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Tough on the causes of crime?

The announcement of a Women’s Justice Board should be cautiously welcomed, writes SABINA PRICE, but we need to see a recognition that our prison system is in crisis and disproportionately punishes some of the most vulnerable people in society

A general view of a Prison

THE words of the then-home secretary Michael Howard’s prison works speech at the Conservative Party Conference of 1993 have haunted Britain’s approach to justice for the last three decades, they became the foundation for cross-party consensus that led to penal populism dominating policy.

Howard exclaimed: “Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists — and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice … This may mean that more people will go to prison. I do not flinch from that. We shall no longer judge the success of our system of justice by a fall in our prison population.”

That same year the then shadow home secretary and future prime minister Tony Blair unveiled the now trite labourite slogan “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” at the Labour Party conference. While the former has been shouted, the latter has been a meagre murmur in British politics.

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