If You Need 'Support' To Stay Out Of Prison, That's a Warning Sign It's Where You Truly Belong

The flipchart in the corner of the staff meeting room, deep inside a prison in the south-east of England, tells its own story about what our overcrowded jails are having to deal with, day in day out. Under the heading “Challenges”, it lists gangs, the destruction of cells, prisoners exploiting each other and complex behaviours. Committed, hard-working staff talk about the high levels of psychosis, often combined with drug abuse. They provide examples of people actually committing crimes to go back into jail to get some respite from their chaotic, dysfunctional lives.

To tackle the current prisons crisis in England and Wales, planned changes to sentencing will see almost 2,000 people released early from Thursday and over the following month. It is the first tranche of the estimated 5,000 releases that will take place in phases over the coming year.

Hw of course has two things to focus on, both of which boil down to being soft on criminal excuses, as you'd expect for the 'Guardian':

As a first step, we need to address the staggering increase in people recalled to prison. The power that probation officers have to send someone back behind bars plays an important role in protecting the public, but with recall now accounting for one in seven of the prison population compared with one in 13 a decade ago, it is neither sustainable nor effective.Cases of people being recalled for missing probation appointments because transport was delayed or for moving out of their accommodation to get away from drug dealers and gangs, are too often punished with a return to custody.

There are rules and they expect people to follow them - sounds like they are the only State agents actually doing their job diligently to me. 

Second, we need to focus on the probation service. It is critical to fixing prisons and too often undervalued. Today it is a long way from its original social-work ethos to advise, assist and befriend those once described as clients but now always labelled offenders. The focus is much more on surveillance and compliance.

As it always should have been! 

The services need connecting. Fixing this cannot be achieved by the justice system alone. Public bodies from the NHS to local councils have a role to play in giving people the support they need to stay out of prison.

I don’t require any ‘support’ to stay out of prison, and nor do the vast majority of people, you know.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far...

The father of one of the teenagers killed in the A66 Middlesbrough crash faces prison today after attacking the celebrant at his son's funeral. Gye Worthy is alleged to have become angered when Paul Maull failed to mention him in a eulogy for 17-year-old Cole - but did not forget the teenager's step-father. Worthy, 40, is accused of shouting insults before assaulting the celebrant (Ed: odd term for a mourner, but then, normal society has much to celebrate with these wastes of oxygen in the ground) and obstructing police officers called to deal with the disturbance at Teesside Crematorium on September 9.

Not unusual with traveller get togethers. Especially funerals.  

Cole's mother, Natalie McConnell, was 'devastated and shocked' by the disruption to her son's memorial, a source close to the family said. Ms McConnell has long been separated from Worthy and both now have new partners.

Lovely people. Salt of the earth.  

Then You're Expanding The Definition Far Too Wide

Almost half of the women who reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed to the Metropolitan police are potential victims of human trafficking, MPs have been told.

Trafficked? When they mostly will have got on a train or plane themselves to take up a job? 

In a briefing for the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods in July, senior Met officers said a review earlier this year found 70 survivors’ accounts bore the hallmarks of trafficking. The Home Office has confirmed that at least five survivors were victims of international and domestic trafficking.

The Met’s figures suggested the number of confirmed cases could climb much higher, said the Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, a co-chair of the APPG.“I can’t believe that wouldn’t increase,” said Chamberlain, who also compared the scale of Fayed’s abuse to Jimmy Savile’s.

The only real similarity is the fact that the police and establishment ignored it too, until the alleged abuser was safely dead. And for much the same reason. 

Amy, who lives in Italy, said she was trafficked from Harrods, where she initially worked on the shop floor, and her home to Fayed’s other properties. She said she was transferred to a PA role in his private residence and office at 60 Park Lane in London, where he allegedly sexually abused her, including groping her breasts and forced kissing. She said Fayed also took her in his private car and helicopter to his estate in Oxted, Surrey, where she was sexually assaulted in a lagoon-style swimming pool located behind a concealed door.

“I would be removed from my home in Hammersmith and then be changed into clothes like Lacoste polo shirts and Bermuda shorts and boat shoes, which I absolutely hated,” said Amy. “That was robbing me of my actual identity. Whoever saw me leave my bedsit would say that’s not her. That’s a strong component of what trafficking is and was very calculating.”

She makes it sound like a kinapping - did it ever occour to her to find another job and quit this one.. ? 

Eleanor Lyons, the independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the Home Office’s statutory guidance explicitly stated that people needed to be in the UK to be referred to the NRM. Lyons said this was because the process involved getting access to support including a safe house and counselling, which officials believed would be difficult to provide to people who do not live in the UK. But she called on the Home Office to reconsider the requirement because many affected people she spoke to just wanted to be recognised as trafficking victims, adding that the situation was causing deep distress for alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse. A Met police spokesperson said: “We were previously making referrals to the Home Office for victims living in the UK and abroad, but those relating to victims living abroad were being rejected. As a result, we have paused any further such referrals. Should the Home Office position change, we will restart those submissions. Our support to victims continues, regardless of where they live.”

Well, as the hunt for Madeline peters out, got to get that overdeas travel somehow. Do all the overseas complaianants live near golf courses, perchance? 

Well, What’s Stopping You?

Sentencing him on Friday,Judge Sean Morris said he had shown "not one line of remorse", adding: "I'd dearly love to lock you up. Now go away and hang your head in shame."

Given he lied his way through the trial I don’t think there’s much point in expecting shame from him, your honour…

The judge rejected Beckett's account that cyclists had obscured his view. "You tried to blame cyclists, which was a nonsense, and you tried to blame the deceased for not having lights on. He did have lights on," he said. The prosecution said the collision was "no momentary lapse of concentration".

I fail to see why he shouldn't be charged with contempt of court then. Maybe that would attract the jail time that killing a man with a car doesn’t. 

Beckett's defence barrister urged the court to suspend any prison sentence, citing Beckett's age, previous good character and clean driving record. Judge Morris said: "It is the will of Parliament that I have to suspend the sentence."

Then what’s the point of you? Might as well flip a coin… 

That Tune's Familiar: Parody Songs

Can't go wrong basing your parody song on a Disney movie tune, and here's one for all the housewives and mothers out there:

Don't Play With Your Food...

I love takeaway menus, and the weird spelling errors on them. This one caught my eye because I can't figure out what it's meant to have been. 

Surely not 'cheese'!?

 

Well, There's Cheerful...

But I have to agree with Matt, our chances don't seem good...

Sunday Funnies...

 William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' is missing from this list, and that's a crime!

There Are Plenty Of Foolproof Methods

All it takes is the courage to stand firm against the squeamish:

Last night, we entered uncharted territory when Christa Pike survived Tennessee’s effort to execute her with lethal doses of pentobarbital. It was the first time someone received a drug intended to kill them but did not die.

There would always have been a first time somewhere and sometime, but that doesn’t invalidate the sentence. 

Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the New York Times: “This event is the worst we’ve seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era … There is no precedent.” Moreover, there is almost no precedent for what should happen next. Whatever fate awaits Christa Pike, one thing is clear. The state of Tennessee should not be allowed to try to execute her again.

Why not?  

Beyond that, it is time to give up on the fantasy that this country will ever be able to find an execution technology that is safe, reliable and humane. We have not found one yet, and we never will.

We've found plenty, what we’ve lost is the will to carry it out, because we think if we make it bloodless the bleeding hearts will stop campaigning..

What happened to Pike was gruesome. No one deserves what she went through, not even those who commit horrible crimes.

Really. Let’s remind ourselves what she did to get it, shall we? 

“Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Campus with the promise of marijuana. With the help of … [her boyfriend], Pike tortured Slemmer before beating her to death with a chunk of asphalt. A pentagram was also carved into her body.”

Leaving out, as many left-leaning media did, that she took a piece of the murdered girl’s skull as a trophy.  

The Enemy Within...

There are more than 200 staff networks, which cover a range of characteristics, including veganism and paganism. However, there is little oversight of their activities.

And this is focussed on the Home Office, but I have it on good authority that they exist in every department of the civil service.

Now, the Policy Exchange think-tank has raised concerns about police neutrality after the official body representing Muslim cops in Britain published a report defending Hamas and attacking Israel.

Why do we allow Muslim police in the UK? 

Last year, the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) complained of 'unverified stories about acts of violence by Hamas' during the October 7 terror attacks in a 39-page document. The same report, written by the association's then-vice-president Khaldoun Kabbani, also described the Israel Defence Forces as a 'Zionist terrorist group' and compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust.

NAMP went on to drop the document, called 'Confronting Anti-Muslim Hatred and Promoting Human Rights', from its website. It said the views expressed were those of Mr Kabbani, who had since left the association. But Policy Exchange said the document's publication raised concerns about the impartiality of police officers, who are required to treat all members of the public equally under the law.

Those questions existed long before this latest example of how debased our police has allowed to become! 

Policy Exchange's report also accused the National Police Chiefs' Council of watering down proposed rules on police impartiality for staff networks.

Its authors have called for a new 'Police Impartiality Act', setting out requirements for police forces, associations and members.

More legislation to tinker at the edges, instead of ripping out the root cause root and branch. 

In an endorsement, Baroness Falkner of Margravine, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: 'Too often, as this paper shows, we see staff networks straying into contested ideological, religious or political territory. If the public no longer believe they can trust that the police will always... act without fear or favour, we would see risks to the rule of law itself.'

Too late, Baroness, we already believe that, because we've seen too much.