Jack Straw today says that the justice system needs to "get tough" with criminals. Find me a Home Secretary who hasn't talked tough on crime over the past twenty years. But it's always precisely that. Just talk.
The criminal justice system is failing law abiding people because it's not accountable to law abiding people. Those supposed to chase criminals through the street or through the courts, or "manage offenders" answer to remote officialdom – not to you and me.
As a result, criminal justice has been hijacked by those with unconsciously leftist assumptions. Policing? PCs are so PC in some areas they resemble social workers. The CPS? Their interpretation of "public interest" isn't one most members of the public would recognise. Probation Service? A triumph for behavioural psychologists.
Does Straw propose to change any of this? Of course not. He's actually proposing to make the system even less unaccountable. He wants a new "victims commissioner" sitting along side the experts on the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Yet more quangocrats to represent you....
Straw's spiv-talk will no more give us the sort of criminal justice system we need than any of the other "get tough" initiatives tried over the past decade. It’s time for a different approach.
In a couple of week’s time, I’ll be introducing a 10 Minute Rule Bill in Parliament calling for the criminal justice system to be made properly accountable to the communities it’s supposed to serve. It’s the first of some dozen or so Bills I intend to introduce to the Commons, which I detailed in my book, The Plan.
Sure, let’s have a new "victims commissioner". But he’ll be called a "Sheriff". He’ll not be the smooth-tongued Whitehall patsy Jack Straw had in mind. No, your local Sheriff will be elected directly by you and your community.
Not happy about the way your community’s policed? Elect a Sheriff who’ll sort it out. Unhappy that one in ten cases are dropped by the incompetence of the local CPS? Rudy Giuliani wouldn’t have put up with it. Want a criminal justice system that puts the administering of justice ahead of rehabilitation? When you’re able to elect your sheriff, I think you’ll find most of your neighbours agree.
