State machinery was widely employed to secure favourable outcomes in India’s recent regional elections against three progressive regional governments who dared to challenge Narendra Modi, asserts VIJAY PRASHAD
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Peers ponder way out of IPP impasse
RICHARD GARSIDE explains why Labour needs to summon the spirit of ’45 and back the Attlee amendment on resentencing
A prison block
[Matthew Ansley / Creative Commons]
It is too early to assume a US defeat in Iran — we must prepare for a long anti-war struggle, argues JOHN ROSS
ROGER McKENZIE says the ANC needs to respect South Africa’s Communists and their decision to stand independently at elections
KENNY MacASKILL remembers the woman who first translated The Communist Manifesto into English
The election offers a critical chance to shape the future of pay, care and community provision in Wales, says Unison’s JESS TURNER
As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR
THERE is widespread agreement across the main political parties and many legal experts that imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences need wholesale reform.
The life sentence-like IPP was imposed on thousands of people between 2005 and 2012. Abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively, almost 3,000 people remain languishing in prison, sometimes for years after the term set by the court.
Compared with the big challenges any government faces, this is a simple problem to fix. And while Conservative ministers and their Labour shadows agree that something must be done, Parliament remains deadlocked on the solution.
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NORMA AUSTIN HART reports from a conference on on the rights of women prisoners in the Scottish criminal justice system
Mental health fears push Peers to change law on IPP torture sentences, reports Charley Allan
