Ludicrous sentencing leads to dangerous early prison releases on a massive scale. Labour stands accused of doing things in government it didn’t advertise in advance when the party was trying to woo you during the election campaign.
Take the campaign about the winter fuel payment for a start. But on the issue of letting prisoners out early, it was mentioned before polling day.
The last government also set criminals free before they had originally intended to for the same reason.
There aren’t enough prison places. Yet the sentencing following the judicial response to the recent riots included 2 or 3 year sentences for social media posts.
A judge in Leeds jailed a 28-year-old man for 20 months after he admitted publishing Facebook posts that met the criminal threshold for stirring racial hatred.
Speaking before the sentences — but after both had been convicted Keir Starmer said they were “a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable”.
Police in England said nearly 600 arrests have been carried out linked to the unrest since July 30 and around 150 charges had been filed. Including random Facebook posts from regular citizens.
Meanwhile the directive is to give early release to all prisoners. Except in the most extreme cases. So while we won’t see Harold Shipman on our streets any time soon, we are likely to see violent offenders among us. Oh joy.
