BEHIND BARS

Ann Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, is a BBC favourite. Her liberal values resonate with the State Broadcaster and she was on this morning criticising Cookham Wood Young Offenders institute. For good value, universal Francis Crooke from the Howard League for Penal Abolition was also given a scathing quote on the “brutality” of the prison regime. The BBC meme is always the same – if we must send young criminals to Prison then the objective should be education. The idea that thugs get punished is just simply unacceptable to the liberal elite and when it’s not the police that are being criticised, it is prison staff. The concept that young criminals are responsible for their own deprivation of liberty is just not on the radar. Maybe we should close on Prisons and turn them into early learning centres?