“These announcements
are all welcome, and put some meat on the bone of the government’s commitment
to reducing reoffending. A place to live and the means to earn your living are
both crucial to giving people a fair chance when they leave prison. To achieve
the impact the government wants, it will be essential that these modest
commitments turn into a permanent, national investment in community based
solutions to crime. The public are best protected when people get help long
before there is any possibility of a prison sentence.
The amounts of
money involved in these welcome announcements are still dwarfed by the £4bn the
government is planning to spend on new prisons because of its continuing love
affair with imprisonment. And they sit oddly with last weekend’s quiet announcement
that 500 new prison places are to be provided for women, marking the apparent
failure of a clear existing policy to reduce women’s imprisonment. There is a
long way still to travel to achieve a rational, evidence based approach to
reducing reoffending.”
Peter has also written about this issue for The i Paper,
click here to read the article.