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Post by Naselus on May 10, 2006 17:53:40 GMT
This thread's a bit of a misnomer, but the new proposal is the first step on the way to a private prison service.
Tony Blair's unveiled new plans to privatise the parol system. Only non-violent criminals will be eligible, of course, and the government is stressing how few people violate their parol anyway. Only 1.6% of offenders breach the terms of their parol.
To me, this immediately evokes the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Our parol system works well, and privatisation has demonstrably failed in many case. Is this another desperate move by a failing government, or a genuinely wise money-saving idea?
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Post by HStorm on May 10, 2006 18:19:03 GMT
Tony Blair's viewpoint, in equation form, works like this; -
"Sound all right-wing + sound like I'm doing something about law and order = lots of votes." Privatisation is a right wing policy, the parole system is a matter of law and order, ergo this policy is an automatic vote-winner.
Nice to have a really deep, far-thinking man in charge at number 10.
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Post by Naselus on May 10, 2006 18:28:24 GMT
Indeed.
What we have to consider most is that some areas HAVE to be public-run, as they need to operate at a loss. The post office is one good example, which is still losing money hand over fist despite cutting services left,right and centre. And let's not even mention the finest rail service in the world, shall we?
Prison and the parol system is no different. you cannot hand these things over to private companies. They operate at a loss because that's the only way to make them work properly. If the government would stop thinking of publicly-run companies as companies at all, and start thinking of them as SERVICES, then we'd all be better off.
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Post by HStorm on May 10, 2006 18:40:40 GMT
That's been a common problem for about twelve years now. Remember that ghastly, risible spell starting around 1994 when John Major got fixated on the idea that the NHS would work better if it was run like a business?
Same problem here, except that to some degree, the Government has kind of made it necessary to treat prisons and parole as a business. Every British Home Secretary since Blair came to power - indeed since before Thatcher was overthrown - has been a reactionary gimmick-maker who has been taken with the idea that how well they're doing their job is directly proportional to how many people they put in prison. This has meant a surging prison population - and as a consequence of that a smaller tax base to draw funds from - resulting in surging costs. Therefore, it kind of becomes unavoidable that running the prison service has become as much a matter of careful accounting as one of containing and rehabilitating prisoners.
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Post by modeski on May 10, 2006 23:14:25 GMT
I agree that this sounds like a votes-winner and little else. Even Blair himself admits this would affect very few people. Public Private Partnerships (PPP) or Private Financed Initiatives (PFI) have never been about saving the public money, rather they have been designed solely to generate profits and thus political favour for the party in power. New Labour and the Tories are indistinguishable in their love of this.
Naselus, you hit the nail on the head there when you said the government should think of them as services. Profit isn't the be-all and end-all.
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Post by HStorm on Oct 9, 2006 6:33:11 GMT
Last week, the prison population of the UK reached a whopping 79, 843, a towering new record. There are theoretically only 125 spaces left in the entire country.
Any thoughts, apart from hysterical gasps of disbelief?
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Post by Naselus on Oct 10, 2006 16:40:21 GMT
Might make the Tory's "10,000 more jailbirds" scheme a bit tricky. But I'm not really that suprised.
Blair's administration have introduced more arrestable offences than any government since the second world war, in the 'tough on crime, completely ignore the causes of crime' initiative. This has basically resulted in vastly swelling prison populations, complete failure to rehabilitate any of the prisoners themselves, and a breakdown of the whole system.
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Post by TheCritique on Oct 21, 2006 21:42:40 GMT
My reaction to the prisons crisis is: Why didn’t anyone see this coming? It has been apparent for years that if the prison population continued to grow at its present rate we would eventually exhaust capacity and there would be a problem. This was shown even by Home Office forecasts (which were actually overestimates), and they should have realised that if they wished to continue with their current sentencing policies that they would need new prisons.
Now the problem is on their doorstep, and they can’t hold it off any longer, they have resorted to desperate measures such as using police cells (which should be used for temporary detention) and transferring the imprisoned to “open prisons”. The reliable incompetence of the prison authorities will ensure that the wrong people are transferred to open prisons and public safety will be threatened as a consequence.
This crisis ultimately demonstrates the feeble political leadership we have and proves John Reid correct – the Home Office is not fit for purpose.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA) abolished the category of “arrestable offence” (established by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) ) thereby making all offences arrestable.
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Post by HStorm on Oct 21, 2006 22:15:18 GMT
The latest initiative is to bring back off-coast 'floating jails', prison ships with convicts permanently placed aboard. The last of these was decommissioned over a year ago.
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Post by Naselus on Oct 22, 2006 16:19:30 GMT
Insanity. What needs to be done is a complete re-conquest of Australia. Mod can be our man on the inside.
In truth, perhaps a few permanent off-shore installations would be a good idea. A few naval platforms and such like. After all, one of the big problems with building new prisons is that no-one wants them anywhere near home.
As for SOCPA, Blair had already introduced more arrestable offences than any government prior to the abolition of the term. Including, of course, 'on suspicion of being Muslim in front of an officer'.
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