Crime and Punishment

A better approach, when prisons are full

Picture by Mateus Andre, from www.freepik.com, with thanks

“Big Up Kier Starmer” said the PM’s newest fan. Unfortunately for the PM, Daniel Dowling-Brooks is a kidnapper, released early from a high security prison. He made the comment while being collected from the prison gates in a Bentley worth £140,000. 

Of course there is more to the story than the headline. Dowling-Brooks would have been released in seven weeks time in any case, and he is released on licence. If he breaks the terms of the licence - and many do - he will be back inside.

Still, this is a fiasco of the worst order, notwithstanding William Hague’s admission that the fiasco was created by the Tories, who increased sentences without building more prisons. 

When you are arrested, and sentenced to prison, you should stay in prison in line with your sentence. To do otherwise undermines public faith in the judicial system, and government more generally. Building the right number of prisons really should be government 101. 

There are longer term issues to do with sentencing, and it is good that the government has asked David Gauke to look at these. I have some ideas…