Julian Le Vay: Thoughts on Government
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MORE LIBERAL SLOP

17/2/2021

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So much liberal 'thinking on prisons is self indulgent slop. Like this piece here.

Asks ‘what if we got rid of prisons?’   But then says, oh, we’re not really talking about getting rid of prisons. So why ask the question? A question you’re not actually posing at all? Because the writer wants to feel all daring and woke and radical.  Without actually being any of that. It’s a fraud, in other words.

Massively ignorant: “The prison population has risen by 70 per cent in the last 30 years. Few would claim society has got much safer.” Yes, it has, dickhead. Did you never hear of the BCS?

Writer plainly  does not know reconviction rate for prisoners has fallen steadily since late 2000s!

Sloppy beyond belief: ignores all the purposes of imprisonment other than reducing reoffending. As though  that is the only reason anyone would ever be sent to prison! Otherwise, he implies, a rapist, a murderer, we’d just give a fine, or maybe not bother at all.

Appears to rely on poll by a marketing organisation that is not a member of the British Polling Council and appears not to publish its data, and whose ‘findings’ are inconsistent with many proper polls and academic  studies.

Talks up Bastoy but fails to note there is no published research demonstrating Bastoy’s effectiveness and that since Norway generally has low offending rates, it’s inevitable that it also has low reoffending rate, not an effect of its prison but different culture. And so on.

I actually am against building more prisons. I actually am in favour of a smaller prison system. I actually think our prisons are in a terrible state.

But precisely because I hold those views, and hold them strongly, I am dead against this kind of slop.   Because it impedes serious thinking.

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    I was formerly Finance Director of the Prison Service and then Director of the National Offender Management Service responsible for competition. I also worked in the NHS and an IT company. I later worked for two outsourcing companies.

    Now retired, I write about criminal justice policy (or the lack of it), cultivate our allotment and make glass.

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