Crime and Punishment

Ken Clarke's comments yesterday, calling for radical prison reforms, are welcome but the devil will be in the detail and drivers behind his call are fairly obvious.

The Tories have never really wanted all those undesirable people on the streets but it seems that Ken Clarke is stuck with the need to make 25% budget cuts and prisons are expensive. It is sad that he not only uses a call for radical reform in this way but also that he so blantantly ignores his real driver for the change. 600,000 job losses in the public sector are going to be hard to make but clearly prioson staff are an early target.

Yes we need reform. Prisons are not the answer for many crimes and do nothing to address the underlying causes of crime which are predominately driven by inequality and drug addiction. Simply locking people away for situations that society and government have caused does nobody any good. Tackling the causes is the only real solution to crime, punishing criminals must take second fiddle.

Kent Police confirm Lib Dem error

Since receiving a letter from Peter Carroll telling me that violent crime is on the rise, he has bizarrely maintained that he is correct.

To back up the evidence from the British Crime Survey which clearly shows that violent crime has fallen dramatically since 1995, I wrote to the Chief Constable and have now received confirmation that: "Mid Kent Police Area was showing a financial year reduction of violent crime by 11.6% at the end of September 2008 compared to the same period last year."

Mr Carroll's comments that he is trying to reflect how people feel and that he is not trying to raise the level of fear simply do not wash. His statement was unequivocable: "violent crime is on the rise", it was not "people are worrying more and more about violent crime" or "many people are worried about".

I also suppose you have to ask what changed over the last 10 months. In Dec last year, the Lib Dems proclaimed: "Crime Down Under Liberal Democrat Leadership". I accept that they were talking about overall crime with that statement, but if violent crime was rising then (which it wasn't), why not mention it.

Forget the facts, why not change the story to suit the purpose?

Nuff said.

Row with Lib Dem PPC

"I'm not sure how [Mr Jeffery] can say violent crime is not increasing..." said Lib Dem PPC for Maidstone, Peter Carroll in this week's Your Maidstone. Er... perhaps it is because the well respected official statistics in the British Crime Survey says so?

Mr Carroll goes on to say: "I'm trying to reflect how the public in Maidstone feel about crime.", however his letter said something very different: "Violent crime is on the rise".