Justice Secretary Jack Straw says that

Yes, it should. And he is right to say that
But why then didn't he do anything about it in the four years [1997-2001] in which he was Home Secretary? After all, it was during his tenure as Home Secretary than Tony Martin, the man on whom much of this is based, was convicted of murder [reduced to manslaughter on appeal].

It is during the last decade that people have become increasingly shy of becoming a "have-a-go hero" because of the way in which Labour have consistently undermined them. Criminals have been given rights under the law way beyond that which belong to the standard law-abiding person. It is under Labour that it has been possible for a burglar to sue a house owner for injuries sustained whilst robbing them. It is under Labour that the police force has been reduced to form-filling all day, and not preventing or even properly investigating crime. It is because of Labour that people are wary of enforcing the law because they are as likely, or at least feel that they are as likely, to be charged as the criminal they apprehend.

Jack Straw can apprehend criminals like he has said to have done three times because he isn't going to get dragged up before court for doing so. But for anyone else, it doesn't hold true. He claims that he was "always uneasy" about the government not doing anything about protecting those citizens who try to uphold the law, but why then didn't he do anything about it? He was Home Secretary for four years, during the period when this all began. He is to blame for it.

They have consistently done nothing about it, and rejected Conservative calls to do so. It is all well and good for Straw to try and fix it - but he has to acknowledge his, and the last decade of Labour government's, huge role in causing the problem in the first place. Until they accept that it is them who caused it, it is all just meaningless rhetoric.

Source: BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent

The Courts say that Prison Officers can't strike:

As much as a sympathise with the prison officers, when you do a job like that then you can't really go on strike. It just really isn't right for them to do so. I appreciate the problems they are suffering, but as an essential part of the modern justice system, they can't just go on strike like that.

Certainly the manner in which it has been done has been most disruptive, and potentially dangerous, since "[m]any officers - including union officials - arrived for work unaware of the [strike] plans."If notice of the strike had been given, then at the very least some civilian cover could have been brought in to avoid at least situations such as at Wakefield prison, where "the 745 inmates - including Soham killer Ian Huntley - [are] being guarded by no more than 20 senior managers."

The strike has been declared illegal, with
The prison officers should go back to work. They are opening themselves up to a severe undermining of their position of authority within prisons by defying the courts, exampled by inmates at Cardiff prison taunting a picket line in the car park with shouts of "You're breaking the law".

They should get a better settlement from the government than they are offered, especially considering that assaults on prison staff have risen to eight per day. After all, considering that they can afford to basically throw £3bn away, they should be able to factor in a pay rise for prison staff.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph

Should we condone this sort of thing, asks Steve Green at the Daily Referendum?

After umming and aaahing I had to come to the decision in the end that no, we shouldn't. This is vigilante justice, and as pleasurable as it may be to do to someone who is known as a criminal, it is, in the end, just wrong.

We have a justice system for a reason. As much as the Ministry of Justice may be bent on destroying it - such as by letting criminals out before they have served their sentences - it still exists, and must continue to do so. To give into this sort of vigilante justice, just asks for terror to return to our streets, just from people claiming to uphold the law and peace rather than those who know that they are breaking the law in what they do.

Even though an ICM poll today says that "a majority of voters think the government should scrap its prison building programme and find other ways to punish criminals... [with] 51% of those questioned want[ing] the government to find other ways to punish criminals and deter crime," I don't think that they were quite thinking of reviving the old punishment of tarring and feathering. Even though the Guardian article suggests it in their analysis, I doubt that a majority really want the prison building programme to be scrapped or criminals not to be sent to prison, but that other alternatives should be found to go alongside prison sentences.

To allow any backtrack down the route of tarring and feathering criminals - especially those who haven't been convicted of a crime - would be a huge mistake on all sides. It would lead to nothing but trouble for law-abiding citizens. We can't condone this sort of unilateral action any more so than we can the acts of the [suspected] criminal. After tarring and feathering, what next? The stocks? Pillorying? Trial by ordeal? That's not justice.

Sources: Daily Mail, The Guardian

A cut in the Prisons budget puts us in danger:

When they said that criminals were going to be released early because of prison overcrowding [and under-funding], they specifically denied that any "dangerous" criminals would be amongst them. Either they were lying or just stupid.

They released the first thousand on the day that Gordo was crowned became PM, and plan to release 25,000 criminals early every year. Despite this, at the same time they are detaining other criminals beyond the end of their sentence.

And yet, at the same time, the Ministry of Justice is demanding that the Prison Service spend £60 million less next year:
Let me get this straight... The prisons are overcrowded and you are already planning the early release 25,000 criminals a year, so you slash their budget by £60m? Yes, that's very clever. Thus, despite taking more and more from us in taxes, this government is utterly failing to put it to any good use. Instead, they prefer to spend it on bureaucracy.

What the hell are they on? There is no doubt about it that this government has failed miserably on law and order, policing, and prisons. Instead of being "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime," they have been weak, useless, and completely unprepared to deal with it.

Source: The Times

You've just become Prime Minister and appointed your new Cabinet and government. How do you celebrate? Release 1,000 prisoners, of course! What better way is there to celebrate than in the manner of kings of old, who would pardon criminals upon their coronation [how apt] and on royal births.

These 1,000 criminals, including burglars, drug dealers and fraudsters, released early were “carefully selected” by prison governors, according to Jack Straw. He said that the early release of prisoners - 25,000 per year - “will carry on until we do get stability in the prison population.” Anything that those criminals do after their early release is completely and utterly the fault of the government.

Stability in the prison population isn't going to happen. The release of this 1,000 criminals is "nowhere near enough" to do give the Prison Service the space it needs for new criminals. According to the editor of The Prisons Handbook:

“The Prison Service needs breathing space. If numbers continue to rocket up we are in danger of a loss of control.
But 1,200 is nowhere near enough. We need to have at least 10,000 prisoners released to give the prisons the respite they need.”

That cannot and must not happen. Just build new prisons, or go back to using old ships as prison hulks until new land prisons are built. Releasing criminals before they have served their sentences helps no-one, and certainly not the justice system, which the Ministry of Justice is constantly undermining with the programme of early release.

It is a great way to mark the start of your premiership, Gordon Brown. And a mark of things to come.

Source: The Times

Prisoners who are being kept in police stations because prisons are overflowing due to an utter lack of investment - to the extent that they are to release two thousand criminals early immediately, and twenty-five thousand criminals early every year - and they are costing £385 per prisoner per night. Plus, it has also been revealed that prisoners are being fed with takeaway food, with inmates at one police station costing £700 a week to feed on them.

Why are criminals being fed takeaway food on the taxpayer? That is an excessive waste of taxpayer's money, when cooking for them would would cost far, far less. Prisoners should not be fed in such a manner on the taxpayer. They shouldn't even need to be kept in police stations in the first place!

Prisoners shouldn't be fed takeaway food. It is, to start with, expensive and a waste of money. It also, however, opens up the justice system to other abuses - such as being sued for not providing a sufficiently healthy diet, which takeaway food undoubtedly is not.

The Ministry of Justice needs to do something to stop this absurd waste of money and the early release of thousands upon thousands of criminals - but they seem more interested in morris dancing.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

This story just absolutely shocked me. As two thousand criminals are to get early release immediately, and 25,000 are to be released before the end of their sentence every year, what could possibly be the most important thing on Charlie Falconer's mind, but morris dancing?

"The prisons are bursting and the judges are threatening revolt but the weighty matter of morris dancing has been on the mind of Justice Ministry officials and their boss, the Lord Chancellor.
To the hilarity and astonishment of other Whitehall departments, among the submissions for Lord Falconer of Thoroton to mull over is whether a team of morris dancers from his department could name themselves the Lord Chancellor’s Men.
Making sure that the issue received the attention it deserved from Lord Falconer, one of his private secretaries sent a two-page “submission” to his boss. The submission, seen by The Times, is worthy of Whitehall officialdom at its best as it outlines the issue, recommendation, background, and consideration and handling of such a delicate matter of state." (The Times)

I just can't believe their gall! When the prisons are overflowing to the extent that many thousands of criminals are being released before they have served their time, that even the idea of whether the MoJ's morris dancing team can be called "The Lord Chancellor's Men," and certainly to the extent of writing a two-page submission on the matter, could even cross their minds is absolutely disgusting. They should be working flat-out to fix this disgusting situation and prevent the necessity of releasing thousands upon thousands of convicted criminals early, not working on how best to dance in a stupid manner!

When the Ministry of Justice has so little respect for the justice system that choosing a name for their morris dancing team goes before sorting out the prisons fiasco, there is little we can do but despair.

Source: The Times

In my post on the imminent release of two thousand criminals yesterday, I said they "might as well just throw open the prison gates." It appears that that is precisely what they are going to do!

"Up to 25,000 prisoners a year will be released early under an emergency scheme announced yesterday to ease the jail overcrowding crisis.
The plan to free prisoners early... was forced on ministers after the prison population reached a record of 81,016...
The prisoners, who will be released 18 days early, will be those serving sentences of between four weeks and four years for non-sexual and non-violent crimes... Up to 25,000 could be freed early in any one year. The prison population will fall by 1,200." (The Times)

I am absolutely shocked that they can justify releasing 25,000 criminals every year before they have served their sentence. That really does make an absolute mockery of our criminal justice system. What's the point in sentencing criminals to prison terms that they won't even serve?!

The Ministry of Justice is, as one of it's first acts, making an absolute mockery of our entire justice system. What is the point of a Ministry of Justice which prevents justice/the law from taking it's course?

If we are short of prison spaces, as we certainly appear to be, then build another prison! It's really not rocket science*! Instead of releasing criminals before they have served their sentence, build somewhere else to keep them. That is common sense and the only way to make the justice system into something other than the laughing stock the MoJ is already making it into - after just five weeks in existence!

* or, rather, aerospace engineering
Source: The Times, The Telegraph

One of the first acts of the Ministry of Justice is to be to release two thousand criminals back into the community in order to relieve prison overcrowding.

You really couldn't make it up - a Ministry of Justice that releases convicted criminals before they've even served their sentences?! Yes, that is going to stop them just going out and committing more crimes, is it! Lord Falconer claimed that "[r]elease on licence is not the same as executive release. Releasing people on licence means their sentence continues." But how does their sentence continue iof they have been released from prison? They were sentenced to however long in prison, not some time in prison then some time at home.

This government came to power pledging to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes on crime". Yet instead they have just been soft on criminals. Although offenders convicted of violent or sex crimes would not qualify for this early release, burglars, fraudsters and drug dealers will get out. Not really much better. Doing this is quite simply making a mockery of our judicial system and of all criminal laws passed.

It's quite simple - if prisons are getting overcrowded then [shock, horror!] build new ones! As the population expands, so will the number of criminals. It may stay at same level of society, or even be at a lower level, but the actual physical number of prisoners will rise as the population size does. It's very simple maths - so simple that even I can do it.

If the government isn't going to bother building new prisons, then it does simply make a mockery of our entire system of justice. You might as well just throw open the prison gates.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent