Alright Ed West, you just made the list....

While researching for a new blog post (yes I do), I came across this piece of nonsense rhetoric from 2010, which presents statistics in support of its opening statement that, if anything, show the opposite. 74% of those given a community penalty are reconvicted within 9 years, while 70% of those who served a prison sentence of a year or less reoffended within a year, although this is only relevant to 1 in 8 prisons, rendering the statistic virtually meaningless. In 14 prisons, 7 in 10 (70% again. Sorry) of those released reoffend within a year, and 1 in 5 (20% in the interests of clarity) given a caution also reoffend, though without a time-scale presented.

He attacks Kenneth Clarke's comments, which had sounded surprisingly reasonable to me, before suggesting that 'most evidence points to the unfortunate truth that no form of punishment, whether it's prison, community sentencing or sending kids on safari, has significant success rates'. Well, perhaps 'most evidence' does, but as I mentioned in my previous post, HMP Grendon has had success at significantly reducing recidivism, and does a lack of success elsewhere mean that we should stop exploring and plump for an increasingly expensive punishment, an ineffective deterrent, building and filling ad nauseum?

'The “prison works” argument of the unfairly maligned Michael Howard is the rational conclusion based on empirical evidence; the “prison is rehabilitation” argument is based on sentimentality, and an irrational radical idea that anyone can be perfected given the right social conditions, something which goes against our understanding of human nature. There is no evidence that shorter sentences do anything to improve the re-offending rate – quite the contrary.'

Jeez, that's a beauty, isn't it. Where to start? Having illustrated that prison doesn't work, he claims that Mr Howard was correct to state that it does, based on the same empirical evidence that points to the unfortunate truth... etc. I don't believe that anyone has made the claim that “prison is rehabilitation” in quite some time. However, the therapeutic prison of which I'm so fond has helped to rehabilitate offenders, and while they may not have been 'perfected', they have adjusted to social living. Which of us can claim to be perfect? With regards the paragraph's last sentence, it is equally true that there is no evidence that longer sentences improve the re-offending rate; in which case we must balance the cost to individuals and society of the crime/s committed against the cost of housing the offender at her majesty's pleasure, which appears to be exactly what Mr Clarke was attempting to do...

The articles closing paragraphs regarding class are so fatuous as to be risable. In fact the whole article is so rabid and absurd that I feel I may have been trolled.

These are some of the lengths taken to distort public perception in order to maintain the illusion that 'prison' is 'doing something about crime'.