We won’t tackle the problem until prisoners have something better to do with their time than smoke themselves into another world.
Whether Truss’s inspiration is May on policing or Gove on schools, the only way ahead is a challenging radicalism.
Without sufficient staff and resources, governors will find it impossible to deliver the programmes prisoners need to avoid recidivism.
The Ministry of Justice is hers now, not Gove’s, so she must make her own plan.
An awesome responsibility will greet the eventual winner. The new Prime Minister must rise to the greatest national challenge since that which confronted Churchill.
The case for Gove. His candidature is the one best placed not only to ensure that Britian quits the EU but that social mobility is boosted.
All prison and probation services should be fully devolved to Police and Crime Commissioners.
Plus: The reshuffle – who may be in, who may be out. I am a wet lettuce liberal on prison reform. And: Lightning strikes twice in Camden.
Dame Sally Coates’s review, published this week and accepted yesterday by Michael Gove, sets out the right forward.
Ministers must consult and build alliances before rushing ahead with more ambitious reforms.
For the first time in a decade, there is the potential to have policy which looks beyond the height of prison walls to the people within.
The first wave of PCCs proved their critics wrong. The second wave must seek to expand their role.
We should start by recognising that current public services are not quite fit for purpose, and that cuts afford us an opportunity.
A large part of the reason for the Chancellor backing off is the interplay between the EU referendum and Tory MPs’ views.
To halve the prison population, everyone sent to prison with up to fourteen previous offences would have to be given a non-custodial punishment.