Fair societies don’t treat prisoners like animals
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Version 0 of 1. No one is even remotely suggesting that the SNP’s social justice initiatives are mired in deep reactionary mud. This is the party, after all, that has annexed Scotland on an agenda that is so socially just that it makes dear old Nelson Mandela look like a phalangist. The reason why the citadels of the Labour party in Scotland have been reduced to rubble is because most of its former voters migrated to the SNP on the wings of freedom, enlightenment and the Caledonian way. By the time the SNP’s midsummer night of political rule in Scotland comes to an end, the country, we are assured, will be the most rock’n’roll, fair and equal society in the world. Since the Westminster parliament was reconvened, we have been treated to dozens of little Gettysburg addresses by the bright and eloquent 56. Each has scaled new heights in its fierce commitment to fairness and equality. This, of course, can only happen once proper fiscal power is devolved to Scotland, we are told by the Holyrood government. It’s difficult to be enlightened when too many levers of taxation remain in the control of an unenlightened shower of reactionaries in Westminster of the sort who would force disabled people to get out of their wheelchairs and fall down before handing over any more benefits. So until we get our hands on all the levers of taxation that we require, Camelot and Xanadu will have to wait for a while. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t still detect some clues as to the character of this SNP administration. One of them was provided with the SNP’s announcement that early release is to be scrapped for anyone found guilty of serious offences. No offender serving a sentence of four years or more will in future be eligible for early release. The SNP claimed that the shift had been welcomed “as an important move to keep communities safe”, a statement as vacuous and meaningless as the one about making Scotland the fairest and most equal country in the world. Nobody has welcomed the move, not even the country’s hang and flog ’em brigade, whose medieval and dim agenda this cowardly piece of legislation is designed to placate. They pointed out that very few prisoners would be affected and that it fell some way short of what the SNP government had previously promised in 2007 and 2012. Quite how a so-called socially progressive party thinks that ending automatic early release for these prisoners is a good idea has never been explained by anyone in the party. Scotland, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform, already jails an abnormally high number of its population. Earlier this year, this “socially progressive and just” Scottish government had to be dragged by its braided dreadlocks into scrapping plans for another women’s prison. The admirable Women for Independence group finally persuaded the enlightened SNP that jailing women, many of whom are victims of male violence and intimidation, and thus forcing their children into care, rather undermines a soul’s progressive credentials. If the SNP was genuine about “keeping communities safer”, it would be taking steps to reduce the percentage of prisoners who reoffend, currently one of the highest in Europe. But we know what its instincts are in that area too. Last year, it rejected moves to allow some prisoners the right to vote in the referendum on independence. It wasn’t quite in the same league as the act of folly by Jim Wallace, Scotland’s most hapless ever justice minister, in opting not to end slopping out in Scotland’s prisons. But it provides a narrative of reactionary behaviour by a civic Scotland that will always yield to its baser instincts when forming strategy on penal reform. Apart from the cost of ending early release of prisoners, there is another matter that ought to be taken into consideration when a government opts for a hardline approach towards prisoners. This is the degree to which it makes hardened jailbirds out of many who, if treated a little more humanely inside, might grab a second chance of making a contribution to society. Or are these men forever to be judged solely by their crimes and never to be allowed a chance to make amends? If you agree with that, then why not just bring back the death penalty? The SNP has also been boasting that its commitment to putting an extra 1,000 bobbies on the beat is also moving ahead at pace. This is also part of its aim to “make communities safer”. Presumably these communities will seek some guarantees that they won’t become guinea pigs for Police Scotland’s own ideas on keeping communities safer: stopping and searching them at will and for no apparent reason; bearing guns in public places for no apparent reason; giving electric shocks to the lieges for, admittedly, the merest hint of provocation. And that’s before they lie about it and concoct several different versions of the same story. Thankfully, they don’t often beat up suspects in custody. And I suppose we must take on trust that every conviction of four years or more handed down by another bewigged and privileged member of the New Club and Fettes is to be regarded as proportionate. Like many others in Scotland, I was glad that there seemed to be emerging in Scotland a settled and coherent democratic narrative that rejected greed and excess profit and was founded on the principles of compassion and our shared humanity. As long as we treat our prisoners as animals who must be allowed no degree of decency or a measure of forgiveness, then the quest for “fairness and equality” that has captivated Scotland these last few years is nothing more than a mirage. |