Frances Crook’s blog
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, provides informal comments on the issues of the day.
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General Election 2019: The Conservative Manifesto
My fourth blogpost looks at the Conservative manifesto. The main problem is that many of the specific proposals are in opposition to evidence. Either they are not backed up by evidence, they are directly contradicted by evidence or, at best, they lack evidence. Read more
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General Election 2019: The Labour Manifesto
My third review of the party manifestos is a critique of Labour’s plans. Yet again we see scaremongering about rising violent crime, which, as I said about the Lib Dem manifesto, is a perennial problem, and I am disappointed that a comprehensive plan to address violence is missing. Read more
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General Election 2019: The Liberal Democrat Manifesto
My second blogpost in a series of commentaries on the political party manifestos looks at the Lib Dems. Read more
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General Election 2019: The Green Party manifesto
The Green Party manifesto was published this week. At 88 pages it is pretty comprehensive, although most of the crime proposals are entreaties to do things better rather than specific legislative reforms. As we know from long experience, just asking people to do things does not necessary achieve the desired result. Although, it is also true that simply introducing new laws can have no effect or indeed have unintended consequences. Read more
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Why magistrates were wrong to imprison a child and allow him to be named
Magistrates were wrong to imprison a child of 14 and wrong to allow him to be named. The boy's case was heard in a youth court last week and it has been reported widely, but for reasons that I will go on to explain, I am not sharing a link to the coverage. Read more
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The Director of Public Prosecutions responds to questions from Howard League supporters
This is a guest blog, I am hosting it on my blog site so that people who attended the lecture from the Director of Public Prosecutions and anyone else who may be interested can read the questions posted at the lecture on 14 October and the responses from Max Hill. I am very grateful to the DPP for taking the time to respond so fully to questions. Read more
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A story that illustrates the craziness of the criminal justice system
This is too shocking not to share. A friend, a police officer, told me he was in a car with three colleagues for the whole day, cruising round aimlessly ‘looking for burglars’. As if this wasn’t a total waste of taxpayers’ money and a total waste of police time, it gets worse. Read more
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The nation deserves better
I just got a text from our Comms Manager, Rob Preece, because I was out of the office when the safety in prisons statistics were published. He said: “Self-injury among children in custody has almost doubled. It is my job to come up with the words, but there aren’t many that do this justice”. Read more
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‘Law-and-order’ proposals in the Queen’s Speech are performative politics at their most risible
The government has been trumpeting its focus on ‘law and order’, but it is not in fact concerned either with promoting the rule of law or in creating a more orderly society. Read more
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There is always money for locking up children, but none to clean up the mess afterwards
While the government is banging the ‘law-and-order’ drum, it is worth remembering that when people go into prison they also come out. The longer they are inside, the more institutionalised they become and the bigger the challenges they face on release. Read more
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