Commentator Carole Malone has taken aim at Labour's latest efforts to reduce the prison capacity numbers, after announcing that criminals could serve just a third of their original sentence.Unveiling the latest Government policy, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood revealed that certain prisoners will be returned to jail for just 28 days when they violate their licence conditions.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Now then, let's talk about, Carol, another Labour plan to go south on criminals.
00:05Do you know what? This is just astonishing.
00:07So this week it was announced that criminals will only serve a third of their sentence, which is pitiful enough.
00:13And then yesterday, we're told that the recall system for people who spit on that and commit crimes as soon as they get out,
00:20the recall is only going to be 28 more days in prison.
00:24This includes sex offenders and violence.
00:25Yes. And they said, remember, they said they were never going to let those people out, and they did let all those people out.
00:30So now if you break the terms of your release, you get another 28 days, which will probably be half as well.
00:36They'll probably let you out after a few.
00:37And this is, you know, we've got this woman, Shabana Mahmood, presiding over a total breakdown in law and order.
00:43Where is the justice for people who have been victims of crime?
00:46I agree.
00:46There is no, you know, our whole system seems to be focused on the people who commit crime and their needs and their wants, but not on the victims of crime.
00:53So now if you commit a rape, which you tend to get about three or four years for, you're going to be out in a year.
00:59So what price is a woman, you know, in this society?
01:01Well, and the conviction rate is incredibly low for rape and sexual assault, as we know.
01:06But I have to take issue with your characterisation, Carol.
01:09This is Labour cleaning up the mess of the last 15 years.
01:12Really?
01:12I know people are bored of hearing.
01:13Yes, because under the Tory government and the coalition before...
01:16Do you know how many prisons the Tories built?
01:17They built 13,000 places and closed 12,500, so that's a net gain of 500.
01:23Three prisons they built, with plans more for two, and the Labour only have plans more for three, and have not said when they're going to be built.
01:30There's an easy solution to this prison crisis.
01:31Kick out these foreign prisoners, just 10,500, get proper return agreements, kick them all out.
01:37But how hard is it to make detention-like centres to put people in for soft crimes, like, no, I say soft, they're not soft if it affects you, burglary, whatever.
01:46You know, we don't need hardline jails for that, but there has to be a consequence.
01:50And when there is no consequence, people are just going, it's, you know, that's why violent crime is wrong, isn't it?
01:54The immediate problem is that our prisons are at 98% capacity.
01:58We're going to run out of prison space in November.
02:00We nearly ran out of prison space last summer.
02:02So there is, in the short term, there is an imperative, unfortunately, to release some prisoners, or to release some prisoners early.
02:09The point is, they need to be really careful about looking at not, they said, let's not release violent criminal sexual offenders.
02:16And they did.
02:16And they did, and they absolutely mustn't do that again.
02:19But they need to look at people who are in there for, as you said, for softer crimes, with shorter sentences, and releasing those people instead.
02:25It didn't help last summer when they shoved hundreds of people in prison who'd put out stupid, inflammatory tweets about the Southport riot.
02:32And there's a lot of those people are still...
02:34But why do they have to go to prison?
02:35A lot of those people are in jail.
02:36Why aren't they getting out early?
02:38Yeah.
02:38We should talk about the Peter Sullivan case, really.
02:40It's a good follow-on from this, isn't it, really?
02:42Yeah, yeah.
02:43This is the man who was jailed for 38 years for a crime he didn't commit.
02:46And the story this morning, which is shocking beyond words, is that the maximum compensation this man can get is a million pounds.
02:54It's appalling, isn't it?
02:55For 38 years.
02:55A whole lot of his life.