Tory “Prison Policy” - Yet Another Flop
Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal advisor, expresses some opinions on the Tory “prison policy” announced earlier today, and proposes some ideas on how the BNP should deal with the growing prison population in Britain.
The Conservative Party policy on solving the ongoing prison overcrowding crisis is fundamentally flawed. Forcing the taxpayer to pay for the Government to try and build their way out of the crisis caused by liberal permissiveness, while planning long term to turn the penal system into yet another profit centre for multinational corporations, is no solution.
If there is any spare cash in the government coffers and spare land available for new development then it should be council homes being built for homeless British families, not more holiday camps for criminals. Prison only works as a deterrent if it enforces both punishment and rehabilitation. At the moment the prisons are run according to the dictates of political correctness and dominated in their functions by government and corporate financial priorities. The prisons neither punish nor rehabilitate.
Political Correctness prevents punishment and financial priorities have led to a cut in prison schemes to assist prisoners out of reoffending. Prisons have become state subsidised holiday camps run for private profit by private corporations. The prisons do nothing but warehouse criminals whilst profiting the directors of private security companies.
The BNP see an opportunity for some radical new thinking and solutions to the prisons crisis:
The Re-Introduction of the Death Penalty - Along with the reintroduction of the death penalty for a whole range of offences such as Treason, Terrorism, Serial Murder, Sex Crimes Against Children and Pre-Meditated Murder we also should consider the formation of a Criminal Cases Review Board that would review the cases of all those prisoners already on full life term sentences. The Criminal Review Board would investigate the legal cases of all those prisoners who have been recommended to them by the BNP Home Secretary for inclusion under the BNP capital punishment policy.
The Criminal Review Board will rule on whether the original trial was safe and the conviction sound. Those who have been imprisoned for murder and who are deemed so dangerous to the safety of the public that they can never be released should not be kept in prisons for decades at vast taxpayers’ expense, but instead should suffer capital punishment. Since their crimes were so vile as to warrant the death penalty under the law of Natural Justice, and since the vast majority of the British electorate have only been denied the return of the death penalty by the undemocratic arrogance of the ruling elite, the fact that their execution was temporarily prevented by a few hundred bleeding hearts in Parliament is no valid reason for not imposing the death penalty now.
Brady, Huntley, Bellfield and other such killers gave up all human rights, including the right to live at the expense of the British taxpayer, when they committed their crimes. It’s long past time for their cells to be freed up for other prisoners by sending them on a short, final walk to the noose and the drop. A BNP Home Secretary will be given a power susceptible to review by the courts to issue individual cases to be reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Board for inclusion under the BNP Capital Punishment policy. The Labour Government recently changed the Double Jeopardy Rule to allow criminals to be re-tried and we intend to introduce into law similar legislation that would allows us to apply our capital punishment laws against criminals like Ian Huntley and Peter Sutcliffe in order to finally obtain long overdue justice for their victims.
The Reintroduction of Corporal Punishment - The BNP will also reintroduce corporal punishment at all levels of the Criminal Justice System. The first intervention by a BNP government as regards corporal punishment would be at the point of the first low level offence, not after a hundred convictions for the same offences. Burglars, vandals and low level criminals would be flogged if found guilty. This punishment would be administered humanely and under medical supervision. Those who breach Community Service Orders, ASBO’s and other court sanctions will also be flogged. Community Punishment Orders would also allows courts to order offenders onto mandatory work details in their own communities to shame criminals into not committing crimes again.
This threat of corporal punishment will act at the Community Level to deter young and low level offenders from re-offending and hence lower the numbers of youngsters and low level criminals who continue to wreck the lives of innocent victims due to the inadequate punishments available to the courts. The laws are too soft, the judges too soft and the beds too soft in the prisons to act as any deterrent. This policy will save the HMP money as it will lower the numbers of youngsters and low level criminals entering the prisons and also deter people from recommitting low level crimes.
The BNP will enact Community Punishment Projects for low risk prisoners who will then be electronically tagged and deployed on outside work projects. Labour will be mandatory for all prisoners. Prisoners will be placed on work details undertaking for profit contract work. They will be paid an income for their work and a large proportion of this income would be taken from them and used to financially assist both their victims and also their families and children. They will also be given on the job training and gain certified trade skills to allow them to re-enter the job market after leaving prison.
This policy at the Internal Offender Management Level for low risk prisoners will save the Prison Service millions of pounds a year as it will be allowed to compete for contracts with councils to do work such as rebuilding sea defences and canal networks. Additionally, work detail prisoners would be housed in basic temporary mobile accommodation, which is far cheaper to provide than conventional prison places. Instead of the prisoners being a drain on the Prison Service and on society they would be generating an income that would be used to facilitate their rehabilitation, fund prisons and benefit our national community.
Foreign prisoners should be cleared out of British prisons by the simple expedient of having all property or assets they or their families own in Britain confiscated, the income thereby generated being handed over to victims, and the permanent expulsion of the criminals and their families from Britain.
The Tory policy of building new prisons will only benefit the private security companies like Group 4 and Serco who run them and who also support the Labour Party and the Tory Party if they got into power.
The entire liberal consensus as regard the development of our national penal and criminal justice policy over the last five decades has devastated our society. We have rising crime rates at the same time as we have rising prison populations. Building more prisons does not mean less crime, as prisons are no longer used to punish criminals. Prison is not a deterrent to the criminals anymore. Prisons themselves are holiday camps run by social workers and controlled by human rights lawyers. Prison officers can even be sacked for wearing a Cross Of St. George Flag whilst convicted Al Qaeda terrorists are running the prisons as Islamist recruitment centres by calling anyone who interferes with them ‘racists’.
Political Correctness punishes the victims and rewards the criminal. We intend to rectify that fundamental wrong. The four key BNP proposals above would do so, and would also free up thousands of prison places in just a few months, while reducing the burden of dealing with criminals which falls on the law-abiding taxpayer in a grotesquely unfair liberal double whammy.
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I would be very careful about advocating the re-introduction of the death penalty, especially for murder. If you leave aside the moral aspects and the aspects as to whether you can always be absolutely sure you execute the right person, you are left with whether the results justify the action. If a criminal for one reason or another, kills one person, he can only be executed once, which could therefore make it more likely that he may kill more than once in order to hide previous actions. This could particularly apply in certain situations when the criminal may be confronted by, let us say, a single policeman. The suspected killer, I am certain, may be likely to kill the single policeman either to avoid the threat of the death penalty, or to, as he may feel, remove a potential witness.
I agree with Vman, the word ‘flogging’ just conjures up too many images of sailors strapped to the mast earning permanent scars on their backs. Perhaps a more detailed explanation is needed.
But everything else sounds completely logical, especially the community punishment projects. I mean, what’s more humane, keeping someone locked up for years in a cell, or allowing them to work every day? Outdoors and in the fresh air, the criminal will not feel like he is being treated like a child sent to his room, but as a member of the community–especially if you give them something to take pride in like building sea defences. If they know that they are worth something, and that they are saving lives on certain projects, they will learn so much more than any social worker can teach them.
I also think the BNP should make a bit more ‘noise’ about the money that will be saved if they are in power. I don’t know if you have done this before, so forgive me if I missed it, but if you were to calculate the money spent on every current ‘community relations project’ up and down the country, every local council Marxist multi-cultural project, I am guessing you would save at least 1 billion pounds.
I may be way off, perhaps someone can provide a link, if its already been estimated.
I agree with Lee Barnes about people who commit really disgusting murders - and because of media dishonesty, there are more of these than is generally realised. (see http://www.iamanenglishman.com on this).
I’m not enthusiastic about death for treason - objectors to illegal wars might find themselves executed. My personal view is that war crimes should be treated seriously, but in today’s political climate this is hopelessly idealistic.
Whiskyindia’s point is quite good; but I feel that with (I hope) improved detection no amount of further killings could increase the chance of getting away with murder. Also, theory is one thing, practice is another; in my opinion what’s needed is a careful look at actual cases of murder, to try to determine what’s most likely to get murderers out of circulation permanently.
For the likes of Robert Black, Ron Jebson, Pere Sutcliffe, Roya Whiting and Ian Huntley, any means of getting them off the taxpayers’ backs, preferably something quick and simple such as 50ml of intravenously injected sodium pentathol, would be fine by me. Permanent incarceration with no possibility of release, in a secure place of work for any and all paedophiles, on first conviction, should be mandatory, unless they have raped or otherwise physically harmed the victim, in which case they should be put down immediately after conviction. I’m not sure about the flogging, if it is intended that offenders should be made into usefully productive people. The resulting resentment of authority would be profound and permanent and would be likely to impair the ex-offender’s workplace performance, possibly inclining him to skiving or even to sabotage.
By contrast, inculcation of high-level engineering or other skills, preceded of course by lengthy, very thorough army-style basic training, administered by serving and/or retired army NCOs, would perform the absolutely crucial functions of instilling first, self-discipline and second, self-respect. A good kick up the backside from
burly sergeant would be far more usefully effective than “humane” (eh?) flogging.
Lee Barnes is always a good read and many of his proposals are sound. Yes to the death penalty and it should be used for any crime where such a sentence would be appropriate. Yes to flogging and birching, on its own or to compliment a prison sentence. Excellent for those who fail to comply with Community Service Orders, ASBO’s or failure to pay fines; but not as an alternative, the original sentence would have to be completed in full or more floggings would ensue.
I did like the Editor’s suggestion on the use of actuarial life tables. Judges should only be allowed to pass minimum sentences normally with hard labour; thereafter a review board would be set up to determine if the criminal continues to pose a danger to the public and if so there would be no release. Perhaps the victim or member of their family should be represented on the board.
Lee’s suggestion on the removal of foreign criminals from the country really goes without saying and I like the idea of the requirement for the criminal’s assets to be sold to indemnify the victim. Why should the indemnity scheme not be extended to indigenous criminals?
As a general comment prisons have been on the go for thousands of years and have never proved to be a deterrent; this is a non issue. The purpose of prison is punishment pure and simple and if the prisoner does not respond positively then there will be no release. If anyone feels their human rights are being infringed then they can bugger-off to some country where perhaps the delights of sharia law are the norm.
I agree with virtually everything that Lee Barnes says in this article and I think he reflects the view of the overwhelming majority of citizens in soft touch Britain, where victims and their families are denied proper and due justice.
However, I think revisiting old crimes with new laws is a very bad idea and is not in fact what the law is about. There is nothing I would like more than to be given the honour of going into that jail and shooting Huntley and his like - but it would not be in the name of the law. The Law of the Land of the Day has had its shot and I am afraid to say we are stuck with it - and Huntley and his like.
It’s impossible to look at those images of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and not feel sheer outrage that they and their forever grieving families were betrayed by an inadequate and inept justice system. Trying to redress it by some form of retrospective ‘justice’ (it would and could not be a ‘law’) is fraught with difficulty and danger.
I have lived through the entire media circus surrounding Brady and Hindley and cannot imagine what the families have suffered - and are still suffering. However, my anger and passion for justice has limits and boundaries that I dare not and would not cross. I could not be the one to shoot Brady in his sick bed or drag him half dead to the gallows or even strap him down for a lethal injection. It would be a bitter sweet justice with a very bad, nazi-like aftertaste. In any case, Joe Black is forever at Brady’s side at the moment - and will be for Huntley eventually. It’s a tough one to call but I think it would be better to let these killer dogs lie and die in jail. We set foot on a very slippery slope otherwise.
It would be better to revisit the likes of Maxine Carr, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, Mary Bell and their like. All with new identities and possibly married and living with/alongside unsuspecting husbands/wives/children/neighbours etc. What an absolute nightmare of a mess our inept, liberal injustice system has created for us to clear up! I wonder who amongst us is going to volunteer or be chosen for the poison chalice post of Home Secretary? He or she had better have a very thick skin.
As a footnote, I meant to add that a reintroduced death penalty, lawfully enacted by Parliament, approved by the Queen and then implemented by a totally independent judiciary (cleansed of wet liberal judges) - with absolutely no interference or further comment from politicians - is the best and only way forward. Proper and Due Justice (blind as it must be) will then be LAWFULLY done for all FUTURE horrific crimes like murder - and be seen to be done.
I feel the victims/victims families should have a say in death or life in prison, prisoners should have property confiscated and sold to pay towards their keep. All overseas born prisoners should be sent back to where they where born on completion of their sentences, regardless of their circumstances, along with their family. Anyone who thinks this sounds harsh, should think about that fact that people have a choice, if they don’t like the punishments they should not commit the crimes.
I also believe that there should be no legal aid for criminals, if they want to sue because there Sky + system went on the blink and they missed the previous nights Football then let them waste their own money, not British tax payers.
Prisoners should be forced to do hard labour for a wage that pays for their cell, meals etc. Lets make them get up at 8 in the morning and work till 5:30 like everyone else, not sit in 5 star rooms with HDTV’s, Sky TV, Sony Playstations, laptops and wonderful meals. Ever tasted the swill they serve up in hospital, u would be better off committing a crime then becoming ill.
I really don’t like this grim jail and harsh punishment stuff, because we would invest enormous sums of money in it for absolutely no return. Whether a criminal is loafing about on his comfy bed in a “deluxe room” with his TV and all his electronic toys, or is in a cold, damp, unfurnished concrete box with only the occasional brown rat for company, the bugger is costing us money and we’re getting nothing out of him.
Prisons should not cost us money! Prisons should make money. We should either knock down all those ugly, Victorian, mock-gothic piles, or sell them off to private developers for conversion into blocks of “bijou” flats for trendy, pretentious, would-be yuppie ninnies as seen on TV.
Prisoners should be required to do exactly what everyone on the outside has to do: work or don’t eat. Every prison should be a factory, manufacturing products of every kind, from kettles to marine diesel engines - just like the institutions which make up the Chinese Lau-gai.
Prisoners should not be forced to work, they should merely be made discover that if they didn’t, they didn’t eat either. Accommodation should be comfortable but basic: no computers or other fancy toys, just a normal TV; any other “luxury” items should paid for out of the inmate’s wages subject to the governor’s approval.
Prisoners would keep and compulsorily save what was left of their wages after deductions to cover income tax, NI and accommodation, just like on the outside.
Prisoners who had completed their sentences and had acquired important skills would be offered the option of keeping their jobs, but going to live “on the outside”
in specially built, rented accommodation, or leaving and seeking a job and a home elsewhere.
Prisons which have inmates sitting on their fat *****, costing us an arm and a leg and producing **** all except excreta are useless, wasteful, anachronisms.
Far from clinging to the hopelessly outdated and extortionately expensive mediaeval “punishment by enforced idleness” principle, a forward-looking BNP government with the best interests of taxpayers as its guiding principle would get rid all such establishments, round up the on-street scumbags who wear their ASBOs as badges of honour, and make the poisonous little wastrels work for their living in purpose-built, secure factories. They should have to earn their keep the same as everyone else.
I agree, Noel, which is why I advocate hard labour being attached to the life sentence handed down to murderers and vicious criminals. Get them road building, renovating housing projects, etc. Pouring money in the prison system with no return is criminal in itself.
The vote that is taking place on this article is a very interesting one. I think it is very interesting because of this retrospective/retroactive element that has suddenly been introduced into the debate. I like to think of myself as ultra-hawkish when it comes to crime and punishment, and I am passionate about the urgent need to reintroduce the death penalty (and not just for murder) with absolute safeguards.
However, when it comes to backdating laws or revisiting past sentences, you can count me out–even for Huntley. The Law had its chance and shot at Huntley and missed–winged him I suppose. This has got nothing to do with Double Jeopardy either–Huntley was found guilty. Obviously keep him locked up forever under a harsh regime and never let the swine out. I’m afraid that’s as good as it’s ever going to get for Holly’s and Jessica’s family.
The administration of justice is a matter for the courts–definitely not for politicians. Believe me, you do not want politicians around influencing matters when the blind truth is being sought and sentences handed down. In 2005, the establishment, politicians, and police did their worst to fit-up Nick and Mark but the independent justice system did its best and stuck to the rule of law. No law broken, Not Guilty.
Where there is an unhealthy overlap of legislative and judicial lines and boundaries, justice always suffers. Look at Jersey and the childrens’ home. Look at Goldsmith and the Iraq war. Politicians should make laws via Parliament, then keep right out of it and let the courts get on with it. The proposed Criminal Cases Review Board would be politicians meddling with justice in the worst possible way–revisiting past crimes and sentences.
Where does it all end, this slippery slope we would embark upon? I know these monsters like Huntley are OUR present tense but their monstrous crimes were perpetrated under past tense laws–and the future tense laws until we change them.
Even on the very day a BNP government gets a YES vote on the death penalty through the Commons, it then has to go to the Upper House (and possibly back) then to the Queen etc. If another monster like Huntley decides to wipe out a couple of children, even on that very day prior to it becoming law, then that monster also gets away with it–even on our watch. Because that is the (unpalatable at times) law and the way the law works. The BNP and Opposition are the Legislature, not the judge, jury–and certainly not the executioner.
Me again but last word hopefully! The (understandable) reference to the cost of keeping monsters like Huntley alive for decades, has also got me slightly concerned. I passionately hope that the BNP does not ever fall into the ever waiting trap for the unwary politician, by knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. Justice has its price, of that there is no doubt but the true price of injustice is far higher. Would this fatally flawed notion of revisiting past crimes and sentences, have piled monstrous injustice on monstrous injustice with the execution of totally innocent Stefan Kiszko? The BNP need to run not walk from this retrospective idea. We’ll have our work cut out looking after the present and the future and getting that right.
We need to keep emotion (hatred even) away from the courts as well for justice to flourish. The way the media are allowed to stoke up emotions before and during a trial like Huntley’s has got to end under the BNP. Evidence and truth are what matter in a court of law - not heresay, tabloid selling, money grabbing headlines.
Playing Devil’s Advocate here but what if Huntley (unlikely) is another Stefan Kiszko as well? We in the BNP know they spin and lie about us, so should we sheepishly accept without question all we hear about Huntley? I/we have an ‘informed’ opinion about it all but it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with justice. That’s why we have a fiercely independent judiciary and courts of law that are clear of meddling politicians with an agenda.
A great, thought provoking film on this emotive subject is The Life Of David Gale - the crime is clear, the truth is not.
Final last word. Is a sensible compromise on this retrospective issue, to consider ‘requests’ from lifers such as Huntley to be executed rather than die in jail - if that is their wish? It must almost border on them being denied their ‘human rights’ not to consider it!
In this crazy country we live in at the moment, there is no such provision and many long termers and lifers are constantly trying to top themselves (some successfully) rather than languish in jail and wait for death. It’s absolutely crazy. It could even be extended to those who have received lengthy sentences for non capital crimes under a BNP government.
We should give them a ‘choice’ of how to die as well and there may be something to learn from the Gary Gilmore trial in Utah, where the jury decided he should die and Utah law allowed Gilmore the choice of death by hanging or firing squad. He chose the latter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gilmore
Since Thatcher rose onto the stage we’ve been through a thorough clearing-out of most of our industry and whenever possible, even our service industries - Call Centres and Bureaux of various kinds. Even the ‘financial sector’ which we are supposed to value and venerate, is largely non-British and virtually out-sourced.
Since our governments have cheerfully approved and facilitated these thefts, perhaps they should consider an obvious candidate for out-sourcing: prisons. Why not set up large prisons in an African state? These prisons could be used for long-termers, so there would be little too-ing and fro-ing. Think of the gains: lower building costs, using local labour, lower running costs. Prisoners could be usefully employed for the benefit of the country they’re detained in.
The host State would benefit in several ways, including easements.
The warders would all be African, naturally, which would have all the usual advantages that our entrepreneurial governments go for. A cautious mind might wonder about putting our prisoners into the hands of Congolese or Rwandan or Janjaweed wardens, but that’s blatant racism, and I’ll have none of it. I’m sure prison life would be enriched by their presence.
Corporal punishment - definitely! When Thatcher - under pressure from Europe - forced the Isle of Man courts to abandon the birch, crime on the island shot up. Bring it back, not just to the IoM but to the whole UK.
And I hope that Lee’s definition of “low level criminals” includes expense-fiddling speakers and MPs - I for one would queue for days to get into court in order to watch such Commons trash being severely flogged.
Plus those Guardian-reading posers who think it’s really sophisticated to cycle on the pavement.