Another cheap headline as 'Denham calls for tougher sentences for unemployed'.

Buy the book!!!

http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?Action=Book&ProductId=0215027752

Anything for a cheap headline.

Here is one from The Guardian;

'Denham calls for tougher sentences for unemployed.'

Read the story at

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1932173,00.html

or alternatively;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6087970.stm

Leaving aside the fact that his proposals are contrary to the principle of equality before the law and that they are unworkable anyway, no one is likely to take his proposal seriously. Why?

Because it was as recently as March that the Home Affairs Committee that Denham chairs considered the issue of sentencing with regard to robbery. Mr Denham chose then not to mention that he felt that the unemployed should suffer longer sentences than their employed counterparts.

Denham has consistently called for more people to be kept out of prison by a greater use of community punishments but perhaps he ought to address the real issues; the scandal of prisoners being locked up for 20 hour days plus, the endemic use of illegal drugs within prisons, the woefully inadequate education and rehabilitation opportunities for prisoners and the endemic over-crowding. As Michael Howard said, 'Prison works' ...but only if we let it.