29.08.1996

Not fit to rule

If ever you needed a lesson on the irrationality and barbarism of the capitalist system, the recent ‘early release’ scandal fits the bill perfectly. Hundreds of multiple offenders were suddenly ejected from prison last Thursday, with no time to prepare and nowhere to go. Many were kicked out without a penny in their pocket.

Two days later, with many more prisoners expected to be released, Michael Howard frantically called a halt after obtaining legal advice. This means that at least 100 inmates due to be freed on that Saturday and another 100 on Sunday will remain in jail, unsure of their future fate. A total of some 4,000 prisoners could be kept in a state of limbo. This must surely be classified as mental or psychological torture by the UN charter of human rights.

What is going on? The prison service was informed by a working party that prisoners serving consecutive sentences are entitled to have the time they spent on remand awaiting trial counted for each separate offence - ie, the more sentences, the more the reduction in sentence.

Kafkaesque in many ways. As the new Sentence instruction manual states: “The aim is to eliminate variations in practice which might lose the prison service large sums of money in court costs and compensation to ex-prisoners.” Everything is clear now.

The result, of course, has been to unleash chaos and leave Howard with vast quantities of egg on his face, as his ‘get tough’ on crime image is severely dented. It also makes him look a bit of a fool. The same goes for the head of the prison service, Richard Tilt, who confessed that the whole affair had “been gravely mishandled”. He did claim, though, that “these serious failures occurred in good faith”.

However this may turn out, with either mass releases or a clampdown by Howard and his lawyers, it starkly shows that the capitalist class are not fit to run society. Their ‘solutions’ are based upon narrow political expediency and legal diktat - human beings are the first casualty.

We need a new society that can treat all its citizens with humanity and compassion, whatever the ‘crimes’ of individuals. This is too important to be left in the hands of the Michael Howards of this world.

Paul Greenaway