The Director of the Prison Service Phil Wheatley has just appeared on BBC News saying "We don't need to have a central record of people who abscond from category D prisons". Breathtaking, and a clear example of the all atmosphere of apathy that appears to pervade the entire Home Office. The full story is on the BBC website HERE. Surely the reason for collecting such numbers centrally is to detect trends and then do something about any worrying trends. But then, what do I know?
Strange that the Home Secretary hasn't been heard to comment on this yet. He's such a shy and retiring chappy isn't he?
Trends? Each escaped prisoner should be treated as a disaster.
ReplyDeleteOh yes - and Reid's 100 days to turn the Department round is up. Time to resign, Mr Reid?
ReplyDeleteApathy - incompetence more like.
ReplyDeleteBut in a way it's to be welcomed. All this 1984 stuff from NuLabour and the EUssr has to be implemented. That's all very well in theory. In practice?
What do you expect from this Government??
ReplyDeleteI have just paid my Income Tax bill for the last financial year.. 48 pence !! Yes thats correct 48 pence and to collect it they sent me a brown envelope containing a posh white pre pad envelope two leaflets and a Giro Form !!
How much did it cost the Government to collect that.Useless Government with stupid employees.In the past such a debt was rolled over into next year. I am P.A.Y.E by the way.
What do we expect? A web site with photos of those unlawfully at large? Making SOCA responsible for hunting down fugitive offenders? Or better still putting a decent reward on their heads? Putting prison governors and staff on PRP so if someone escapes they take a pay cut? Or perhaps increasing the sentence to being unlawfully at large to five years minimum? Nah come off it. Nu Labour will go for some eye catching candy for The Sun et al and put the file in the bottom draw the very next day.
ReplyDeleteSerial incompetents this lot.
Iain you are obviously unaware of the true meaning of 'Fit for Purpose'!
ReplyDeleteReid is all mouth (and the rest)and no trousers.
I must say that I am somewhat surprised that my old friend Phil Wheatley, Director General of the Prison Service, made the following comment:"We don't need to have a central record of people who abscond from category D prisons". Especially, as I know for a fact that every prisoner is accounted for in every prison, and that this information is supplied to Offender Management within Prison Service HQ. When a prisoner is discharged, escapes or absconds, as the case may be, this is recorded as "one off" the roll. The subtractions are added up, then this figure shows the total amount separate from the remaining in custody total. I am almost totally innumerate, however, I do guard the guards and am aware how they operate and how the system operates. This is not the "numbers game", the figures add up, what we are seeing here is prison politics.
ReplyDeleteUsually, it is the Prison Officer's Association (POA) playing silly buggers. This time it is the National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) who are playing silly buggers. The story is a non story. The real story is the story behind it all. The Home Office has decided to cut the numbers of probation officers from the public sector, and replace these with some from the private sector.
This is one of those headlines that say one thing and when you read the story something else emerges instead. In this case, it is not the text which provides the meat but reading between the lines provides a feast.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you expect me to say? As you know, the important thing for me right now, above all else, is the leadership battle I am involved in with Gordon Brown. As you know, he refused to give me the necessary funding to prevent this caper, so he is to blame. One of the reasons why I do not feel he is fit for purpose as the next leader of the Labour Party nor,indeed, as the next Prime Minister.
When I announced that Rab C Nesbitt is my campaign manager on Conservative Home, a poster commented that he preferred my campaign manager to Gordon Brown. This shows that anyone is more preferable than Gordon Brown.
I trust that this answers your question?
Not heard anything from the Tory party either.
ReplyDelete"We don't need to have a central record of people who abscond from category D prisons"
ReplyDeleteThey may be very apathetic to the idea of collecting the details and figures on this, but I really want to know the real picture and so should the shadow home secretary!
Neither do they keep a record of criminals who cut off their security tags. Yet we live in an age when data collection couldn't be easier.
ReplyDeleteIs there any co-incidence with the timing of this information and John Reid showing a little more interest in being leader.
ReplyDeleteI cannot understand how the Home Office is so clueless! Is there no accountability in Government anymore? John Reid should be telling the voting public what's going on and what he's doing to sort it out and if he can't he should resign and let someone else do it.
ReplyDeleteThe Home Office is getting worse by the week, not better and sadly its not funny.
The prison service is always losing track of prisoners, including prisoners who have NOT escaped. They move them round from one prison to another and then can't find them when wanted. It's a daily problem in the courts.
ReplyDeleteTalking of prisons, Ian, did you see that jaw-dropping story about Derbyshire Constabulary's decision not to release photographs of two convicted murderers who had escaped from Sudbury open prison? The numskulls said they had to take into account "numerous factors including ... the Human Rights Act."
You couldn't make it up, could you? And I haven't. It's on p.6 of today's Daily Telegraph.
Fortunately the decision was rapidly reversed. A thin shaft of common sense must have filtered in beneath somebody's helmet.
cllr mike flower: Does your mother know you're out this late? Run off home now and change your pants before you get nappy rash.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before, and I'll say it again, its not fit for purpose. Accountability in government? Have you been listening to the broadcasts of Lord Haw Haw, the Lord Chancellor?
I am sorting it out. The country is going to get a new leader. Then I will resign my post, and hand over the reins to David Milliband, when I become Prime Minister.
Lighten up, of course its funny. Prisoners have been laughing at this joke for years. Have you not heard of the sense of the absurd?
So this is how Rome fell to become just a city in Italy.............no doubt the current Cabinet will become local councillors as the EU envelops the remnants of a nation state
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trupeter. I was gobsmacked when I heard that the Police did not release photographs of two escaped prisoners in case in contravened their human rights!!! I don't want to go all Daily Mail - but how can anyone support that obvious madness?
ReplyDelete