In yesterday's Evening Standard Shaun Bailey, our candidate in Hammersmith, wrote an excellent defence of Ray Lewis' approach to knife and related crimes. The full article is here but this quote stood out to me:
"At the weekend, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said she will introduce new measures such as making young people visit stabbing victims in hospital and meet their families. Does she really expect kids who have been watching extreme violence in films and on the internet since the age of 13 to be shocked by that?"
The Home Secretary has had a terrible few days. This was the main leader in today's Daily Mail:
"According to the Council of Europe and the think-tank Civitas, we have 12.4 prisoners per 1,000 crimes, compared with an EU average of 17.5. Indeed, if we sent offenders to jail at the same rate as Spain (57 prisoners per 1,000 crimes), our prison population would be a staggering 369,000, instead of 80,000. Contrary to what so many politicians and judges claim, our penal policy is, by European standards, actually rather soft. Isn't it time this issue was treated with more honesty? And more respect for the public's intelligence? How sad in these deeply worrying times that we are saddled instead with the vapidity of Home Secretary Smith."
