Refreshing

There is something refreshing about this new government as Ministers begin to challenge really difficult problems which have remained in the background for too long, or been subject to the wrong approach. This does not mean this Blog approves of every proposal but it does mean that the drifting, common to fag end governments of all parties after about eight years, has stopped. Time will tell whether the new approaches are for better or for worse.

I admire Ken Clarke’s courage is declaring the filling of prisons to bursting point, beyond even the intention of the Victorians who built the oldest, is no way to fight crime, prevent its recurrence and effectively punish. The yardstick for imprisonment must, short of major crime, be public safety. Returning re-offenders over and over again is hugely expensive and achieves nothing. There really must be a radical new approach to low level serial crime which offers a better and more cost effective outcome.

At the heart of the matter is the lack of prospects of a whole cohort of young offenders who fail in eduction and are left with no hope of earning, except through crime. This is a major and reprehensible social failing, for which guilt must be widely shared across a spectrum, including removal of the authority and power to discipline from teachers and the wasteland or retail parks where once there were good prospects for employment and therefore something to qualify for.

It will be a painful process to dismantle the excesses of the public sector and set  personal initiative and the private sector on the road to expansion on more secure lines than the post 1980’s boom. If it is done properly a social transformation will result and Ken Clarke will find his prison population falling back to the proper level of a modern civilsied democracy.