Penal Reform

Ken 'Muddled' Clarke comments that the recent riots were due to the inadequacies of the penal system; that prison hasn't stopped re-offending. It seems you see, that fully 75% of those arrested for riot related crimes already had a criminal record. Once again the bleat is that the state, the justice system, the prison service, do not do enough for these poor lost souls.

Being of a left leaning persuasion Clarke is bound to come to these conclusions. For the Left a dependent class supports their reason for existing, it gives them something to pontificate about and people to order around. That their ideas are proved wrong time and time again is no reason to abandon them; according to the logic of the Left it means more intervention is needed, that anyone opposing (i.e. proving them wrong) should be silenced.

Prison, the wets believe, should rehabilitate the offender, ready to go into society a changed person, ready to take a proper, law abiding place in the ranks. The other extreme says that locking them up on bread and water would teach them a lesson, be a proper punishment and make them not want to go back. Either way, what we are talking about is changing their mindset. And that is the key.

It is a key that is perpetually missed though, by the Left because they don't care, their interest in criminals is self-serving, by the others because they don't give them a second thought. Until they are back again. You see, you can only change someone if they want to. Much as the Left are totally wrong about poverty leading to crime, which is demonstrably untrue, so they are wrong about their attitude to crime. The criminal makes the choice to be a criminal. He makes the choice to go back to crime.

His reasoning will be varied and individual but will conform to a broad stereotype. He will not want to work and take the instruction of others this will doubtless entail. He wants material things but lacks the means due to his decision not to work. Just as his immaturity will not allow him to take instruction, so he will not have any empathy with those he steals from, mugs or kills. He will instead be filled with his own self worth and a baseless opinion of superiority.Thus dangerously equipped he goes out into the world.

This is the mindset we have to target. A mindset of selfish arrogance. Sure we have to show him that making different choices make sense. But that means we also have to improve our educational standards, removing the Left's insistence on keeping the 'workers' down, to maintain their constituency. We have to have proper education, that teaches and expects respect based on ability, not 'respec' based on the threat of violence.

We would also need a proper prison regime, that is an unpleasant though not brutal experience one best not repeated, as it presents them with that choice. Currently it makes absolute sense for them to commit crimes as the chance of getting caught is slight, the sentence if caught will be light and prison a place of constant apology for the inconvenience to their lifestyle. An impact that is minimised by expensive equipment to keep them entertained and a fairly relaxed attitude to drug taking (no matter how loud governors and Ministers squeal the opposite to be true).

It starts in the classroom where the teacher who fails to maintain discipline either through lack of personality or institutional diktat, will be mercilessly dealt with by the pupils in his charge. And so this display of weakness will be used to gain advantage at every turn. As indeed it is in the current criminal justice set up we have and into which Clarke wishes to introduce further weakness. As I have said before, you can call it toughness or tough love, but we have to take away the options from these feral youths.

It is why people kick out and say take away their benefits, because that will frighten them. It will show their actions have consequences and will affect their choices. We have to crack this quickly though, otherwise we will have to take this route and it will inevitably mean a return of something very like the workhouse. If evicting someone makes them homeless, what does that achieve? But if you cannot use the sanction how do you succeed? It would mean a further step down to a barracks style accommodation that is locked at night, with food provided, if you are back by the time the compound gates are closed.

Everywhere you look the infection of the dangerous and damaging Left ideology is seen, causing all manner of problems. In schools, in the managerial style adopted by the NHS that is now able to kill people at an accelerated rate. In hopeless policing and hapless government. In the constant revelations of incompetence in IT systems and MoD procurement. All of these debasements of our abilities and our society's worth have been brought about by Left ideology creeping up on us through the institutions.

An idiot senior police officer, addressing a government committee looking into the riots said that the only reason they were as extensive as they were was not due to strategy (his responsibility) but to a lack of officers (a veiled reference to 'cuts' -that haven't happened yet). He was pleased he said, that no-one was in hospital, seriously hurt because they went in short-handed. Forgetting of course that his officers had recently shot and killed a man posing no threat to them. Again. In fact, it was entirely due to strategy and the glaring lack of it. The officers were available, but he hadn't mobilised them, didn't use those he had effectively, didn't have a plan and felt entirely at ease 'standing back'. The ideology of the Left.

We know this because if there is any hint of right wing affiliation then they turn up in strength and go in hard, even when not necessary. Hence the tolerance of Muslim violence (in accordance with Multiculturalism) but attacks against those who oppose them (who must be right wing by default). But most shocking of all, was the politically motivated attack on a peaceful march in support of the rights of countryside folk. This was an outburst of Left agitation against its enemies, hidden under the acceptable (to them) code of class hatred. In fact of course it doesn't refer to class, it is the same as Nazism in Germany of the Thirties, using violence to deal with political opposition.