Rapists' to become crown court hearing escapists

How ridiculous: UK prisons are so full that there's no room for rapists'.

By Caitlin Baker, Elle-May Gribbons｜@caitlinbakerjourno｜@uncutgemzpodcast

19/10/23｜Pictures by RDNE

Defendants convicted of some of the most serious crimes, including rape, will be facing delays in going to prison because our jails are full. Crown Court sentencing hearings are set to be delayed to keep down prison populations, leaving anyone on bail either free in the community or held in magistrates’ court cells.

Our prisons are dangerously packed, with some holding 70 per cent more inmates than they should, the number of free spaces in the prison estate falling from just 768 last week to 651 this week, over which period the male prison population has increased by 211 to 84,412.

The question we all need to be asking is why? Why are our prisons so full?

According to the BBC, the prison population has ballooned in recent decades as a result of tougher sentences and court backlogs. "The reason we are in this position," Ms Mahmood, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said, "is that the government has consistently broken its promises to deal with the rising prison population."

On Thursday 12th October, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, tried to avoid blame for this preposterous notion by insisting sentencing was a matter for the independent judiciary. Yet the funny thing is, the government are the ones who run the prisons: the judiciary does not build prisons . This indicates politicians as the ones at fault, unsurprisingly.

"What am I going to do if a jury finds someone guilty (of rape)?” wondered one judge to the Times. “Do I release that person who is now convicted back into the community, where the victim might see them? What will the victim think?”

Answer the question politicians, what will this judge do? Release a rapist on to the streets where they are more than capable of committing the crime a few more times. Or is that alright? Because it's only a few times, right?

Absolutely not.

Under no circumstance is any of this ok. We are talking about rapists, not a low level crime , and you want to let them wonder our streets freely? shame on all of you.

With all of this in mind, the government must figure out a proposal to fix the rising population in UK prisons. They have put forward some bright ideas: release prisoners who are severing a sentence of less than four years up to 18 days earlier. This proposal was drawn up by ministers last week and outlined that the it would only apply to those who are set to be realised between 16th of October - 12th of December 2023.

Now, my first question is: why 18 days? And my second question is: how will realising prisoners 18 days earlier fix anything?

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary also unveiled that the have plans of attempting to return foreign prisons back too their place of birth as well as looking at renting places aboard for UK prisoners!

Well I'm speechless!

Not only are our prisons understaffed, underfunded and too full , Alex Chalk now has the idea of "returning" prisoners back their home countries. So what if somebody commits and a serious crime in the UK they just get sent to their home country and that's the end of it ?

Chalk added that he would realise these prions back onto the streets of the UK under conditions including electronic tagging and attending appointments with any breach of these conditions leading to “recall to custody for the entire second half of the sentence”.

At least I can sleep at night knowing the rapist or burglar next door has a tag on his ankle. Or that if they breach there very very few conditions they will b sent back to our way too over-crowded prions.

With all of this debate in the air, I can be sure people have many opinions on this topic.

If you have any thing you would like to say or argue get in touch and let us know.