The Woman’s Own columnist has her say on crime, grandparents and foods to avoid
DAWN NEESOM
TIME TO PUT VICTIMS FIRST
Our prisons need rehabilitating, but that doesn’t mean releasing criminals
So… just a couple of months after we learnt that a police officer had admitted that rape and sexual-assault crimes ‘may as well be legal’ in our capital city, with an appalling lack of prosecutions and convictions, and victims waiting years for cases to come to court – plus crime in general on the rise – we have a former Prime Minister giving a speech saying we ‘lock up’ too many criminals.
I mean, what? What is this weird parallel world we’re living in where most of us think it’s the criminals who are often put before the victims, but our politicians think we treat them too harshly?
Just in case you missed this pearl of wisdom, it came from former PM Sir John Major, who was giving a speech to the Prison Reform Trust (PRT). I believe this is called preaching to the converted, as opposed to the convicted, but hey ho.
Major’s point – he was PM up until 1997, and most famous for his affair with Edwina Currie, who was most famous for her eggs, but probably best not go there – is that we should consider alternative punishments for ‘non-violent’ offenders.
Now this, of course, all depends on your definition of non-violent crime. A pensioner traumatised by having their bag snatched on the street? Bike theft? Your garden shed being broken into? Or, as Major includes, low-level drug dealers skulking around the streets, flogging bags of gear.
Er, I don’t want anyone nicking my bike, my lawnmower or my mum’s handbag, or selling dodgy drugs to my teenage niece.
In my world – and probably yours – they are criminals. And we are the victims. Why is this so complicated?
I’m not so stupid that I don’t get Major’s point about how non-custodial sentences would possibly be more effective for some crimes – for example, the hard-pressed single mum nicking from her local supermarket – but I’m also very wary of green-lighting crime and criminality. You know, provided you don’t kill anyone.
What message is that, exactly, to most of us who are law abiding and still believe in law and order? Do our rights count? Why don’t we go and nick any bike and/or lawnmower we fancy, too?
There is no doubt the prison system needs reforming – more, better prisons, a parole board that does its job, more rehabilitation schemes – but that is going to take time and money.
Major is keen to differentiate between violent and non-violent crime, but all crimes have victims. P
