Plans to cut prison numbers don't add up
July 21st, 2008

The campaign for Damian’s Law and mandatory prison terms for knife carriers gathers apace thanks to the determined campaigners like John Muir.

His tireless efforts in making himself available for yet another round of radio and TV interviews these last few weeks keeps knife crime in the headlines and increases the pressure on politicians to act in order to prevent other families going through the hell that the Muir family has endured. 

One of the arguments against Damian’s Law so far has been a reluctance to impose upon sheriffs laws that force them to send people to prison rather than let them decide the merits of an individual case for themselves.

The accusation is that a change like Damian’s Law could infringe upon the independence of the judiciary, a vital component of a strong democracy.

So I was interested to see the campaign take another switch recently with the publication of the long-awaited report from the Scottish Prisons Commission, which proposes cutting our prison population by around 40 per cent.

This poses some interesting questions for Damian’s Law.

The obvious one is this – can we really expect to secure compulsory jail terms for knife carriers when the Scottish Government is trying to achieve cost savings by reducing the prison population by 40 per cent.

More importantly, there is a contradiction at the heart of this policy – on the one hand we are told it would be wrong to instruct sheriffs to lock criminals up while on the other hand it seems it is okay to instruct sherifs not to send criminals to jail for anything less than six months.  

Well, to me that sounds like having your cake and eating it.

There are serious challenges ahead in our battle to manage our prison population and keep our streets safer.

But these plans directly contradict the argument against Damian’s Law – a point I am sure won’t be missed by the anti-knife campaigners.