Prison population
Perhaps my current reading matter has influenced my thinking but my thoughts are drawn towards the disclosure that Scotland's prison population rose to an all-time high last year.
The reading matter? "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, a near-obsessive examination of a notably brutal multiple murder.
In particular, Capote scrutinises the societal and personal motivations underlying the crime.
With regard to the Scottish data, I know that the prison stats record an "all-time high" virtually daily as more are sent to the slammer and for longer sentences.
These figures, therefore, merely confirm a trend, based on averaging out the daily stats. However, it is a deeply disturbing trend.
Scotland's prison population has, this week, exceeded 8,000 for the first time.
The rate of increase is steeper. We should not allow familiarity to negate the necessary political debate.
An element to note in passing is that the use of community sentences is also at a record high.
In other words, it is not that the courts are ignoring or entirely setting aside alternatives to custody.
The prison service plays with the hand it is dealt.
Scotland's prisons, Scotland's officers, cope as they can with the numbers sent to them by the courts. They, rightly, take no part in the political debate.
To be fair, that political debate is vigorous, if inevitably a little repetitive.
For example, Bill Aitken for the Tories forecast that SNP ministers would "abuse these figures to argue their dangerous case that fewer criminals should be sent to prison".
Justice Minister Kenny Macaskill said that, far from advancing a dangerous case, he was attempting to deal with "the absurd situation" inherited by the Scottish Government.
Mr Macaskill noted that prison disposals had increased, despite a falling overall crime rate.
If one were being cheeky, one might suggest that recruiting more police will mean yet more arrests, more court appearances and - guess what?
Next week, ministers will set out their governmental programme for the year ahead at Holyrood.
Criminal justice and sentencing policy will feature prominently.
I'd welcome your views - as, I feel sure, would the politicians.
Do we send too many to prison - perhaps especially those whose behaviour is driven by addiction or deprivation?
Or is it entirely right that society be protected from offenders? Should we simply expand the prison estate to cope?
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~03~RS~)
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If people commit a crime they should be sent to prison. Prison should not be a five star hotel. It should be a penance and an opportunity to learn new skills.
Take the toys, TVs and computer games away. Then build new prisons with the proceeds from the car boot sale.
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So much for the 'soft touch' campaign in the Unionist media that is directed against the SNP government. The evidence shows we have more people in prison, more police on the streets, and overall crime down.
The Unionist media and Unionist politicians in Scotland stand accused of conducting a 'fear-and-smear' propganda exercise to play on the fears of the public and to turn those fears into an attack on the SNP government.
Justice and victims of crime are not being best served in Scotland by baseless stories and downright lies being printed and broadcasted on a daily basis.
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#1 Brian
"If people commit a crime they should be sent to prison."
Driving at 31 mph in a 30 mph zone is a crime - prison for every speeder?
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People should go to jail for the crimes that they have commited.
However not all crimes deserve jail time but instead the person involved should be fined. We should take a step back and reevaluate which crimes deserve jail time and which don't.
We should also get started on building more prisons and like BrianSH stated remove the toys. Why should the criminal receive a menu for what they are able to eat for lunch? Why give them computers, that even I don't have? I don't even get a menu to chose from and I am expected to do quite alot in the name of 'Britain'.
Then we should bring back the death penalty. For example, how the Government can spend on some cases tens of thousands per day to watch the most dangerous criminals is beyond me. Get rid of them, save some money, spend it on schools instead etc etc. I also find it difficult that abortion is allowed (its a form of contraception these days) when we can't get rid of the worst in society.
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So, in a nutshell: under the SNP we have too many prisoners but too few police officers.
A typically MacAskillite “quality” solution stares us in the face. ;-)
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Oldnat you take my comments out of context!
A serious crime should result in a penance in prison.
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I agree with the other post suggesting the prisoners are living in too comfortable a position.
Of course drug addicts alcoholics etc who commit crimes, should be locked up in many ways yes they are victims (perhaps) of our society and fundamentally this is what needs the most attention. We have become such a passive country where we tolerate very low standards and make excuses all over the place for this. Why are people taking drugs to begin with? I believe most of the problem is our education system, too much importance given to academia and not nearly sufficient focus on nurturing who and what an individul is and wants or would like. Give people a sense of who they are first.
I'm not a big believer in rehabilitation oftentime it's too late so put the money into childhood years . I say prison is too soft, perhaps bring back hanging for the most heinous of crimes e.g. child abuse.
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Scottish Unionist, you will be regaled by the fact that there is now a record number of police officers on the streets today (thanks to the SNP and the Tories). Shame it is still too few.
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The big question is, what good does prison do?
Prison may do three things.
What politicians have done with penal policy for the past two hundred years can be summed up 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again'. It's about time we thought along the lines 'if at first you don't succeed, try something different.
There are probably less than five hundred people in Scotland who need to be imprisoned for public safety reasons. The rest would be much better off in the community under curfew, tagged, possibly obliged to wear identifying clothing, and paying hefty fines into the public purse rather than taking expensive board and lodging out of it.
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Nice wee cheeky comment Brian. If there was substantial and notable increase in police on the streets - in that, you are down the pub and it comes up in conversation that you've seen police around and about the streets a lot more - then I think it can have very positive effects in decreasing crime.
So first step is to either increase police presence to this extent - or give the illusion that there is this presence! Psychological effects 'n' a' that.
Second step: another prison.
Third step: stop reducing prison sentence times - with increased capacity we can return to having decent strong sentences.
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74, new officers, 926 short of their pledge.
Thats the nats for you,all talk no action.
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Well guys a great start staight into how good / bad the SNP are.
Good subject choice Brian. We need some fresh thinking here not a posturing competition on who can be toughest.
A lot of people who go to jail for drug related offences are destined to go straight back as there is little or nothing done to sort the problem. We need to understand why people end up in prison and break that cycle. There should be a zero tolerance policy towards drugs in Prison with testing if necessary.
Community sentences may be up, but from a poor starting point so more can be done in this area. Comminuty prisoners should be visible and doing good in the community they have offended in. If they don't put enough effort in they should have sentences extended.
I also agreee prison should be a little less comfortable. All prisoners medically fit should work, hard physical work.
No toys or computers.
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BrianSH
And there was me thinking the prison population had just topped 8,000 but there were 926 fewer police officers than we were promised. Am I mistaken?
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#10.
In Aberdeen you can often witness or hear about youths taking on the police.
Can you explain how police on the streets would improve our current situation? Instead of rival youths attacking one another you would pretty much land the police into more bother. Police Officers don't like working with the drunks on a Saturday and you expect the police to be seen more often on the streets? Pfft, the youths control the streets, you would need a heavy police presence to break the backs of the gangs before you would really make a difference.
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I would suggest two statistics illustrate the underlying health and well-being of a society.
Prison population and suicide rates.
Scotland is a "leader" in both areas.
Do any of the "main" political parties have anything tangible to offer to reverse these statistics other than hot air and hyperbole?
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There are a few oil platforms that must be nearing the end of their productive lives.
Hmm, what good use could we put them to, I wonder...
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All debate about crime revolves around sentencing and prisons. I have the view that once someone has murdered, raped or assaulted, then how we handle them is one ineffective option after another. We still have to deal with them, but the conversation never seems to get round to the reasons why someone would have such a lack of humanity to murder, rape or assault.
When you compare Scotland's prison population per capita with Norway - they have about a third. Why? What is different in their society?
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I wouldn't try to blame anything here on a party or a philosophy. I don't think any politician is disposed to "let murderers roam the street" or to "cage daft wee boys." Society, you and me, has a very skewed notion of justice, with most people falling between a desire for revenge and delusions of fairness.
Politicians deal with the confusion. A good recent example was of a careless driver whose action, or lack of it, had fatal consequences. Calls for a new Law of causing death by carelessness are now very loud. Whit? We could all have made the mistake and got away with it. This guy was unlucky. Consequences out of all proportion to the action. Come on! We've all had a near-miss of our own making.
What about the poor hooker, jailed for not paying her fine? That'll get her back on her feet, eh? The list of examples is endless, and everyone has his own prejudices about them.
Who will be "reformed" by prison? A wife who kills a violent husband, an alcoholic who steals when drunk, a drug addict desperate for a fix who robs a pensioner? It's possible to get very emotive about them all.
We don't need new laws. There's nothing that can't be dealt with under exisiting Law. I think we should let the judges get on with it. Disputed sentences can go to appeal, not to the newspapers who regale us with "My son's killer walked free," from families gagging for revenge or compensation.
Encourage the police to exercise discretion about who is charged and who is warned. Fewer urinating drunks or foul-mouthed teenagers clogging up the District Courts.
Given a bit of tolerance and understanding all round, justice can be speedier and better targetted.
But we don't run a justice system in response to numbers in jail. If we need more jails, build them.
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Why no discussion on average age of males in some areas of Glasgow 53?
Prison is important, but not more so than people dying in our biggest city 10 years earlier than disease infested suburbs of third world cities.
Average life expectancy of 53 years for males is a national disgrace and scandal we should all be completely ashamed of.
The unionist media present this as some sort of strange quirk in the news bulletins, before moving on swiftly to Prince William's girl friend's new costume, etc.
How has this situation been allowed to materialise under successive Westminster based unionist parties and local Scottish regional Labour?
It has never been in the interest of the Labour party to raise the standards of public health, housing and access to education by fair and equitable taxation.
Middle England would not let them tax the rich to aid social mobility and access to enhanced life chances of the poor.
Scottish regional Labour have left the poor people in Glasgow and other urban areas to rot, knowing the poor folk had no one else to vote for.
This topic needs to be the national debate of Scotland, how has the dreadful situation happened and how can it be remedied as quick as possible.
Have the unionists learned nothing form the Black report? Obviously not.
The answer does not lie in Trident on the Clyde, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, Bungler Browns British jobs for British workers, London Olympics or a nation I have never accepted being part of national ID cards.
A Mc
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No news like bad news, I see. "Scottish Unionist" please look at the main newstory on the Scottish politics page: "Police numbers at record high".
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2. And what is the SNP's contribution to all this? Crime has been steadily falling for several years now, police numbers have been steadily increasing for years now and prison numbers have also been rising for several years now. What's changed since the SNP came in?
8. The report said there are just 74 more police officers since June last year.
Divide that between four shifts and now let's see how many extra police are on the streets since the SNP came to power.....oh dear!
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#9 Simon_Brooke
Some excellent ideas, though I'd be surprised if the number ended up quite as low as 500. Certainly worth exploring.
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Gosh, I am surprised at how many of the regular contributors appear to have spent time in jail themselves - all those who can confidently claim that prisons are luxurious...
What *did* you all do to see time in chokey?
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oldnat has posted before that he's a SciFi fan, but I wonder whether anyone's read William Tenn's Time in Advance? It's a collection of short stories, but the "title" story has a plot relevant to this thread. I read it as a teenager in the '60s and have wondered whether it could be made to work. I'd forgotten the exact details but the Wiki synopsis rings true: In the far future a law is passed enabling citizens to serve out sentences for crimes they intend to commit, serving the full term, but with a 50% pre-criminal discount. Post-criminals and pre-criminals alike are sent to carry out hard-labour on hellishly perilous, far-flung Convict Planets. Few return. Those pre-criminals who are not killed, drop out before their terms are up, with nothing but scars and nightmares to show for their troubles. Two pre-criminals however, Otto Henck and Nicholas Crandall, manage against all the odds to serve out two full terms for murder, and return to Earth as minor celebrities, with the right to kill one person each. Things, however, do not go quite as planned....
There's the end, too, in Wikipedia, but I strongly recommend any SciFi fans to read the whole book.
I can think of the odd island where such a scheme could be tried experimentally.
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I wonder, what is Bill Aitken's opinion on drink-driving Tories that escape with a ban and a fine? Surely these dangerous criminals should be clapped in irons?
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#18 brigadierjohn
An excellent post. The only quibble I'd have is that the judiciary themselves could probably do with more "real world" experience as it's more than just occasionally that they come out with truly oddball sentences.
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Scottishunionist
8,000 well, is it not the case that the capacity of Scotlands jails are somewhere next to 6000
Still 926 officer short Hmmmmmm...........
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#13.
You are mistaken. You were promised 1000 police offciers by 2011. Since this is 2008, what is the problem?
Lets look at the bigger picture. For years police numbers have decreased, the Nationalists come along and begin to reverse this effect. Should you not instead praise the effort that they have made so far?
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#21.
Reluctant-Expat, please provide evidence that supports your point that police numbers have been increasing for years.
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#17
What do the Nogs have that we don't.....Thinks....
i) Control over their oil money to
ii) Invest in giving people decent jobs,a decent standard of living and therefore
iii) When someone goes off the rails, they have the cash to invest in working to reform them into a decent member of society.
I'm not a bleeding heart liberal but looks like our cousins across the North Sea have a better idea of what to do about it. They still shut up murderers and rapists, you know....
I'm not saying that if we had our own money and $150 Billion in the Oil Fund that Scotland would be a land of peace and light, but what the Nogs are doing has to be worth a look instead of building more prisons.
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#18 Brigadier
Heartily concur.
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One of the problems with the prison process is the numbers of prisoners who are there for non payment of fines. It becomes a vicious circle of fine, non payment, period of incarceration, fine, non payment etc etc etc.
Until a more appropriate means of streamlining the prison population into those who truly belong in prison and those for whom alternate options would be the better option we'll have increases in the population and overcrowding.
Then we can have a discussion as to whether prison should be about punishment or reeducation.
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This topic is so tricky really. There are few people that would completely agree with another's view on the matter because there are so many different factors and a lot of it based on your own moral and philosophical taste.
#28 Thomas_Porter
You (and the SNP) are lucky that they were so woolly about their approach to the extra 1000 police officers. It's true that the SNP intend on introducing 1000 by 2011 and they've outlined how here. Seemingly 450 by the end of the financial year, 200 next year and 200 the year after that.
"Let's look at the bigger picture. For years police numbers have decreased"
My word. Read this - probably the simplest thing you could've researched. They've been increasing for years.
#24 Brownedov
Sounds like a good read. I do like being recommended random books that I'd never otherwise think of buying.
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#23 DrKF77
LOL
#28 Thomas_Porter
Spot on, and that was on the basis of becoming a majority government. What's more interesting is that the NuLab apologists have been banging on about this for the last few threads. One can only assume they have nothing of substance to contribute.
I wonder if any of those apologists would care to comment on why NuLab at Westmidden broke their 1 key promise on 1 specific bill by denying a referendum and ended up having to argue in court that their own words were worthless and so not actionable?
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#26 Brownedov: Thanks. You may be right about unworldly judges, but I grew up on a cooncil estate with a guy who is now a sheriff. Solemn behaviour is a necessary "front" for some, who can be quite funny at other times.
Re your #24: There used to be something called Preventive Detention. Basically, any known ne'er-do-well could be thrown in jail if the cops suspected he was planning something, and the court agreed. How society changes!
Professional, career criminals, who accept jail as an occupational hazard, even a holiday, rarely seem to get long enough sentences. I think it is self-evident that a persistent thief, housebreaker, or loan shark causes more misery in a community than, say, a "flasher" who suffers shame, humiliation and disgrace for being a bit of a sad character. Not condoning it, of course.
Isn't it strange that those who cause moral outrage are more roundly condemned than the real destroyers of lives, and indeed society?
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#18brigadierjohn
Top marks except we can't build our way out of this problem.
We have to try and understand what fuels criminal activity. I suggest that social inequality is by far the biggest culprit. If one reduces the reason for crime then it will reduce.
Drug users have no place in jail as all this can and does do is continue the cycle of drug misuse.
I suspect the biggest financial winners from crime are not the criminals but the lawyers involved.
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I think we are all overlooking the most obvious solution to this overcrowding problem.
Given what recent history teaches us, surely any prisoner who can say with a straight face: "Ah didnae ken it wiz against the law! Ah didnae mean it!", must have their bonds loosed, and their shackles cast off. For is ignorance of the law not defence enough? At a stroke overcrowding would be a thing of the past!
Perhaps some of the Labour apparatchiks would care to enlighten us as to why this defence would be inappropriate for "real" criminals, but perfectly acceptable for certain denizens of Paisley North?
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SNP propaganda, evidence by thyn own hand? TOSH
Still 926 officers short
Overcrowding will lead to this government (snp) being sued by imates, for poor human rights
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#37 forfar-loon
LOL - I'm sure we'll be back to that topic long before the votes are counted at Glenrothes.
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Need one do more than quote the abstract of Witt and Reilly's "Crime and Unemployment in Scotland: An Econometric Analysis Using Regional Data"?
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#40 oldnat
Witt and Reilly may be very clever people but there is a substantial diffence between the unemployed and the unemployable and anyone using a word like heteroscedasticity is in dire need of finding a girlfriend.
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As promised on the previous thread, here is some analysis of the YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph as reported in their Gordon Brown looks doomed as poll shows support draining away today and at first glance that's certainly true for the UK as a whole, but it's not good news for NuLab in Scotland either. It has a Scottish sample size of 248 (weighted 204) and isn't based on a skewed voting pattern at the 2005 election.
So we can table the voting by parties as follows:
It's not only worse for NuLab than the YouGov poll for the SNP early in the month, but better for the SNP too, increasing the gap. Obviously it's much too small a sample to bet the house on, but these levels of change would give something like the following at Glenrothes:
These predictions are significantly better for the SNP than my previous prediction.
Counters of angels on pinheads might care to note that on this poll, the LibDems would do a little less badly than on previous ones and the Tories a little worse, but the Tories would still beat the LibDems for 3rd place and both would save their deposits. That, of course, is before any by-election "squeeze".
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#40 oldnat
Don't all econometricians put that in their reports?
Shades of Professor Henderson in Yes Minister's The Greasy Pole episode.
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#42 Brownedov
Thanks for the analysis. I thought I'd have a look at the % change between the 2005 GE vote and the 2007 constituency vote, plus the change from 2007 to the latest YouGov UK voting intention -
Party 2005-7 2007-8
Lab -11.2% -4.4%
SNP 21.9% 6.7%
LD -10.8% -4.3%
Con 2.0% 1.2%
This suggests that the direction of change represents an underlying shift in Scottish politics, rather than a variable factor dependent on whether the focus of the election is Scottish or UK.
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I have a good laugh at the contributors on this topic who seem to imagine that you can go down to the JobCentre and sign up as many policemen as you need.
Policemen need trained. It takes a lot of time.
The important fact is that the situation is being turned around. Police numbers dropped steadily under the previoiuys administration. They are now increasing and will continue to do so over the period of this government.
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#43 Brownedov
"Don't all econometricians put that in their reports?"
They do. It's one of the best ways to stop the journalists getting to the meat of your argument, then trivialising and distorting it.
#41 Dick
I'm impressed that you read through all that tedious econometric jargon to get to what their tentative conclusion is! (I have no idea what "heteroscedasticity" is - can I have a girlfriend? - as long as my wife doesn't find out!)
There was actually a reason for posting that abstract (other than urine extraction).
Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" was just another example of many of the posts on this thread. Assumptions are made as to the appropriate response to crime in order to reduce it.
In reality, since even skilled analysts have huge difficulty in identifying the appropriate correlations with crime (much less the causal relationships), then the development of solutions is pure guesswork - often strongly influenced by the tabloids.
I posted on a previous thread, that crime and anti-social behavious became far less important to the PHI 5000 panel, when the press stopped repeating each other's stories on it.
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#44 oldnat
Interesting. I may play with the numbers myself when I have some free time. I do think there was a step change in perception between May '05 and May '07.
The changes since May '07 are harder to quantify. Certainly NuLab is no more loved in Scotland than in England, but with the Scots Tories still unpopular despite Auntie Bellas's best efforts, it's harder to say whether the SNP are benefitting from dislike of NuLab or genuinely gaining popularity in their own right. I do see it as truly odd that the LibDems either haven't noticed or just don't care.
I may have an early night and sleep on it unless there's anything exciting in tomorrow's press.
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#45 sneckedagain
You are, of course, right. However, the problem lies deeper than that. I don't know about the private sector, but in every area of the public sector there is a cyclical problem with shortage and recruitment, dating back through most of the 20th century.
In the 1930's public spending was cut to a minimum, and recruitment reduced. During WWII, many public services were kept going with retirees. After the war, the police, teaching etc were rejuvenated by a huge influx of ex-servicemen. They retired in the 1960's and 1970's in huge numbers, and we baby boomers had a huge choice of jobs (which we held until recently). There were limited opportunities for younger people.
In teaching, the previous Executive recognised the looming disaster - hence the McCrone settlement to prevent the shortage and postpone the problem to the 2030's.
Police retire earlier, so the cycle is similar but shorter. Massive recruitment by Thatcher in the '80s is now leading to the pension crisis that now faces Police authorities.
This is nothing to do with any current political party, but is a structural problem.
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Re my #48 McAskill's claim to be increasing recruitment is accurate, but no more meaningful than the Opposition and Expat's suggestions that the SNP are "breaking promises". Party politics becomes a real pain at times.
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I think Glenrothes won't be having the pleasure of GB for a while, he's going to be busy scratching his head.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7589291.stm
In response to unemployed/unemployable no one is born that way it is a cause of circumstance and local environment.
They are the result of a capitalist society looking to produce or complete a task in the most economic way. The consequence of this is a floating labour pool to keep production running rather than addressing the social issues. We are all complicit in this as we we all want the cheapest serviceable item even if it means bringing in migrant workers or outsourcing the goods.
Underlying problem workforce now living in places where work is in short supply or non existent.
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Oldnat
My brother has recently retired from a high position in the Police.
He agrees with your contention. Specifically also he believes that the substantial improvement in police pay and pension provision at Margaret Thatcher's behest means we can no longer afford to employ enough policemen and the problem will not go away without a radical and painful reassessment of employment conditions.
The same sort of concerns are beginning to appear in the NHS.
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Devastating attack on the SNP and crime in the Times! except that it's written by Lorraine Davidson (former press officer for the Scottish Labour party in 1999 and former partner of Tom McCabe - perhaps even formerly honest?)
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#46 oldnat
extract the heteroxanthine perhaps?
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#53 handclapping
LOL (Even looked it up!)
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#52 oldnat
I am presuming that is the same Lorraine Davidson who is a Political presenter on BBC Radio Scotland who is always sniping at the SNP. Back to the bias of the BBC who like to be impartial!
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#51 sneckedagain
Thanks for the confirmation. The electoral cycle means that it is impossible for any party in office to deal with public sector structure (or any long-term structural problem).
One of the reasons that I prefer minority government is that it potentially creates the space for the parties (who'd all like to see the problems solved if they didn't have to carry the blame) to use mechanisms like commissions (to which they all signed up in advance) to develop more appropriate strategies.
It won't happen, of course, while Scottish politics is riven by the constitutional issue. Once we have that settled, it might be possible. Currently there's so much point scoring between the parties (equal blame to all), that no constructive planning for Scotland can happen.
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#55 cynicalhighlander
One of the worrying things I found when I was seconded into the offices of a local authority in the West of Scotland was the unspoken assumption of officials that they followed a Labour Party agenda. I don't think that was a "sinister plot" but simply pursuing their own career within a one-party state (I do occasional contract work for them, hence my use of a pseudonym).
The introduction of PR into local government has started to break that down, but at national level, the UK influence has not changed the culture - hence the employment of partisan journalists in the BBC etc.
One of the things I like about Brian T is that he is adumbrated by some of the activists as being a Nationalist or a Labour stooge. Annoying both sets of extremists means he's probably getting it right!
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Calman in deep trouble already I hadn't realised that they were only willing to listen to those that they invited!
I think Thomas Porter should be funded by the taxpayer to listen to anyone he decides, and then issue an "independent" report.
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One of the reasons why the prison population is so high is that it is much more difficult to get bail in Sheriff courts than it was, leading to the situation that 35% of the prison population hasn't been convicted or sentenced at all.
No wonder the jails are packed.
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Calman - that reminds me. I haven't had any answer from a Lib Dem to my questions -
"Calman is to present his final report at some point in 2009. When will your internal study of devolution be ready? How will the options from those two analyses be decided - by the leadership, or by conference?"
"I've been googling to try to find out the attitude of the Scottish Lib-Dems to the Government concordat with COSLA, ring-fencing etc., without success.
Can anyone direct me to a policy statement etc on this?"
Any Lib-Dem out there? Coo-ee?
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#57 oldnat
Adumbrate, now there is a tricky word with 3 senses that might fit your sentence, fill in, sketch out or represent the substance by its shadow?
I also give Thomas respect.
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#61 handclapping
This is becoming a helluva sophisticated blog! I didn't know that the first 2 meanings of "adumbrate" even existed!
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#62 oldnat
I was the one with specs who was no good at ringing doorbells, football, fighting or attracting birds. Here comes the walking encyclopedia - it was and probaly still is my only claim to fame.
My guess is Mr T is Labour. He would have needed strong links into the party to be able to do his job when he started and the BBC management still havent come to terms with the fact that they need someone with strong links to the nats to get the true balance of Scottish politics now. Typical British management, incompetence with a cut glass accent.
Thank you for the response; you probably know Mr T better than me so it rounds out my picture of him.
Goodnight
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#63 handclapping
You may well be right about Brian T's origins - sounds sensible.
The thing I've found most enjoyable about blogging over the last couple of months is finding people who are cleverer/ more knowledgeable than myself, that I learn from.
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doonhamer on the Scotsman blog translates the most recent YouGov poll as
Seats (according to Electoral Calculus)
SNP 42
Labour 9
Conservatives 3
LibDem 5
While I doubt that will happen in 2010, the direction of the polls suggest that this is not totally impossible under Westminster's FPTP system.
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Thought I'd do a check on the catchment area of Kirkcaldy HS re Glenrothes in the light of this article in the Guardian
There is no overlap of KHS catchment area with the Glenrothes constituency. Roy hasn't been long enough in post to have developed a reputation in the (neighbouring) community, and any reputation will have gone with his readiness to jettison the kids in favour of standing for Westminster. When Brown was at school at KHS, it did draw from the Glenrothes area - but that was more than 40 years ago.Talk about being out of touch!
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63 handclapping
Perhaps BT is just a nice guy but when I watched him interviewing Wendy Alexander, it was more like a love-in than an interview.
However, there's nothing wrong with being a Labour supporter at his age - in fact quite the reverse but politics has changed and Labour, whilst still doing some right things like trying to lift kids out of poverty, have generally adopted the Tory mantle and are looking after the rich leaving a great big gaping hole for someone else to fill - the Lib Dems haven't got the bottle so step up the SNP.
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Hey Brian how come the BBC Scotland website has absolutely nothing about Alistair Darling's comments that stated Brown and Co had taken us to the worst economic recession since 1948.
I only ask because it is on the main BBC UK site page.
Methinks the BBC is being selective with the news it lets us Scottish License payers know again.
Big Brother selective news would perhaps be a more suitable name for the London Controlled Corporation, that treats Scots as no more than second class citizens.
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Hey Brian is it true that London Controlled New Labours favourite son Douglas Fraser is taking over your job at the London Controlled BBC here in Scotland.
Also where you aware that the Johnson Press who own the Scotsman have just announced a 109 million quid loss.
The Hootsman has a proud history of being a first class newspaper for nearly two hundred years. Its a pity that its future appears to be doom and gloom for their biased Editors and Journalists. About Time Too.
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Brian I recently received an email from my brother overseas, complaining that political programmes such as Newsnight Scotland and Glen Campbells programme.
Now considering he has been watching it for over a year, why exactly would the BBC suddenly block access for the World to see. Has Gordon Brown once again spoken to the BBC board to let them know that their spending will be cut if they dont hush the most exciting political news for the Scottish and World people, that the UK is about to be dismantled at last once we Scots leave it and run our own country.
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"Bring back the death penalty" ...well aye within reason. Definately for murder cases where the evidence is outstanding. Would probably be a good idea for the birch and stocks in the town square for minor crimes ie assault, robbery, rape etc (no im not Richard Littlejohn !) . This would be more of a detterant than a fine or a few weeks in jail. Also i think the parents have a lot to answer for in a lot of the juvenille crimes ...so put them in jail. Its a sad state but even in the Press and Journal the other day, two teenagers evicted from a private house for being rowdy. The council boarded up the house so they could not go back and the mother (who owned the house ) complained because she could not rent out the house to anyone else . But the thing that really said it all was that because they were now homeless she said "well theyre not coming to stay with me" . What a nice mother .
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Re Todays BBC headline on Police Numbers
Where is Bighullabaloo? Surely the BBC must be guilty of bias? The headline states Police numbers on Record High. It does not immediately point out that this is very poor progress towards a promised target of 1000. At this rate we won't see that delivered intil a 3rd SNP term, ( God forbid)
Couldn't be the BBC being fair could it?
Incidentally of the 110 they claim although it seems more like well under a hundred to me, 100 are in lothian and strathclyde. Doesn't leave much for everyone else?
I see this is another example of good government for all of Scotland with a fiar distribution of resources. What a change from labour!
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#65 oldnat
The Scotsman's site doesn't seem to be working too well this morning, so it took me a while to find the reference in doonhamer's #19 in the "Devolution event axed 'due to lack of interest'" article. I agree that it's unlikely to happen quite like that, as we have a very small sample and no regional info for Scotland. Given the trends set by the last SP elections and what happened at Glasgow East, I can believe there may be an "anything but Labour" attitude next time, though. To get Labour down to single figures at Westmidden will probably depend on whether tactical voting can be co-ordinated somehow. Unless it can, my first guesstimate would be more like 20.
Once the summer hols are over, I will try pressing the stats section of the HoC library and the Electoral Commission research section to provide a better source for creation of a simple SQL database to allow everyone to be able to crunch these simple numbers for themselves. I might even try to get Eurostat to twist their arms a little, as none of the publicly available data is "database ready". With a SQL database, predicting the results would be a breeze.
#300 Peter_Fife (previous thread)
I really don't think that Cameron is quite as daft as you seem to think he is. If, as seems extremely likely, the Tories win the next general election while they have no more than the 3 Scottish seats predicted by doonhamer in oldnat's #65 while the Scottish Government remains popular, he will have to tread very warily indeed.
If the 2010 referendum is blocked at Holyrood, the backlash will almost certainly be an overall majority for the SNP in 2011. Cameron would then be most ill advised to attempt to block the one which will occur very soon after. If the 2010 referendum takes place but fails to vote for independence, you have more of a point, but even so I think a stronger SNP at Holyrood will emerge in 2011.
One of the many reasons I support electoral reform and coalition government is that I do NOT have a 'who cares what happens to England' attitude, but whatever a Tory government does will be worse there. Nobody will be able to gainsay them in an unreformed Westmidden. It's also one of the reasons I am sad that, for all their faults, the LibDems are making such a hash of their own policies, both at Holyrood and Westmidden.
The UN and the old EC were instrumental in enabling Scotland to obtain a measure of home rule in the '90s and both the UN and EU would have to take an interest if the Tories tried to block a referendum approved by Holyrood. Both Tories and NuLab forged a rod with which to flagellate themselves by their gung-ho attitude over Kosovo. The Spanish government was brighter in realising that what's allowed today in Kosovo will be difficult to oppose in Catalonia or Scotland.
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Douglas Fraser's article id fairly typical of a journo getting access to data they don't fully understand on crime statistics.
Without seeing trend lines, this tells us little more than there is a correlation between poverty and crime.
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Or this from Fraser
Headline - "Half of all tagged 'low risk' prisoners back in jail
First sentence - "More than one-quarter of prisoners sent home with detention curfews are being sent back to jail because they break the conditions of their release."
Alternative headline - "Almost three-quarters of all tagged 'low risk' prisoners stay out of jail
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The source for this thread and the Herald stories is here I'll have a look at it later to see how appropriate the stories are to the data.
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Here are some Awkward Facts (AF) about crime that posters might wish to consider. They have been true for a very long time, but modern problems don't affect these facts.
AF No.1:- The vast majority of crime is committed by criminals within one mile of their own homes. As a result, the crime rates in Council schemes is enormous whilst the crime rate in middle class estates is tiny.
AF No.2:- The victims of crime tend to be from exactly the same socio-economic group as the criminals themselves. There is therefore virtually no economic gain from their criminality.
AF No.3:- More than 60 per cent of crime is never reported because the victims know the perpetrators (they may actually be their next door neighbours) and live in constant fear of them.
AF No.4:- Most criminals are functionally illiterate, have poor impulse control, anger management issues, addictive personalities, poor time management and are incapable of making the distinction between common property and private property. Result: they don't pay fines, do community service or obey tagging orders because they forget - and they genuinely do forget.
AF No.5:- Prison is the only realistic option if for no other reason than to provide relief to their hard-pressed neighbours.
AF No.6:- Criminals don't live long. Smoking roll-ups from an early age, drinking excessive amounts of cheap booze, no exercise, eating crappy food at irregular intervals, poor personal and houshold cleanliness and engaging in highly stressful and regular aggressive behaviour with equally dangerous people does not aid mortality.
AF No.7:- The average criminal commits around 400 crimes per year (govt. figures) for which they will be caught for around 10 per cent.
AF No.8:- Last year more than 400 drugs addict died of overdoses in Scotland. If each drug addict committed 400 crimes, that represent are reduction in crime of 160,000. The crime rate in Scotland has been falling for at least ten years.
AF No.9:- Prisons are not universities of crime if they were safecracking would still be regular and well-established. Safecracking has been virtually unknown for more than 50 years.
AF No10:- Smart criminals seldom get caught.
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#77 Dick-Whittington
AF No10: - Smart criminals seldom get caught.
There's no such thing as a smart criminal.
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#57 oldnat
Was the local authority North Ayrshire, or Cunninghame District Council as it was formerly known, per chance?
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#17 lackofsurprise, #30 Chiefy1724:
Of course if we were in a position to capitalise on our resources like our Norwegian friends then we might just have fewer social problems, lower crime and a lower prison population.
Note the following line from the above linked article: "There are only two big exporters of fossil fuels in Europe: Russia and Norway" - d'oh! We could've been a contender!
And as an exercise in post-independence soothsaying (which most of us seem very fond of!), try reading the above linked article and replacing every instance of Norway with Scotland!
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#78 The Forfarian
I think you'll find the ability to clone bank cards, steal people's identity, set up fraudulent internet schemes and trade in illegal weapons suggests some measure of intelligence and they don't get caught too often.
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Bring back capital punishment and introduce chain gangs to pick up litter.
If punishments fitted the crime then perhaps the victims of crime would not be the prisoners.
We seem to tread softer and softer on crime for fear of some human rights issue being quoted.
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#79 Veangance
I live in North Ayrshire. I worked elsewhere.
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It takes the best part of 18 months to recruite and train a new police offficer (i mean that from stage of intial aplication). With this in mind anything that the SNP have done will take at least untill the start of next year to show anwy effect. A promise of additional police officers on the street is one of the easiest to follow through on its increasing the levels of recruitment that is the problem, infact to clarify its increasing the levels of sutiable applications for recruitment that is the problem.
When it comes to jail and criminality i think the biggest problem is that we have lost all sense of proportionality, punnishments need to reflect the crimes otherwise where is the point, im not an advocat for the death penalty however in terms of natural justice if someone kills then surely as a result they also should be killed? This argument of coruse is flawed in that we all tacitly consent to waive our right to natural jsutice by enploying agencies such as the police force to act as a neutral agency in the enforcement of law an without this chaos may ensue. This brings me back to my original point now, what happens when the agency we employ to dispense justice no longer dispenses what we would regard as justice? In my opinion the reason why the police are unable to dispense their duties is because the government(s) have created so much of a burden of legality that it is not possible to capture a perpetrator of crime without infrigning some kind of right or in some way making them a vitctim.We need almost with regards to law enforcement have the Hobseeian leviathan that stands above normal law a single great predator to protect the sheep from the wolves of society. howevr given the nature of society we perhaps are unable to acheive such an outcome what needs to happen however is for punnishments to be sever enough to discourage individuals from perpetrating them. If a crime is deemed not to be the fault of indivudal due to some sort of inebration temporary insanity or perversion then they should be prevent from enetering into the state of inebration or removed from that what renders them temprorarily insane at the first instance that this occurs. in the case of perverstions that are out of control of the indivudal then the individuals ability to perform said acticties should be removed so as to protect society from their disorder.
Perhaps that seems a little extreeme however it is that kind of basis we should base law on, start with the msot possible extreeme course of action then break it down so that it is more acceptable to whatever societies current empathies are, ie instead of death penalities, life sentances in prison ect rather than what we have no where in essence we treat perpetrators of crime better than the victims. it is only through this that we can make the law means something again.
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Alistair Darling - He said that voters were "pissed off" with Labour's handling of the economy, a key issue at the next election, and said it was "absolutely imperative" that ministers communicated their intentions better.
Then - But he added that the current government differed from past ones because it was prepared to "take action to help the economy and to help people get through this difficult time".
mmmm which government has been running the country for the last 2 terms i wonder.... to late for damage limitation mate .
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Are you the first BBC political hack to get a strong language warning on one of their interviews?!!
My face went as red as your braces..sorry..galluses Brian! Never thought I hear you say a sweary word on the telly.
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Unfortunately the published data for the number of prisoners is only available by LA area, and not by any of the other geographies used in social analysis.
However, the following is the number of prisoners per 100,000 of population within Scotland -
Glasgow 266
Dundee 259
Inverclyde 202
N Ayrshire 191
W Dunbartonshire 185
Renfrewshire 160
S Ayrshire 154
E Ayrshire 153
Aberdeen 145
Clackmannanshire 144
Scotland 139
Edinburgh, 134
N Lanarkshire 120
Stirling 119
S Lanarkshire 114
Falkirk 110
Fife 106
Dumfries 103
Perth 90
Angus 85
W Lothian 73
Highland 70
E Renfrewshire 65
Midlothian 63
Borders 60
Moray 58
Argyll and Bute 55
E Dunbartonshire 52
E Lothian 50
Aberdeenshire 46
Eilean Siar 45
Orkney 42
Shetland 41
and this is the international comparison (again per 100,000 of population) -
USA 762
Russia 628
S Africa 341
Latvia 287
Estonia 258
Lithuania 238
Poland 235
New Zealand 197
Czech 186
Bulgaria 158
Luxembourg 156
Slovakia 155
Hungary 153
Spain 151
England/Wales 150
Scotland 139
Romania 138
Australia 130
Turkey 127
Netherlands 117
Portugal 112
Canada 110
Austria 108
Greece 100
Belgium 95
France 89
Germany 88
Malta 86
Cyprus 85
Northern Ireland 81
Sweden 79
Ireland 77
Switzerland 76
Italy 75
Norway 75
Finland 68
Denmark 67
Slovenia 66
Japan 61
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There is far too much nonsense written and spoken on this subject by, reform groups, women’s groups, weak politicians, do-gooders and the PC Brigade, if you do the crime you must do the time!
Prison numbers at an all time high must be compared against criminal activity; this increase in sentencing must be welcomed, hopefully it is because of increased successes by Scotland’s police forces; build more prisons and bang them up!
These criminals, for clarification, for that is what they are continue their activities whether they are on bail, probation or upon release; recidivism is the name of their game.
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#88 Peter
"There is far too much nonsense written and spoken on this subject"
I agree with this extract from your statement, and it was good of you to provide the proof of it in the rest of your post.
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The best idea the last Tory government had was to introduce "unit fines", where a person's financial position was taken into account when establishing the level of fines: instead of a particular crime attracting a fine of, say, £200 (less than a week's wages to most, but more than a month's income to someone on benefits), the fine would be, say, a week's income (whatever that might be).
At least, I think it was the Tories; it was a long time ago, and the idea was soon despatched because - surprise, surprise - the middle-classes didn't like the fact that they were paying more for speeding fines and the like, than the 'dregs of society' on council estates, conveniently ignoring the inherent equity of the changed system.
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#87 oldnat
think I may move to Japan?
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#81. Dick-Whittington
I take the point, but mechanical (and mechanistic) competence does not equate to intelligence.
A 'smart' criminal would only commit a single offence, since with every subsequent offence the likelihood of detection/capture increases exponentially.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
An offence which has caused harm to another legal person (i.e. including companies, etc.) should attract a prison sentence; other offences should be dealt with outside of the prison system.
The definition of "harm" would be the problematic aspect of such a policy, of course...
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#68 scottishrepublic &
#85 rabbiehippo
I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned Captain Darling lately, especially as this website now carries an interview with him complete with "strong language" warning: Darling defends economy warning . I wonder if the mods will let this link through!
FWIW, no wonder he's running scared as he's No.3 on the "Portillo" list. where the Tories need just an 8.25% swing to give him the order of the boot in Edinburgh South West. Isn't that one place where almost everybody would agree that tactical voting in appropriate?
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#93 CynicalHighlander
The research in criminology is massive. I've only dipped into those aspects which touched on other research I've been doing.
Of the stuff I've looked at, a lot is fairly unimpressive, as they start from a set of liberal or reactionary assumptions.
Much simply reports fairly obvious correlations of criminal behaviour with poverty, dysfunctional family life, unemployment, addiction, personality disorder (especially showing lack of empathy), inability to predict consequences of actions etc. I did like one PhD thesis in the US, which essentially said that there was a high likelihood of sexual crimes being committed by males!
One interesting bit of US research, however, did look at different styles of sentencing, and suggested that there was a higher rate of criminal behaviour among the next generation, where the fathers had been incarcerated, as opposed to those whose fathers had not been. As always, the research was underfunded, and it indicated fruitful future research rather than providing a definitive answer.
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#93 cynicalHighlander
I'll try agaln.
"Unless one can determine a reason why the crime is undertaken then a solution cannot be found. Just locking people up is a self defeating exercise."
Get real, there isn't a psychologist or sociologist on this planet who is ever going to sort that one out.
Most of society knows right from wrong and that includes those committing crime.
If you commit a crime you should be punished end of story!!
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Journalist admits mistake! Now that must be a crime against someone.
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PS to my #95
I missed the "full" Darling interview in the Grauniad and just read the story. For what seems to be a pretty full text, see: Storm warning, including the reference to Bendy Wendy.
Shock horror, however, as Brian's story and a further snippet from the interview on this website shows that someone has been economical with the truth at: Darling speaks of Wendy 'respect'. I wonder who?
The chancellor denies saying Wendy Alexander is 'unlikeable'!
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#96 oldnat
I'm surprised oldnat.
Those who research these things are generally doing it for money and fame and not necessarily to improve society. There is a mountain of material looking at criminal behaviour most of which is not worth the paper it is printed on.
There are few now who now research in any field without looking at the buck they may receive for their efforts or am I just being cynical.
Politically crime is a hot potato and used as a vote winner.
I will reiterate my feelings on the matter.
Those who commit crime in most cases are aware of what they do but for some unkown reason those who are the victims are forgotten!
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Tom Shields on the Labour hustings Well worth a look.
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#101 oldnat
LOL - thanks for not spoiling it by revealing the story's headline.
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#100 Jake
Much of your post simply repeated much of what I had already said, but in nastier language.
Your comments on researchers simply demonstrates an ignorance of how academic research is actually funded - most of it by bidding for contracts. Inevitably that has led to some research being "tailored" to the needs of the client. Such "research", however, is usually easily identified. There are still many honest academic researchers.
Your comments on criminals "knowing right from wrong" are simplistic. Many recognise that external society puts such labels on their behaviours, but they do not identify with "our" society. Their communities have internal value systems which reward behaviours that "we" consider anti-social. These value systems are considerably more important to them.
I don't know your background, but it doesn't seem to me that it is connected with the law, education, social work or any other group of people who work with these communities.
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#89 oldnat,
To flush out a fox you must first know what bracken to beat.
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#97 Jake-the-saltire
"If you commit a crime you should be punished end of story!!"
Never taken a biro on a long term loan then or anything else!
Building prisons ad infinitum there won't be any room for anything else, let alone the money to finance the system.
Sort out the reasons why people go down that road will be far more beneficial to the wider community than imprisoning the "villians". Maybe ask oneself why the USA is imprisoning a higher percentage of its citizens, could that be a lack of welfare or a consumer society continually wanting the next gadget whether they need it or not. Or could it be that they have lost the word "reason" ie find out why it/something has or is failing and take the steps to remedy the fault, because it is the fault of society that encourages criminal activity.
#101 oldnat
Like it, tells it as it is.
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From one BBC report on this website:
"Politicians are always slated for not being straight with us and telling it how it really is. But that's not an accusation you could level at Alistair Darling."
From another BBC report on this website:
BT: "But you said (Wendy Alexander) is unlikeable?"
AD: "No I didn't."
BT: "You didn't say that, The Guardian are misquoting you?"
AD: "Brian, I have the utmost regard for Wendy and I will continue to have it and that remains my position."
So, that's Darling "telling us straight" what he really thinks about Wendy Alexander.
Enough to make you weep, isn't it?
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#101, oldnat
Thanks for drawing my attention to the article.
Loved your comment there regarding the probable length of tenure of the successful candidate, and oh so likely true.
It is telling that there is no Westminster Labour man or woman being put forward as a leader-in-waiting - much as Wee Eck was in the SNP prior to the 2007 election - to take up office following the next Holyrood election.
Come to think of it, a certain James Gordon Brown might be looking for a new job in 2011.
Salmond v Brown?
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#106 bighullaballoo
Don't you get the impression from the whole Alastair Darling thing that he's given up, not just on his Government surviving, but even keeping his seat whenever the GE is called?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7589723.stm
In a boxed section of the above page offering a partial transcript of his interview with Brian Taylor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is three times asked to clarify the claimed comment that Wendy Alexander was "not likeable." In the course of his three responses, Alistair Darling goes from avowing his 'admiration' for her to claiming to 'respect' her and finally offering up his 'regard' for the former leader of the Scottish Labour group in the Scottish Parliament.
One gets the feeling that if the question had been repeated often enough - a la Paxman v Howard - that his view wound have so degenerated that he would have denounced Wee Bendy as a scheming witch.
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#103 oldnat
Congratulations - paragraph 3 of your posting is absolutely on the money. Criminals live outwith the norms of society by establishing their own hierarchy of dominance and fear through crime. The committing of crime is an end in itself, a reinforcement of the ego. In their communities they are powerful people, outside it there are nobodies and no one knows it better than them.
Consequently, any attempt to reduce crime by methods other than enforcement will achieve little because what you are attempting to tackle is the criminal's very sense of themselves.
However, there is a plus side, usually round about age 27 they become way to old to hack it. Remember at 27, they have the bodies of 45 year olds and from then on the rate accelerates. Mores the pity that academics don't recognize this.
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SNP targets drug dealers - dealers object to loss of profit
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Watch Alastair Darling being interviewed by Brian Taylor on this website:
Darling spends a minute refusing to answer Taylor's question about what he thinks of Wendy Alexander, then he tells us how "important" it is that he's "straightforward with people", but the best bit is the shifty little sideways glance at the camera at the very end of the interview which basically says: "I made a complete dog's dinner of that, but I'm sure the mugs won't notice."
Got bad news for you Alastair: the mugs noticed.
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Further to my #109,
it is noticeable that Brian Taylor repeatedly asked Darling if had described Wendy Alexander as "unlikeable".
As described elsewhere in the article, it is reported that he had described Wendy as "not likeable"; a small semantic point, perhaps, but an imprecision of wording that offered the Chancellor every right to deny the accuracy of the claim being put to him.
Poor preparation, BT.
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#113 Forfarian
Well spotted!
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#110 Dick
But remember the research I mentioned at the end of my #96.
Simplistic answers to complex problems are seldom of much value.
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#133 The Forfarian
The Guardian quotes Darling as saying that
Wendy Alexander is "not likable at all".
A small semantic point, perhaps, but an imprecision of wording that shows that your own "preparation" isn't much better than Taylor's.
Also, you seem to be arguing that Darling "has every right" to deny that he said Alexander was "unlikable" because what he actually said (and Darling hasn't denied it) is that Alexander is "not likable at all."
If people are now having to go to that level of absurdity to defend the weasel words of Labour politicians then I am a happy man. It can only mean one thing: the end for Labour is now very, very close indeed.
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In any meaningful sense, the suspension of Wendy Alexander for a day is unimportant. However, the debate on this on Thursday should be interesting.
Political support has changed over the last few months, and it might be unwise for the 3 smallest parties to be seen to be supporting Labour in any sense. Margo, of course, will do as she wants.
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Labour - the nasty party?
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#116, bighullabaloo
Given that the original interview was presumably verbal, perhaps what Alistair Darling said was that Wendy Alexander was "not like a bull at all."
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Murray Ritchie has an interesting article on the Lib-Dems in Scotland on Sunday.
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#115 oldnat
Interesting point re your #96, though I don't think further research would be especially fruitful in Britain. In most cases, no worthwhile male role model exists and increasingly many of these people have no idea who their father is, where he is, what he does or whether he has previously been incarcerated.
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The bookfest has finally put the Brown / Rankin love-in on their website's 2008 Audio Recordings, so we can all now judge for ourselves whether "Duff" Gordon's Britishness plea was just idiocy, a threat to leave the EU or a warning that Salmond will take an independent Scotland out of the EU. The rant starts around 38m30s in and at around 40m45s his exact words are: "I wouldn't like to see health care being denied to a Scot in England or to an English person in Scotland." This is followed by: "I think the principle of the health service that we all accept is the right to healthcare in any part of the United Kingdom, the right to work in any part of the United Kingdom, the right to a pension no matter which part of the United Kingdom you live in."
Now I have heard the second sentence, I'm beginning to think the first may just have been idiocy, since few ordinary mortals believe that the NHS provides the right to work and pays pensions. Perhaps he hadn't noticed we were in the EU, which guarantees all these things EU-wide, when he went to Lisbon by himself or perhaps he just doesn't know what the EU is or does.
Maybe not idiocy, but surprising in a supposedly well-educated man, he seemed also to think John Knox (d.1572) flourished in the seventeenth century.
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Further to my #120 Scotland on Sunday have now marked this as a Premium article. Read it for free tomorrow online, instead of buying the paper!
In essence Ritchie is arguing that the Lib-Dems need to be the old Federalist Liberal party to survive.
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#121 Dick
I don't think you know very much about deprived communities. I worked with kids from such communities for 40 years. The fathers of some of them may not have been significant in their lives, but were not unknown characters.
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#119 The_Forfarian
If that's what Darling actually said then I'd have to agree she doesn't look like one, although I don't think anyone in their right mind could deny that she talks a load of it.
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#119 The_Forfarian
LOL - quite the opposite sex, in fact!
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And yet more of Labour in turmoil I'd hate to be a Labour activist in Glenrothes over the next weeks/months/years before the election is finally called. To put them out of their misery, Plaid Cymru should move the writ!
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And the Indy has yet more evidence of Labour disintegrationThe vultures are wheeling round the dying beast.
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Ouch......Ouch.......Ouch
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#127 oldnat
LOL - Maybe they should ask the Wyre Forest doctor to relieve unecessary suffering unless there's an MP who's a vet.
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#123 oldnat
The article you link to in your #120 is available again, and a very good read too.
It more or less exactly expresses my own frustration with the LibDems of both Holyrood and Westmidden variants for the past year or so.
Losing my concentration so goodnight all.
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Brownedov
A morning thought for you -
If the opinion poll shift since 2007 is applied to Kirkcaldy, then Brown remains the MP with a majority of 1,618.
However, assuming a Socialist stands and takes, say, 500 more votes off Labour than s/he does from the SNP, then if 21% of the Tories and Lib-Dems vote SNP under the unusual circumstances of that seat - Brown would no longer be an MP!
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#132 oldnat
Thanks - a nice cheery thought to wake up to. I certainly don't recall a case of a sitting PM losing his own seat at a general election. If there are any historians out there who know better, please put us right.
Given how out of touch his bookfest comments were at the beginning of August and his Team GB comments are at the end of the month, it doesn't seem possible that "Duff" Gordon has learnt much humility from his "break".
Early days, but just think how happy he will make millions of people if he has his own "Portillo" moment.
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Seemingly nothing new in the papers today that oldnat didn't spo last night, but there's plenty of comment about Captain Darling (or Private Frazer?) on the leader pages.
The Sunday Times carries: Him with his foot in his mouth. I'm not sure I agree with their premise that Darling was wrong to tell the truth, but heartily agree with its conclusion re him & Brown: "As the economy deteriorates, they will seek to blame everybody but themselves. But voters will surely conclude that the buck stops with them."
Another thoughtful piece from Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer's The Chancellor's chill wind should make Mr Brown shiver.
Even The Sunday Mail gets in on the act with Mark Aitken's Alex Salmond says Chancellor Alistair Darling is out of touch. That has a reference to a new poll I haven't seen, so I'm off to track that down.
Should anyone spot a link to new polls, please post it here.
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#124 oldnat
I understand that you worked these communities for forty years. But, if you'll forgive me, that indicates the past. In my post #121 I used the word 'increasingly' indicating now and in the future. So we're not talking about the same thing.
However, let us suppose that you are not wrong and in a few cases I would concede that you may well be right. They do know their fathers, but they are, to use your own words, 'not significant figures'. Where does that take us?
Effectively, if the fathers are not significant then they have no influence, no nurturing impact. So do they have a natural impact simply by being the biological father i.e. are they passing on a 'bad gene': and this is where my real problem lies with the American research.
Let us suppose that the Human Genome Project identifies a 'bad gene'. That it discovers a twist in the double helix which genetically programmes certain people to become criminals, even supremely dangerous criminals - what do we do about it?
Do we like King Herod destroy the first born?
Do we deny the existence of free-will because a computer says so?
Do we set up heavily-guarded islands, or off-world colonies for people with the 'bad gene' , as has been previously suggested on this posting, even when they have committed no crime?
Do we set up gas chambers, do we hear the sound of 'Bad Gene Raus' echoing through our streets?
Is there a Minority Report?
As you can see - the problem with the American research is that it leads down a very dark path.
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PS to my #134
No obvious sign of a new poll, but the SNP 38% seems to have been an analysis of Scottish samples of all UK opinion polls in August, which sounds about right. It's not on the SNP website but being syndicated by the Press Association. See SNP hails new polling analysis.
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People having trouble getting posts accepted may care to note that I just had my first dnaerrortype=profanityblocked error on my #136.
The reason was rather odd, as I didn't have to change a letter of the displayed text. The problem was actually in the URL within http://ukpress.google.com/ where the PA articles get published, and only overcome by using an indirect TinyURL.
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An odd article from Jim Wallace in The Observer today, previewing the Holyrood year in: Your country - not Holyrood - needs you. He confirms his support for Scott and has some thoughts on what the new Scottish Labour leader will do, but doesn't once mention the referendum or anything on the LibDem's federalist agenda. It really looks as though they're rivalling "Duff" Gordon's claim to being the Yasser Arafat of UK Politics by never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
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#137, Brownedov
So profanity is automatically blocked?
What exactly are the pre-moderators doing, then?
I've never yet seen a post (displayed as "awaiting moderation") which wasn't at least initially displayed in full, only to be subsequently referred to moderators following a complaint.
Given that politics is a fairly grown-up affair and not aimed at children, I don't understand why postings here aren't reactively moderated, particular if there is - as now appears to be the case - a block on immoderate language which might provoke most complaint.
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#139 The_Forfarian
Good question, but I suppose they may be back from their hols and tinkering with the controls of the parsing engine in the hope of moving to reactive moderation soon.
I'd only ever seen dnaerrortype=XmlParseError before this, whilch usually means unmatched HTML or an & not "properly" input as &.
I agree that reactive moderation would be better - perhaps with suspension of membership for a week on any offence. The Robin Lustig threads work OK using it, but all the other political threads seem to err on the side of overcaution. If you click on the link in my #136, you'll see a URL with a very odd ending, but that's just the way Google archive news articles. Perhaps it looks like an "expletive deleted" type entry to the parser.
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Brownedov
Thanks for highlighting the features of TinyURL; I'd never heard of this, but I imagine I will now probably use it on a near-daily basis.
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#135 Dick
re the US research. Thus far I've been working from memory on this, but if you're interested in it, I've tracked down the reference for you. Roettger, Michael. Legacies Denied: The Intergenerational Dimension in Crime and Punishment
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#141 The_Forfarian
You're most welcome. I hadn't heard of it either until I saw it used extensively on some of the press blogs where you cannot create proper HTML links. The Herald's blog is particularly bad for this. If you enter a full URL it tends to spread it over multiple lines with line breaks making it difficult to copy and paste.
OTOH, you can just quote the link in my #136 as tinyurl.com/6zuw62 and it should paste perfectly into Internet Explorer. I haven't tried it in other browsers but would expect it to work in most.
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cynicalHighlander,
"...What you are proposing is the quickest way of taking this country into a Stalinist state, he will be smiling in his grave..."
Reality check please; this is an example of the extreme comparisons and scare tactics employed by those who seem to have difficulty with pragmatism.
So are you are in disagreement with the principle of incarceration for first offenders of crimes which current guidelines which indicate custodial sentences?
So are you are in disagreement with the principle of incarceration for recidivists of crimes which current guidelines which indicate custodial sentences?
So are you are in disagreement with the principle of incarceration for those who encourage others to commit of crimes which current guidelines which indicate custodial sentences?
Children, under 16 and under eighteen years of age currently display their own forms of bravado insomuch as they feel because of their years they regularly express the opinion 'you can’t touch me I’m under age;' many of these are criminals in the making unless such activities are nipped in the bud.
Do-gooders expressed just last week that "... The government is too quick to criminalise young people for petty offences where informal punishment could be more effective, says a report..." Ex-Youth Justice Board chairman Prof Rod Morgan
Do-gooders and prison reformers are partly at fault for creating attitudes such as those that are displayed by our errant youths; the wrong message is being sent out to those who break the law; do the crime, do the time!
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I note that there is a conference Beyond McLeish New ideas, lasting solutions
Seeking change in Scotland's sentencing policy at Holyrood, a week tomorrow on many of the issues we've all been pontificating about. Its report should be interesting, although the Press reports on it will inevitably be shallow and uninformative.
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And another conference on 6 October Scotland’s dysfunctional relationship - Alcohol and violence.
Seems to me that minority government is working.
Instead of a ruling party pushing through policies, the government has to seek wider consensus outside its own circles.
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Jim Wallace in the Observer, has a thoughtful piece about legislation in the new session at Holyrood.
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If there is such a thing as a bad gene, the community that I live in seems not to have it, which is strange, as it is not cut off from the outside world, although I sometimes think I am living on another planet, one where murder, mayhem and coveting one's neighbour's ass have long ago fallen away to such statistically insignificant levels that the police gave up on us five years ago, shut up shop and moved away.
Abandoned to our own devices, we have got on with getting on with one another to such good effect that I am beginning to wonder whether there might not be such a thing as a good gene, which we have here to such an extent that those among us who have not got it, for there must be new arrivals who are not so blessed as the native population, must be subject to such an overpoweringly benign influence from the rest of us that they are effectively powerless to resist the neighbourly ethos which makes it possible for normally respectable womenfolk to venture out of doors absent-mindedly in their 'goonies', should they have the misfortune to get up late on bin day, for instance, without fear of being molested or even stared at except by some passing moggy on its way home from a night on the tiles.
Yes, we are definitely odd here but odd in such a way that the solution to the nationwide crime wave and prison overcrowding may conceivably be to disperse our population around the country, as one might spread fairy dust about with incantation and government press release. Two problems with this: (i) no one would agree to leave; (ii) it has nothing to do with genes, or at least nothing much.
Any community, especially in a dysfunctional society such as ours has become, needs to give its members the means of earning a livelihood or be near to where they can do so. The community that I live in does this, and the enterprises that there are, which, far from being a blot on the landscape, blend into it, provide their workers with good wages and pensions and distribute largesse through generous and unstinting support of the community-based organizations that bind a community together and generate a spirit of all-embracing care and effortless inclusion. The community looks after itself and keeps itself socially well, in other words, even though the 21st century has penetrated our defences.
Actually, I tell a lie. There is fairy dust, and it is sprinkled here, in a manner of speaking. There is certainly something in the air, apart from community spirit, something that we all breathe in every day without noticing it much, as do the dogs in the street, who are all good natured and called Jock. Unfortunately, as you might expect, it has no great effect on the cats that pussy-foot about, knowing that something is not quite right, although they can't quite put their paw on it. Even they, however, eventually succumb up to a point to the soporific effects of the atmosphere of contentment and amity that pervades every nook and every cranny in the form of a pleasantly moderate blend of distillery fumes and cow dung.
So there you have it. Jobs and a mildly aromatic, even slightly intoxicating, atmosphere, although it may be that the cow dung is actually optional. Should Scotland fail to transform itself into a prosperous economy with an even spread of communities such as mine, with or without the whisky fumes, the prison population will continue to be an intractable problem, as it will to some extent anyway, there being, of course, no simple solutions to crime and the problems associated with dealing with those who insist on committing it.
Although I think I am a naturally and consistently law-abiding sort of chap, I should confess that my copy book is not without a blot or two. There I was minding my own business when one rainy day in Glasgow town more than a couple of decades ago I found myself accidentally perpetrating a wholly unpremeditated but no less audacious fraud upon the governor of Barlinnie Prison, whom I had never previously met and whom I had no reason to mistreat in this way. Seated opposite him in his office with other social-science students and glancing up over his right shoulder at the portrait of Her Majesty which was gazing down at me with the awesome authority of the state, I suddenly realized that he was taking me to be the leader of the group, a not undistinguished academic who had, in fact, been unable at the last minute to accompany us. Certainly, I was a little older than most of the others and had been so incautious as to allow my knowledge of relevant criminal law to reveal itself at an appropriate juncture in conversation with the governor's deputy while we were being given the tour, but I was taken by surprise and, before you could say Ronnie Barker, I was being taken to task as if social science and all its works were all my fault.
You know how it is. You get caught up in these things. What to do? What to do? Tell the governor he's got it all wrong and watch the smile fade from his face as he realizes that he's got egg all over it. Remember that Her Majesty was still gazing down at me as if watching my every move. Anyway, as tea and biscuits were passed round, I opted for as discreet a response as I could manage. Without a hint of support from my companions, who were clearly enjoying my predicament but mainly struggling to keep a straight face, I politely dealt with each challenging remark as inoffensively and as knowledgeably as I could contrive. Miraculously, no clangers were dropped, but it was a close-run thing.
After the tea party four messages were ringing in my ears as we emerged from the confining confines of the prison: (i) the future may be coming with a new approach, but you will still need prisons, in which to deposit masses of dangerous people, unless you want them out there living next door to you or breaking into your house or slitting your throat or causing mayhem or coveting your ass; (ii) it is a crime to fail to separate remand prisoners from other prisoners; (iii) prisons are teeming with people who are mentally ill or have other problems that would be more effectively treated elsewhere; (iv) if you can provide more appropriately for people such as these, you may be able to reduce the size of the prison population or at least cope with it better.
Without the necessary resources, however, nothing much can be done. Without genuine rather than synthetic self-government Scotland can have neither those resources nor the prosperity that might make it possible to manage crime and prisons without devoting an endlessly increasing budget to them. So we return to fundamentals and the constitution. If that is not right, nothing is right. So carry on guffing about the constitution.
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#147 oldnat
You obviously didn't spot my #138 between all the long posts. What's your take on "the elephant in the room"?
Off out now for a few hours, but I'll check back later.
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#148 Deep_Thrapple
Thoughtful, considered - and very funny. Thanks
#149 Brownedov
Sorry, I did miss your #138
I don't think we'll see anything from the Lib-Dems about their constitutional stance until Calman's interim report later this year. You may have noticed the deafening Lib-Dem silence in response to my questions on Calman.
Nicol Stephen allowed the Lib-Dems to be backed into a corner by Alexander. If Calman's interim report goes for minimal change, then that allows Scott to dissociate the LDs from it, push for a much stronger Federal solution, and create a distinctive position in Scottish politics. If Calman comes out for fiscal autonomy, then Labour and the Tories need to respond. They can all dissociate from Calman if it suits them.
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Jails hold 8,500 ex-service people in the UK. Considering the number of Scots in the armed forces could this be a factor? (Be careful Thomas!).
The MoD denies the accuracy of some aspects of the story. Given their track record, I take that as confirmation!
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A much fuller report of ex-service personnel in jail in the Guardian
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#142 oldnat
Many thanks for the reference. I haven't actually read the research, but was aware of its findings thanks to a well-publicised attempted murder case in New York a few years back.
The accused lodged a defence of diminished responsibility due to the existence of a 'bad gene'. His father and grandfather had apparently been serious bad guys as well. Anyway, the judge threw the defence out on the grounds that acknowledging the existence of a 'bad gene' would be a denial of free will which would be unconstitutional. His lawyer did not pursue his defence via appeal but everyone agrees it was a nice try.
#148 Deep Thrapple
Very amusing posting. Unfortunately, your description of social science in the criminal justice system is now government policy in the intervention, diversion and enforcement strategy which has had questionable success because enforcement is a very poor last but seems to have Kenny MacAskill's imprimatur which always helps.
Basic problem - intervention is taking place way to late to have any realistic chance of setting up a meaningful diversion strategy and with enforcement having such a low priority the entire system looks weak, vacillating and impotent.
If one may quote Judge Dredd, 'Give me a child from the age of two and I'll give you a law-abiding citizen or one who thinks damned hard before crossing the line.'
Sadly, social services have yet to follow Dredd's advice
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#153 Dick
is the starting point for his research.You clearly know nothing of research in this area. Roettger is not arguing some neo-Darwinist determinist position
Hopefully, we don't need to revive Bridie's "The Sleeping Clergyman" to counteract any of the genetically determined claptrap that seems to underly some postings on this thread.
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#153 Dick-Whitington .... you will have some of the old bloggers wondering just who the hell Judge Dredd is lol .... but a good quote non the less. Dont know if it applies to social services but it certainly applies to mums and dads..... sadly people just let their kids run wild nowadays. I still fear the old mans boot ! Hence the model citizen altho you wouldnt know to look at me ... tattoos, goatee etc .
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#155 rabbie
I was going to quote Cicero at you -"Children no longer obey their parents", and the 8th century BC Assyrian tablet about disobedient children to demonstrate that your "sadly people just let their kids run wild nowadays" put you in good company with the views of every generation throughout the millenia.
Then I thought I'd check the sources, and discovered they are urban myths!
However, your wide generalisation (every parent?) probably has been made by every generation through the ages. Certainly my Mum (born 1911) remembered such comments being made about her generation.
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Re 147
If the legislative programme does not include the LIT, then when will Alex bring it in?
this time next year will be time to start more serious campaigning for referndum, if one happens.
An LIT voted down by parliament might be a good thing from an SNP viewpoint as it is difficult to see how it can be implemented and have any popularity.
failure to introduce the bill will hand an advantage to the new labour leader in that it will appear that they can't put forward anything substantial and get it through.
Also it is time to introduce some of the reforming aspects of the manifesto, this is when it will get interesting, the scrutiny will start to give us some real political debate I hope.
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Oldnat .... sorry for the generalisation, but i meant some parents not all. Only difference now from other generations is that you wont be able to punish your kids in the future due to silly laws.... now id better go sit on the naughty step for a bit to calm down.
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# 73 Brownedov,
"... he will have to tread very warily indeed..."
Only if he has an unconvincing majority; if on the other hand the Conservatives have a convincing majority he will feel he can do as he sees fit, mostly choosing to ignore the SNP but not via a public snub as even he must realise how quickly Scotland can return to a Labour stronghold should they ever find a credible leader.
If the 2010 referendum actually takes place and fails to return the necessary majority vote for independence, which I currently feel is extremely likely, we may have a stronger SNP at Holyrood but not necessarily but not a stronger independence party.
Electoral reform is merely a method of moving the goalpost to permit the unelectable to gain power; best of three, Oh No! I really meant best of five, et al.
Blue berets in Scotland; whatever next?
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#158 rabbie
You're forgiven, you can go play with your toys now.
You're really a good boy, and we all like you very much.
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#159 Peter_Fife
I repeat the assertion in my #73 that I don't believe Cameron is that daft. Yes he might have the power to inflict pain on Scotland, but only at the cost of losing it completely soon afterwards.
The scenario you paint is possible, but still likely to be followed by an overall SNP majority is 2011 and federal discussions thereafter, at the least.
And yes, if it turns out I'm wrong and he's the reincarnation of Milosevic then I could imagine blue berets along Hadrian's Wall.
I'm off from tomorrow on a peripatetic working trip for a couple of weeks, where I won't have much spare time and sometimes not even internet access, so I think we'll have to leave it there unless someone else takes up the cudgels with you.
Back in time for the Glenrothes campaign proper, I hope.
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I like reading Ian McWhirter's stuff but he has an interesting idea at the end of this article about Labour
"Labour Lord Rules Scotland" - that has a nice imperial tone about it.Complain about this comment
#153 oldnat
You are again right, I know nothing of the research I've already freely admitted it.
However, I do find your use of Neo-Darwinist determinism interesting. Darwin spent nearly 20 years agonising over whether to publish 'the Origin of Species' because he suspected what people would do with his findings and even longer before he published his follow-up 'The Descent of Man' because late-Victorians would be up in arms at the thought of being descended from apes.
Your three academic citations, or four if you include both the sampson and Laub's are of the following nature, one includes an investigation of 'genetic factors' and another 'familial processes' which apparently doesn't include genetic factors, although how you separate genetic factors from familial processes is beyond me, I mean where does one end and the other begin.
But, that is not my salient point. The point is what do people do with academic findings? Well they try to get off an attempted murder charge for one. And how many academics these days agonise over whether to publish or not? Not many I'll vouch
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#163 Dick
"how you separate genetic factors from familial processes is beyond me"
That's why we have academic researchers, who understand and use statistical techniques to tease out the strands of very complex issues.
Try reading them sometime.
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This is a true comment made by a senior prison manager who will remain nameless. He was asked why, after an inmate destroyed his cell tv because he was angry with a football result, he replied that it was "less hassle".
Now I know that prison does not solve the social problems of crime, but perhaps if prison followed some examples in the USA then there may be less re-offending.
There is certainly one prison in the USA, where inmates have no access to weights, have only two channels on the TV - news and Disney - and have to wear pink uniforms. Nothing is against the prisoners' human rights, but the re-offending statistics are lower than anywhere else.
Prison should be for three things: secure detention of dangerous criminals, re-education and punishment.
The Scottish Government want to REDUCE prison numbers. Fine, but not at the expense of the victims.
Run prisons like the military do. First, break the prisoner, then train them and give them the self-respect and self-discipline they need.
You will never rehabilitate all offenders. In these cases, keep them in prison.
Those who have addiction problems, try and treat them. For the young offenders, can the Scottish Government not run education programmes where long-term convicts - in return for consideration for early release - speaks to these youths in blunt terms about what prison is like.
But Kenny MacAskil shoul dstop wittering on about "inherited" problems. He's the man in the chair. It's happened, now deal with it and stop playing politics.
Deal with the courts first. Too many police officers are tied up as witnesses. Why? Legal aid lawyers advise their clients to plead not guilty until the last possible moment, then get them to change for a reduced sentence, but more fees for the lawyers. Don't believe me? Brian, you are a journalist. Speak to police officers, retail managers who have to attend numerous shoplifting cases.
But the Government must remember about the victims of crime. No patronising comments, just firm action.
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#165 Neil
Please indicate how your military regime would deal with this incarcerated group."Run prisons like the military do. First, break the prisoner, then train them and give them the self-respect and self-discipline they need."
I don't know how much of a study you have made of penal practice - I suspect not much.
What you recommend is practice that has been tried cyclically in penal reform (alternating with more liberal regimes) since the early 19th century. Neither approach has shown significant success.
All the research and evidence I have seen suggests that incarcerating criminals seldom leads to a significant reduction in recidivism.
Obviously, those criminals who are a significant danger to society (however defined) need to be in jail.
If you can produce evidence (give the source), rather than just opinion -please do so.
In the meantime, consider this from a recent Herald article -
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Call for Holyrood to control stamp duty A suggestion from Tweed Homes for further devolution gets positive support from the SNP, an interested response from LDs. The report is, however, weakened by the endemic failure of Scottish journalism. Did the Scotsman ask Labour and Tory? If so what was their response?
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#103 oldnat
I know this is late in the day but I am limited at the amount of time I can spend on my computer so I apologise for taking so long to respond.
Firstly I admit freely that I am no academic but have delved into social sciences and live with a qualified social worker who is also an MA. In that respect I do have limited knowledge of working in education, law and social services.
I do have a deep distrust of statistics, which can be manipulated to get the desired result, which would appear to be opposite from your good self.
I am sceptical of most research into society due to subjectivity which I know I am guilty of as well. Objectivity is very difficult to find and academics do struggle to achieve this.
What seems always to be forgotten are the victims of crime and this is what I am trying to highlight.
I would also like to say that without your input into this blog it would be less interesting.
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#168 Jake
Thanks for the compliment.
I agree that statistics can be manipulated, and unless (like me) you're retired, then there's no time to research the background.
As you know 92.763% of statistics quoted on blogs are rubbish. :-)
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#169
Plus the remaining 8.237% don't add up :-D
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166. At 00:21am on 01 Sep 2008, oldnat wrote:
#165 Neil
"Run prisons like the military do. First, break the prisoner, then train them and give them the self-respect and self-discipline they need."
I don't know how much of a study you have made of penal practice - I suspect not much.
Oldnat, I worked for a charity dealing with ex-forces members, many of them who had spent time in military prison. I also study - as a hobby - crime and punishment over the centuries. Capital punishment used to be the norm for even petty offences. Yes, it didn't stop crime but during those periods poverty was rife, far in excess of what you see today.
There is no hard and fast solution to crime, but my comments were aimed at where a fair proportion on inmates fall into: one to four year sentencing. I agree that those with mental problems should never be in jail, but hospital, something successive governments seem to have stopped.
First offenders need to be educated, but with a sharp shock, not patronising social workers. It's amazing how many offenders when they appear in court are "ashamed" at their behaviour. Only because they were caught?
You, like many others, appear to be forgetting about the victims of crime. In the past 8 years I have had a car stolen and another one vandalised three times. The person who stole my car was on bail for SEVEN similar offences. He was convicted. I got £80 compensation. He got a fine and community service since he was 17 at the time of the offence.
OK, I accept he is classed as a youth, but if he had been locked up after the first offence then he would not have stolen my car and five others.
The Government also need to tackle the drink culture in Scotland rather than hounding smokers (I'm not one by the way). When was the last time you saw someone smoke six cigarettes then go outside and punch someone?
Yes, jail is not suitable for everyone, but until someone comes up with a decent way of punishing someone then it has to remain.
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As long as the Prison's are providing the Prisoners with the facilities and living standard's more associated with luxury hotels, and also providing free methadone for the drug addicts, many of the prison population will feel better off living in jails and will continue to re-offend because for them Prison life is preferable to their existence outside.
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It is right that society expects that those that commit serious crime are sent to prison, but far too many of the prison population are made up of short term prisoners and those that are untried. I agree that we need to address in particular those who re-offend as a matter of course and these offenders are sometimes caught in a cycle of homelessness,poverty,drug use,alcohol abuse and offending. It is a fact that they make up most of the prison population, and in particular homeless or those with no fixed abode also contribute to the untried population. The Tories and others are always quick to criticise without offering any realistic solutions, with interest I listened to the suggestion of using Army bases, hospitals and the like as accommodation. All very well but please be realistic, they will cost quite a lot to both make secure and staff and given that the prison service has had to make year on year savings every year of 5% and this has come out of the staff budget by not recruiting or replacing I fail to see how this will solve the immediate crisis.Realistic action not words is what the public need and expect.
p.s on the police numbers please remember 1000 officers across 8 forces with around 700 to Strathclyde alone is in my view woeful
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Prisons are like small hotels now for criminals. Xbox's and DVD's, the system is wrong. The population is always growing, is it that difficult to see a link between this fact and the rising prison population?
Re-construct and build new prisons, with cells half the size, take away all the fancy toys. Too many human rights and too many spineless politicians
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Brian:
Or is it entirely right that society be protected from offenders?
[Yes, because of the offenders are simply bad people....]
Should we simply expand the prison estate to cope?
[NO, but, we need to be able to get the resources to help people to make more correct decisions...]
~Dennis Junior~
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Do we send too many to prison - perhaps especially those whose behaviour is driven by addiction or deprivation?
[Yes...Because, people who have addictions usually don't get the treatment they often need....]
~Dennis Junior~
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