Grayling, the 'tough justice secretary', 'spices up' Clarke's community punishment reforms

A key crime and courts bill stating proposals to reform community punishment by Ken Clarke, has been dismissed by justice secretary Chris Grayling. Grayling plans to ’spice up’ the bill, revealing his new approach on Tuesday, claiming he wants to be the ‘tough justice secretary’ by imposing more punitive community sentences. He believes “more competition, more outsourcing and more payment by results” is the way forward. Probation sources write that Gray has dismissed Clarke’s proposal for community sentences as he does not want them to be an alternative to custody. The 220,000 offenders, that receive community sentences every year, could be subject to 24-hours tagging, satellite tracking and the seizing and selling of their assets and property, some of which were under consideration already. He has also postponed the legislation that is essential in setting up the new national crime agency. This move comes about as NAPO, the probation union, fight to stop the privatization of the probation, stating this would result in poorer protection of the public due to staff cuts in training and fewer staff overall. A private company already handle the supervision of low and medium risk offenders. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said this move was to bring about innovation through competition, or is this just quality and effectiveness lost to ideology?

Locking up women with mental health needs.

 The female population in custody has different demographic characteristics to the male population, with 19% being foreign nationals, and 29% being of an ethnic minority compared to 13% and 27% respectively for men (Prison Service, 2010). Half the women in prison have experienced domestic violence, and women are
twice as likely as men to have experienced some form of mental illness in the year preceding their
admission to custody (Singleton et al., 1998).
Sixty-five per cent of imprisoned women have substance use problems, compared to 70% of men (Social Exclusion Task Force, 2009). Worryingly, 83% of women in prison have a longstanding illness, compared with 32% of the general female population, and many are on prescription medication (HM Chief Inspector of
Prisons, 2009).
From a report by the Centre for Mental Health
http://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/pdfs/under_the_radar.pdf

Judge Justin and Justice that works

His special pilot drug court boasts a 20% re-ffending rate, 1/3 of the national average. He'd rather hug a druggie and apply some structure, programmes and accountibility to his life than chuck him a jail sentence.

"According to figures supplied by the judge - who is patron of an anti-drug charity and serves on the Council on Misuse of Drugs - an average 60 per cent of his 'clients' did not reoffend while under the court order and 20 per cent became drug-free. The National Drug Treatment Agency's average is just three per cent."

Soft? No. Sensible? Oh yes.

 Hugging druggies