Taking a leak

The Sunday Times has seen some leaked cabinet papers that show that Gordon Brown has attacked the Home Secretary's tough sentencing agenda, and asked him to reduce costs by making better use of non-custodial alternatives, both before and after sentencing. The point about the high cost of John Reid's punitive agenda was made at the time when the brouhaha about sentencing first arose during the summer, though at the time it seemed that the Treasury's approach was to keep quiet.

In a roundabout way, this is pointing out the cost-effectiveness of community sentences, fines and electronic tagging as compared to custody. However, if this really is going to be properly sold to the electorate, someone needs to be explaining exactly how and why non-custodial penalties do work to reduce re-offending and to protect the public. But unfortunately the pro-privatisation agenda within the Home Office runs firmly in the opposite direction.

One person who is standing up for the Probation Service is John Raine, chairman of the Probation Boards Association, who wrote to the Home Secretary last week. His letter was eloquent and deeply passionate, and particularly critical of John Reid's choice of audience to whom he would attack the performance of the Service. The letter was quoted quite heavily by the Yorkshire Post, and attracted mention on the BBC website and in The Times - all three of these are worth a read, if only to counter some of the rubbish that has been coming out of the Home Office recently.