The Howard League for Penal Reform
Historically I have tended towards the liberal approach on prison and am more interested in rehabilitation than punishment, but coverage of the Howard League's call for the closure of ALL womens prisons came as a bit of a shock, shall we say. Coverage in the Telegraph (print only) was a bit on the thin side, so I went off to look at the original press release .
It contains this gem: "The Howard League for Penal Reform is calling for a properly planned closure programme for women’s prisons and the transfer of resources to community programmes and projects that meet women’s needs and, unlike prison, do sucessfully (sic) reduce re-offending. We hope that the current review of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system being conducted by Baaroness (sic) Corston will provide the impetus for the Government to think radically about reducing the women’s prison population so that only those very few women who do pose a danger to the public remain in custody. The vast majority can be managed safely in the community where they can make amends for their offending and help to heal the damage done by crime directly with victims or with the wider community.”
It then highlights the following:
An unpublished needs analysis of women prisoners at Holloway prison shows the degree of vulnerability and need of women in prison. For example:
• 62% were aged under 30
• 49% had not previously been in prison custody
• 61% had at least one child
• 32% had been subject to formal suicide watch whilst in prison
• 50% had experienced and/or witnessed sexual abuse
• 73% had used illegal drugs
• 67% said their offending behaviour needs had not been assessed whilst in prison
Yes, prison is a thoroughly unpleasant place to be I'm sure, but those statistics above leave me completely unmoved. By 'danger to the
In another one of their press releases they refer to a 2013 prison population projection of 106,000 as presaging 'Gulag
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it sort of beggars belief sometiems how naieve these doi gooders are.
you're dead right,every mule would be female,every fence etc etc.
These people are a danger to democracy.
PCF admitted on iain Dale yesterday to having been inside.He's the man to ask.
It's incredible that in this press release the following sentences follow each other as if correlated.
"The Government has abandoned restraint and has announced its intention to build its way into a penal crisis of its own making. Grossly overcrowded prisons put staff and prisoners at risk..."
Maybe they haven't noticed but prisons are already overcrowded. Building prisons won't make things more overcrowded so how are they building into a crisis! This press release is the work of a simpleton. Also the comment that a 15% higher prison population cannot be paid for is manifestly false.
Woolly-minded doesn't come close, does it?
Good spot PT.
The whole point of prison is yanking people OUT of "the community". The point of the death penality is getting them out of "the community" on a permanent, sustainable basis.
PCF - Do you think flogging is/would be effective? It certainly is in Singapore! No one re-offends!
Looking at this in more philosophical terms, Germaine Greer theorised in 'The Female Eunuch' (a very entertaining read, by the way) that freedom and security are often, if not always, in opposition to each other.
While prison is where one is least free, one is also at one's most secure - no bills to worry about, you know where the next meal is coming from etc etc. I can see how it might appeal to some people.
At least the article is getting an absolute mauling at Grauniad Commentisfree. No real argument was presented for why women should be treated differently. Let's just accept that this is merely an abolitionist chipping away. What I'm more interested in is how Crook can make a living out of this. Who funds the Howard League for Penal Reform?
PragueTory,
All I could find on their website was this:
"The Howard League is an independent charity which receives no funding from the government and has no political affiliations".
It is a source of some irritation that NGOs do so little financial disclosure on their websites. Not very good governance, is it?
Furthermore, the League would seem to have a friend in Cherie Blair
Yes. I did note the Cherie link, but that was about as far as I could get, too.
Apologies for my last miserable post.
The following link details a generous £75,000 grant to the Howard League.
http://www.baringfoundation.org.uk/2004Grants.htm
And googling Howard League and fundraising pulls up quite a few other interesting threads
Not keen on corporal punishment, but entirely in favour of the use of force, lethal if necessary, in the defence not only of life and limb but also of property. My own arsenal amounts to a 50 year old air rifle - with neither pellets nor a working sight - and an ice axe.
PCF - I too like guns and the right to own a firearm is in our Bill of Rights. Tony just ignores it, as he ignores the rest of our Constitution. (By the way, his trip to California sounds quite mad. I mean, ever madder than usual.)
In Singapore, they have flogging with a rotan. That is a very long, thick stick of bamboo. (Much thicker than the bamboo furniture is made out of.) The punishment is so severe, that the guards strap on thick pads to protect the prisoner's kidneys. Then they wield this long rotan at full whack. If the punishment is, say, 10 strokes of the rotan (according to the severity of the crime), usually, five is all a prisoner can take at one time and live. So they let him recover, then deliver the other five a couple of weeks later.
No one ever commits a crime that attracts the rotan a second time.
Drug dealers are hanged. Dealing is rare in Singapore, but if found guilty, it attracts the automatic death penalty. No extenuating circumstances.
The rare convicted drug dealer is always hanged at dawn on Friday mornings and it is announced in The Straits times. Same story with murderers, again very rare.
£175,000 research grant from the National Lottery. Do a search for Howard on this website.
Is there no cause so ridiculous that it cannot get lottery funding? As I noted a while back, it part funded Ken Loach's filmed love letter to the Fenians.
I'll stick to fooling around on Betfair.
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