𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The Government’s early release plan for thousands of prisoners, including killers and paedophiles, is a desperate act of political folly and a morally repugnant insult to the British public. If our country were ruled by politicians who were genuinely determined to fight criminality, then a sufficient number of jail places would have been created to meet the growing demand for incarceration.

But that is precisely what Ministers have failed to do, so they have ended up in the bizarre position of allowing prison capacity to dictate sentencing policy. Because of a shortage of jail cells, around 5,000 inmates could be released in October, having served just a third of their sentences. The justified outrage of this policy is encapsulated in the cases of Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, the teenagers convicted of the infamous killing of PC Andrew Harper, who sustained massive, fatal injuries during his investigation of a quad bike theft in rural Berkshire. Bowers and Cole were each sentenced to 13 years for their part in this brutal crime, but ministers admit that they are due for early release in October, something that Harper’s widow rightly finds “disgusting”.

At their trial, Bowers and Cole showed not a shred of remorse. Instead, they smirked and laughed throughout the proceedings. Now, having been treated with such disgraceful leniency, their self-satisfied contempt for our legal system will be even greater.

Ministers have got into this mess because they have been reluctant to accept that a strong prison network is essential to maintaining our civilisation. Since the late 1960s, as the left took control of our civic institutions, a consensus has developed within the political establishment that “prison doesn’t work”.

Even the Tories swallowed this line, writing in an official White Paper in 1990 that “prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse”. Apart from handwringing about the costs of jail – which now reach £60,000 for the average male inmate per year – it has also been common for the anti-prison brigade to argue that criminals are really the victims of society and need support rather than punishment.

Socialists prattle about deprivation as a prime cause of crime while academics wail about the impact of mental illness, whose definition is now so broad as to be meaningless: one high-profile study estimated that 90% of prisoners have mental health problems, a figure that implies criminal behaviour itself is a medical condition.

The excuse-making and syndrome-labelling can only undermine the ability of the state to protect us. Criminals have to be held responsible for their own actions, and that means building more prisons to accommodate them. The British public, with their pronounced sense of right and wrong, recognise this truth far better than the jargon-riddled so-called experts. In accordance with public wishes, jail sentences have become significantly tougher in recent years, with the average term handed out by the Crown Courts in England 25% longer than in 2012. It is the same story with life terms, which now average 17 years, compared to 13 years in 2008.

In response, serious crime has fallen, contrary to the deluded expectations of the “prison doesn’t work” mob. The lowest re-offending rates are found among those who served the longest sentences, whereas so-called community penalties smack of ineffectual leniency. Indeed, in a puzzled statement this week, BBC News, always in the liberal vanguard of prison reform, stated that “despite the fall in crime, more people are being sent to prison – and for longer”. If the BBC were not so blinded by dogma, it would understand that penal rigour is actually the explanation for the drop in offending.

The new Prime Minister faces a crucial test: will he abandon the discredited early release scheme and start building jails? Or will he cling to a flawed programme, which makes a mockery of justice? On his answer hangs the fate of his Government.