Tories lead the way on Penal Reform - Who'd have thunk it?

13th July 2010

For a few weeks now media coverage in Britain has been focussing heavily on Ken Clarke's radical new approach to Justice and Crime. His proposals to reduce imprisonment and promote community sanctions have frightened the Daily Mail and there have been rumours that the Prime Minister was nervous about the reactionary backlash.

Now it seems that David Cameron is fully behind the Justice Secretary, and there's a real chance of turning around the Titanic that the UK's prison system has become. In a report in today’s Belfast Telegraph, Cameron is quoted as recognising the wastefulness of short sentences, the need for diversion into community punishments and, most dramatically, is willing to take on the problem of long sentences.

Sometimes you can get to the right policy result by a number of different routes. Cameron is open in saying "we're broke so we must be reformers" - which should resonate with Ireland’s current situation and is a welcome shift from "we have money so we'll build more prisons regardless of the consequences".

Wouldn't it be great to think that Irish penal policy could reach that conclusion without having to go through the disastrous expansion Britain had under Labour? It might just happen...