An afterthought to (and some additional information on) the Today programme’s three-item (one, two, three) ‘don’t lock them up’ fest of last Thursday, noted by David here :
Two points. One is the BBC double-whammy reporting – that not only do Barnardo’s think that too many young criminals are being locked up, but the Parliamentary Justice Committee think the same thing – which was reported as a separate item on Radio 5 news that day.
Alas, the BBC failed to tell us who’s at the top of the list giving evidence to the Parliamentary Justice Committee. You wouldn’t be too surprised to know that it’s – wait for it – Barnardo’s.
In fact the list of organisations giving evidence to the committee (mostly ‘fake charities’, the bulk of whose income comes from the taxpayer – Barnardo’s for example closed its last children’s home in 1989) is one to warm a social worker’s heart, and the evidence presented (here) by the assorted pointy-heads deeply depressing. It’s worth a read if you want to know why crime is so high in the UK.
But I digress. The thrust of the evidence presented by Barnardos, and through them by the Justice Committee, is that too many young criminals are being jailed. Why too many ? Because – wait for it – the judges are too harsh. There are government guidelines – which the judges ignore and go their own punitive way. Were they to keep to the guidelines fewer young criminals would be in jail (according to the evidence presented over 97% of young criminals appearing in court are NOT sent down – I cannot find the figures, but I would be very surprised if the majority of young criminals ever got as far as an actual court appearance).
A small thought experiment. Imagine – even if you live in Islington – that you go out onto the streets of your neighbourhood and ask, say, a hundred people at random if they think judges are too harsh on young criminals. How many do you think would agree that they were ? Perhaps the BBC should have headed their story :
Even the Today programme might have trouble with that spin, but the BBC are happy to present (albeit obliquely) this thesis with a straight face.
A small quote may be in order here, from the first chapter of Steven Pinker’s excellent work The Blank Slate.
“The problem is not just that these claims are preposterous but that they did not acknowledge they were saying things that common sense might call into question. This is the mentality of a cult, in which fantastical beliefs are flaunted as a proof of one’s piety. That mentality cannot coexist with an esteem for the truth …”