Cost of being honest
I know I'm behind the times but this still bugs me. Jacqui Smith admitted that its unsafe to walk the streets of London on your own at night. The media decided it was a huge gaffe. Politicians from both opposition parties jumped on a feeding-frenzyfied bandwagon about how she has admitted failure. No wonder ministers are evasive. Would they rather that Jacqui Smith lied and said everything was fine?
Jacqui Smith was honest. We should applaud that, and not savage her for having the guts to be candid. We who live here know its still not safe to walk the streets of London on your own late at night. Most of my friends have been mugged. I was randomly attacked late at night as I walked down a quiet street in Haringey. Statistically, crime has fallen in London. What worries me is that these figures are built on a trend of people not reporting more low-level crimes because they don't feel like the massively-centralised police force will listen or respond. To be clear, that's not the police's fault but the government's.
And it seems to me the government isn't tackling crime in a progressive way. Building "super prisons" won't solve the problem. We have to stop the cycle of reoffending. Education has to be part of the answer. 95% of prisoners need help with basic literacy. Yet these basic skills are needed in 96% of all jobs. So why is it a surprise to us that 71% percent of 18-21 year olds in prison are reconvicted within two years of release? Prison at the moment, as the Liberal Democrats say, is "an endless merry-go-round of crime and punishment"*. We can learn by looking at the Canadian and Dutch examples.
I hope that these comments will provoke a discussion. That's, as I see it, is the prime purpose of blogging. I want people to say why they disagree or agree. Don't be shy.
* Paul Marshall and David Laws (eds.), "The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism", (Profile; 2004), p. 211.
Jacqui Smith was honest. We should applaud that, and not savage her for having the guts to be candid. We who live here know its still not safe to walk the streets of London on your own late at night. Most of my friends have been mugged. I was randomly attacked late at night as I walked down a quiet street in Haringey. Statistically, crime has fallen in London. What worries me is that these figures are built on a trend of people not reporting more low-level crimes because they don't feel like the massively-centralised police force will listen or respond. To be clear, that's not the police's fault but the government's.
And it seems to me the government isn't tackling crime in a progressive way. Building "super prisons" won't solve the problem. We have to stop the cycle of reoffending. Education has to be part of the answer. 95% of prisoners need help with basic literacy. Yet these basic skills are needed in 96% of all jobs. So why is it a surprise to us that 71% percent of 18-21 year olds in prison are reconvicted within two years of release? Prison at the moment, as the Liberal Democrats say, is "an endless merry-go-round of crime and punishment"*. We can learn by looking at the Canadian and Dutch examples.
I hope that these comments will provoke a discussion. That's, as I see it, is the prime purpose of blogging. I want people to say why they disagree or agree. Don't be shy.
* Paul Marshall and David Laws (eds.), "The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism", (Profile; 2004), p. 211.
