Month: August 2006

…if this story is right:

Overcrowded jails reaching bursting point

by MATTHEW HICKLEY, Home Affairs Correspondent
00:24am 12th August 2006

Britain’s overcrowded jails are set to reach bursting point by the end of the month with the prison population reaching a new record high yesterday and spare places dwindling fast.

In the past week the number of criminals locked up in England and Wales has climbed by 175 to 79,094 – breaking the 79,000 figure for the first time.

Doing the math, that’s about, oh, 0.1% of the population of that region. By contrast, the U.S. currently imprisons about 0.7% of our population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

At that rate, and with just 506 spare places left, absolute capacity will be reached in less than three weeks, forcing the Home Office into drastic measures.

Like building more prisons?

Officials insisted last night they were “concerned but not panicking”, (they leave the panicking to the public) and insisted they still hoped to avoid having to launch Operation Safeguard – the emergency plan to move convicted criminals into police station cells, at huge expense.

The looming crisis in the embattled Home Office is another blow for Home Secretary John Reid, who has promised to “rebalance” the criminal justice system in favour of victims.

Uh-oh. I’m getting a bad feeling about this…

Earlier this week the Mail revealed that hundreds hardened teenage criminals, including muggers and burglars, are to be freed from jail early because youth jails have run out of cells, with governors under urgent orders to trawl their prisons to find young offenders suitable for early release, or transfer to children’s homes.

Now ministers could be forced to take similar steps in adult jails to avoid newly-sentenced criminals arriving from courtrooms being turned away.

Why am I not surprised? And does “turned away” mean “turned back out on the street”?

At least 40 convicts have already spent the night in police cells in the West Midlands because no room could be found for them in local jails.

The crisis means courts are likely to come under even more pressure not to hand out prison sentences to criminals, but to use supposedly tough community punishments for more and more offenders.

Or you could just hand them “ASBOs” and let them go on their merry way! Aren’t those “supposedly tough”?

A Home Office spokeswoman said officials were ‘concerned’ and were watching the situation closely.

“Watching the situation closely” via closed-circuit television, I’m sure.

Capacity is expected to rise slightly in the autumn as a small number of prison wings are reopened following refurbishment work, but that could come too late to avoid the current crisis.

Prison campaigners claim overcrowding prevents jails from carrying out vital rehabilitation work with offenders to steer them away from criminal careers, and have accused ministers of complacency over the issue.

Perhaps you might consider the fact that “rehabilitation” isn’t actually accomplished, and that the resources spent on it might be better applied elsewhere? (And in poli-speak, “complacency” means “You’re not spending enough money on my pet project, bub!”)

Even the traditionally quiet summer months when many courts are closed have not halted the relentless rise in the jail population, which has soared by some 2,300 over the past year alone.

Housing offenders in police cells costs £362 ($685) per night – more than many top hotels – compared with £66 ($125) per night in a prison.

Maybe we should introduce the British to Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Tent cities, pink underwear, and bologna sandwiches have to cost less than a night at the Radisson, much less one in the Presidential Suite at a Hilton.

The extreme option if the crisis-point is reached is administrative release, where the Home Secretary can order offenders close to the end of their sentence to be freed.

“Close to the end” being a somewhat flexible measurement, I’m sure. Meanwhile, reality rears its ugly head on a different topic:

Council tax ‘must soar to plug hole in public pensions’

By MATTHEW HICKLEY
21:46pm 11th August 2006

Council tax bills will have to rocket to plug the Government’s black hole in public sector pensions, the head of the spending watchdog has warned.

Remember, “There is no Social Security crisis.”

Steve Bundred, chief executive of the Audit Commission, says local taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill after ministers caved in to union pressure to allow town hall staff to continue retiring early on gold-plated pensions.

The U-turn provoked fury as ministers had pledged that public sector workers would have to retire at the same age as the private sector. Local government pensions already cost the taxpayer a staggering £3billion ($5.67 billion) a year.

Under Labour, the annual local government wage bill before pension costs – excluding police, teachers or firefighters – has soared from £11billion to £18billion ($20.8 to $34 billion) and now costs around £845 ($1,600) per household.

That’s per year.

Mr Bundred has written to Ruth Kelly, the secretary of state for communities and local government, calling for the local government pensions scheme to be overhauled.

He said: ‘At some unspecified date in the future, someone will have to start bailing out the funds. That someone is most likely to be the local taxpayer.’

Uh, excuse me – who else would it be?

He went on to warn that there was an ‘accountability gap’ in public sector pensions. ‘Taxpayers, and members of the scheme, are entitled to a greater degree of assurance that the funds offer value for money,’ he said. ‘What is needed is far more openness and transparency.’

Not “lower, later benefits”?

Mr Bundred added: ‘The accountability arrangements for the Local Government Pension Scheme do not match its scale. What passed as fit for purpose historically is now inadequate as liabilities have grown thanks to increasing life spans and higher salaries.

‘Particularly lacking is accountability about performance to the taxpayer and to the employees making contributions.’

Local government is one of the UK’s biggest employers with 3.2million on the payroll and has an asset value of nearly £90billion, making it the world’s fourth largest pension fund.

Strike threat

Last year, ministers backed down in the face of strike action by local government workers by allowing existing employees to continue retiring early on inflation-proofed final salary pensions.

Under existing rules, they can retire with a full pensions if their age plus their length of service totals 85 years, and has led to the average retirement age for a council workers falling to 58.

Campaigners have warned that private sector employees are being forced to pick up the bill so that their public sector counterparts can enjoy pensions rights which they do not enjoy.

Those in the private sector have been told they will have to work until 68.

Can you imagine the howls here when we’re told that Social Security won’t start paying out until we hit 68?

Experts have warned that the total black hole in public sector pensions is currently £530billion (a hair over $1 trillion), making it a huge burden for future generations of taxpayers.

Ah, the British, and their flair for stiff-upper-lip understatement!

The Tories said that the black hole in local government pensions alone is worth around £32billion ($60.5 billion).

Local government spokesman Caroline Spelman said: ‘This year Labour has hiked the council tax bills of pensioners by £250 ($472).

‘Since 1997, one third of the basic state pension has been grabbed back in everincreasing council tax. Pensioners are being jailed for non-payment, while violent criminals roam the streets freely.

See the piece immediately above (written by the same reporter, no less!) No wonder the prisons are overcrowded! You have to wonder about the economics of locking up pensioners at $125 a night for non-payment of taxes, don’t you? Or do they get the Presidential Suites?

“Yet the Labour Government is adding insult to injury by making hardworking families pay towards the cost of goldplated town hall pensions.

And you expected a different outcome… why?

‘Council taxpayers simply cannot afford to foot the growing bill. At a time when some private sector workers face having to work until 68, this is neither sustainable nor fair.”

I quote:

The EU is built on a fantasy–that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living increase. And this miracle is to be brought about by the enlightened bureaucratic regulation of every aspect of life.

Paul Johnson, 10.06.03 Forbes Magazine “Europe’s Utopian Hangover”

It may be that England gets to be first to wake up to the facts, but at this point I’m thinking they’re going to sleep through the lesson.

James Frayne, campaign director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, added: ‘Local people have only just been warned that they may have to foot the bill for an increase in the number of migrants coming to Britain, so they will be alarmed that they also face the prospect of having to pay for local government pension schemes.

‘The Government has got to understand that people are already struggling to make ends meet and they can’t keep being used as a convenient cash resource.’

Sure they can. Who’s going to stop them?

I mean, until the goose that lays the gold-plated pension eggs lies dead that is.