In my last post I expressed a desire to move on from the hardnut policies on crime, security and justice. Because it is political expedient, because the timing is right and simply because it’s the right thing to do, we need to move away from the knee jerk reactions we have seen from Jack Straw and Alan Johnson on prison reform and the dropping of Section 44. I am however encouraged by Ed Miliband’s view that we shouldn’t “try to out-right the right on crime”. I hope other leadership contenders will start to think in the same way, and support reforms where they could make a real difference, while continuing to push and scrutinise to ensure these aren’t just budget cuts that forget the more important rehabilitation role in the rush to reduce spending and state involvement in people’s lives. he’s right that it’s electoral advantageous to us to do so too – win/win!

So I applaud Ken Clarkes moves to reform the justice system in favour of better rehabilitiation and will push for this to be done in the best possible way.

However, other reforms I find both deeply insulting and upsettingly baffling. The most obvious is the granting of anonymity to rape defendants.

I accept that there are liberal arguments about the anonymity of all defendants, but this is not that (There are also good societal arguments that we need to bring forward corroborative evidence which can only be done without anonymity). This is one crime, a crime with an already appalling conviction rate – largely because the burden of proof and distrust already falls disproportionately on the victim. There are many excellent arguments against this here.

This proposal was in neither coalition party manifesto, and therefore has no democratic legitimacy. It singles our a group of victims already significantly less likely to report the crime and adds an additional sense of belief that they are lying. It also makes it harder for victims to come forward to support each other.

Were the coalition interested in strengthening the protection of all accused of crimes I would listen, but this is not that. It’s a nasty small-minded attack on the rights of women. In the words of Tory MP Louise Bagshawe “singling out rape in this way ministers are sending a negative signal about women and those who accuse men of rape”.

Well if this government want to ride roughshod over the rights of women, maybe it’s time we started to play dirty too? So here’s my question: What’s the urgency, and who has what to hide?

Tags: Alan Johnson, coalition agreement, crime, Ed Miliband, Jack Straw, justice, Ken Clarke, liberal values, Louise Bagshawe, prison reform, rape anonymity, security

This entry was posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 18:26 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.