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Howard's Way.... a weekly column from the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard QC. MP. 

13 September 2007

 

Last Friday I had one of my regular meetings with Chief Superintendent Steve Harris and Chief Inspector Luke Dodson about policing in the constituency.

We all know that any level of crime is too high but I was encouraged by the progress being made. My meeting came within days of a series of events related to drug offences which were very welcome. Drugs, as we all know, have the capacity to destroy lives and cause untold misery and every effort must be made to bring to justice those who supply the drugs and profit from this evil trade.

Of course, the efforts of the police will be blunted if it is not possible to deal with offenders in an appropriate way. I have been appalled by the early release of prisoners simply because there is no room for them in our overcrowded prisons. Many of those released early are a risk to the public and indeed many have already re-offended.

The reason for this dire state of affairs is the failure of the Government to provide enough prison places. It is not as though they were not warned. Forecasts of the prison population have been showing for years that more accommodation was needed. But the Government refused to listen and Gordon Brown refused to make the money available.

To add insult to injury the Government has not been telling us the truth. Time after time they have claimed to have provided 20,000 extra prison places since 1997. But as a result of questions I have asked in Parliament I have been able to establish that this is not the case at all.

The 20,000 figure includes the 8,600 prison places which I had announced when I was Home Secretary in 1996 and for which the previous Government had made the money available. It also includes an increase of 6,258 in prisoners held in overcrowded accommodation.

So the actual number of extra places for which this Government can take credit is not 20,000 but only 5,142.

Prison is of course not the answer everything. But it is essential that sufficient prison accommodation is available for those violent, serious and persistent offenders who need to be detained. And, if the opportunity to rehabilitate and change people’s behaviour which prison affords is to be used to the full, it is essential, too, that overcrowding is kept to a minimum.

The protection of the public is the first duty of Government. It is a duty which the present Government has failed to discharge.