So, we are soft on crime are we? Could someone please explain to me why it is that Britain has the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe (136 people per 100,000)? After having a go at cracking that, try and explain to someone who knows about the justice system why you think that the Brits are a bunch of softies when it comes to tackling crime. Soft on crime…you are misguided. Only Russia and Turkey beat us when it comes to our prison population. To cope with this ever-increasing prison population we are now building super prisons that can hold up to 3,000 people. Each inmate costs approx. £40,000 a year to keep inside. It's a mess and it's madness. But all of this is what you and others like you want. What I see is that the mentality of the British justice system is to lock 'em up and throw away the keys. Forget about them lot and let them rot. No rehabilitation work, just punishment. Don't have a release plan. It doesn't work and hasn't been working for decades. The guy who committed this tragic crime will go down for a very long time. I am not going to speculate on how long, because the Judge will take into account his age and circumstances. But it will be a long time.You will be pleased to know that our sentences are getting longer, much much longer, than if the same offence was committed 15 years ago. Let's use murder as just as one example. The average sentence for murder 15 years ago was approx 13 years, but now it is far closer to 18 years. The average minimum term imposed for murder rose from 13 years to 21 years in 2021.Knife crime sentences rose from 4.2 years to 6.5 years in 2022. All types of crime are receiving longer sentences, regardless of whether it is murder or robbery, burglary or money laundering, GBH or shoplifting. So all this talk about soft punishment is not factually correct. It is an opinion of people who believe they know everything there is to know about the justice system when in fact they know nothing. A final thing to reassure you is that Dominic Raab has told The Parole Board to be far stricter in their criteria of transferring prisoners to open conditions. Currently, there are something in the region of 650 places going spare in 'D' cat prisons. I don't know what you think but turning down a transfer to open conditions will mean fewer prisoners will have the opportunity to be tested under the controlled conditions of an open prison. My concern is that it is likely to inevitably lead to some people being released without that test, whilst others stay in closed conditions for longer than necessary. If any of you have been watching Parole on BBC1, then you will have seen exactly what I am talking about.
Ben Owen ● 410d