Mr Cracker

A tiny rant tonight I'm afraid.

This morning I sprang from my bed like a startled gazelle at far earlier than is comfortable or sensible. The reason was that to get somewhere I had to leave here at around 7.00 and I need a while to wake up before I jump in the motor.

My journey was enlivened by news of last evening's football game which I enjoyed hugely. However it was also filled with supposition about what happens in prisons; the latter excused by the absence of Michael Wheatley, AKA Skull Cracker, from his appointed place of residence.

I'm generally a fan of the BBC but today I have heard the most unmitigated pile of unsupported tosh around this story. At one point a reporter, speculating on how Mr Cracker might have absconded, said something along the lines of "We don't know if this was his first time out of the prison so let's assume that it was and that means that he must have had an escort so he must have given his escort the slip". Of course the little evidence available suggests something rather different. He failed to return to prison on Sunday so it seems likely that he was on weekend leave - escorted town visits rarely, if ever, happen at weekends because of the staffing constraints. The language used by the BBC journos was "excited" and they kept saying in awed tones that he has 13 life sentences. Again the rest of the story is slightly less exciting. Whilst his behaviour during the armed robberies was dreadful and violent he was given life sentences under the old "two strike" rules. Although he'd previously served 27 years for armed robberies the tariff this time was only 8 years and he has currently served 12. People don't usually get to Open conditions until they have been assessed as not posing a risk to society. Of course errors are made but there would be no rush to move this guy through the system too quickly because he's a lifer.

Which brings me to the prognostications of the MP for Shipley, Philip Davies. He is alleged to have said "It is completely ludicrous that a serving life sentence prisoner is even in an open prison where they can simply walk out. As far as I am concerned whoever allowed him to be in an open prison should be sacked, it is a complete disgrace."

Which leaves me wondering how Mr Davies thinks we might best prepare people for release at the end of long sentences. I often spend time with men who have spent up to 20 years incarcerated. To simply open the doors of a closed jail and sling them out would be stupid and would certainly lead to reoffending. Mr Davies should spend a wee bit of time thinking about how all this works before leading with his gob.

The BBC spent a lot of time in an emotive interview with a woman unfortunate enough to be at the site of one of Wheatley's attacks but they spent rather less time listening to one of the very few sensible voices involved. They spoke, briefly, to Professor John Podmore who explained why Open conditions are a critical part of the prison system and that processes are in place to ameliorate risk. He got less airtime than he was due as an ex-governor of prisons like Belmarsh. As he pointed out most prisoners who have served a long sentence abscond because of family or health problems. Lifers are statistically the group least likely to reoffend and although it happens it happens very rarely.

The problem in all of this is that with an election on the horizon politicians cannot be seen to be "soft" on prisoners so our dysfunctional criminal justice system might suffer yet another knee-jerk spasm brought about by media pressure on what is really a "non-story". And many of the people I work with; prison staff and prisoners, will be the ones who suffer.

Sorry if that's a bit long and rambly - I've been writing it in between bursts of work. The image is a £2 coin. I took it out of my pocket to put in a parking machine the other day and I couldn't work out what the design was so I used a different coin to pay for the parking ticket and I brought this home to look at it in more detail. Having taken a snap with my phone I thought it was a cool design and it was worth taking a proper photo and using it for a blip. And I've avoided my risqué gag about Dickens so that's a result innit! Take a look at this bad boy in big and you'll see details of the face and how it is made up of words which is spooky because Dickens used to write a bit as well as being a tourist attraction in Rochester and Chatham.