Criminologists say you have to give the criminals a break at the right time to let them get their lives sorted, often when they have just become parents or got married. On this occasion Labour is acquitted and I give them a break. Let’s hope they don’t reoffend.

I do think that Labour’s approach has made this worse, but I don’t think that it is their criminal justice policy that is principally to blame – more the general “I am not responsible for my life” mentality.

The biggest underlying thing she sees is kids who have absolutely zero self-worth, and as a result, place no value upon anything else, either. More often than not (I say that, because it’s not exclusively true), the parents have a huge part to play; many of them feel exactly the same way about themselves. These are the sorts of kids who get hauled up in front of children’s panels (if they’re lucky) or YOIs (if they’re not); getting sent down is usually the worst thing that can happen, as there’s rarely any going back from there.

As it goes, she does a bloody good job, and most of the challenges—as you might expect—are directly related to the key decision-makers within the system, rather than the kids themselves. On the plus side, much of what they do at that school is getting (very) gradually rolled out into mainstream education, because it’s not something beneficial solely to “delinquents” and “hooligans in hoodies” and the like… but, it’s a very very slow process, often blocked by people who can’t see the difference between handy-wavy blue-sky “thinking” (using the term loosely) and measures that are actually beneficial.

Mind you, as measured points out, it doesn’t help that the number of offences created by Labour since they came into power is… dizzying, to say the least.

Crime and Disorder Act 1998 c.37

Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) (Amendment) Act 1998 c.27 (included here for the sake of completion)

Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998 c.40

Criminal Cases Review (Insanity) Act 1999 c.25

Criminal Justice and Courts Services Act 2000 c.43

Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate Act 2000 c.10

Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 c.16

Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 c.29

Crime (International Co-operation) Act 2003 c.32

Criminal Justice Act 2003 c.44 (The most important one)

Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 c.15

Criminal Defence Service Act 2006 c.9

Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 c.38 (WHAT A JOKE!)

Serious Crime Act 2007 c.27

Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 c.28

Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008 c.15

Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 c.4

I may have missed some. I won’t even go near listing the SI’s that are just waved through in case you switch off, Stu.

Just unbelievable. Labour will no doubt highlight that they are catching more criminals or that the statistics are misleading…..

I think the concept of personal responsibility is the one which holds the key to all of this. People find it too easy to blame others for their own actions (‘how am I supposed to know better I’m [poor|from a broken home|dyslexic|from Glasgow]’ ) With greater emphasis on the idea that you personally hold the ultimate responsibility for your own actions, a lot of re-offences could be avoided.

Rehabilitation is the key, you’re right, but the new ‘causes of crime’ seem to be a lot of people who don’t feel like they have any responsibility for their own actions, and don’t have any fear of the consequences.

Or so it seems to me.

Reoffending rates are the key statistic, and they’re absolutely shocking in this country, especially for those given any sort of custodial sentence as a teenager (which happens rather a lot around my parts).

Sadly, no politician has ever done famously well by saying “here, hold on a second, rather than just locking up people for as long as we can until all the prisons are full and we have to either run an early release programme or just not lock up people who pose a danger to others, shouldn’t we focus efforts on the “rehabilitation” part of what the justice system’s supposed to provide?”