t like it here, don’t come back!’ ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410399&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=
If its a choice in who to believe then I’ll take the Daily Mail over the BBC any day.
Lord Hurd, the man who criminalised owners of guns, doesn`t want people to go to jail.
A typical patrician who would allow the plebians to be afflicted by crime so that he can look “intellectual”.
A man who thinks he`s wiser than you or I, but hasn`t seen or heard what we have.
It’s the second paragraph that amazes me:
“Penal reformers see this as a paradox – others claim it is proof that prison works.”
I’ve been racking my brains, trying to work out how this can be a ‘paradox’.
what is truly Jaw Dropping is that I`m agreeing with George Galloway (talking about the BA cross ban) now on Sky News.
Strange times indeed.
The New York Times does a variation of this story annually: Prison Population Rising Despite Falling Crime Rate. I first saw it pointed out some years ago, and they haven’t failed me since. It’s like the swallows coming back to Capistrano or something.
They seem completely unable to process the idea that locking up recidivists reduces crime. I guess in Opposite World, it’s only fair to let criminals go when the crime rate falls.
I think the BBC’s defence of this is fairly obvious. It would be a paradox that the prison population is going up at the same time crime rates are falling, if you follow the logic that as there have been more convictions leading to prison sentances, there must have been more crime. Except the figures don’t show this. Simple really. keep up 🙂
I dunno about simple.
If the “revolving door” of the prison slows down, i.e. if stiffer sentences are handed down and parole becomes harder to get, then the population will increase as newcomers arrive.
There could also be the question of a time lag here. When and how often are the crime stats released as opposed to the stats on the prison population? The initial crime is also a much quicker event than the subsequent investigation, arrest and trial leading to imprisonment. It seems therefore fair to say that the prison population stats represent earlier crimes than the crime stats. And it’s no great leap from there to the view that with more criminals in prison, crime will drop.
Do the prison stats include those prisoners denied bail while awaiting trial? And do the crime stats include each and every category of crime?
I’m just thinking out loud here but it strikes me that simple, it ain’t.
the balancing view being represented by … er … no one.
He doesn’t need one. Douglas Hurd is (a) a toff, and (b) a liberal, and therefore – to the BBC mindset – arrives complete with his own internal balance. For impartiality purposes he sort of cancels himself out, and yet, at the same time, manages to exude an odour of Mailophobic sanctimony into the studio. What could be sweeter…?
The fact is that criminals as Guests of HM’s Prison Service are not molesting the public.
A small number of people commit most of the crimes, and so if you lock them up, crime goes down to background level of criminality. It is basicly a 1%’er issue.
So long as criminals can get suspended sentances by weeping in court, britain will have a crime problem. Guns and knives have nothing to do with it.
Reminds me of Ayotolah Khomani’s comment a while back extolling the wisdom of Allah in having the good sense to know to send most of Iran’s rain to the green and lush areas.