Cherie Blair criticizes judges for putting too many people in prison

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Scotsman

Thu 11 Jul 2002 PM’s wife attacks judges over prison population

Fraser Nelson

CHERIE Booth re-entered the political arena last night, criticising judges for sending too many offenders to prison.

Following a tour of Britain’s more overcrowded jails, the Prime Minister’s wife said in a speech that many inmates should not be in prison at all.

Her comments came two weeks after she was criticised for sympathising with Palestinian suicide bombers hours after one of them detonated a bomb in a Jerusalem bus.

Speaking in London in her role as Cherie Booth QC - one of the country’s top human rights lawyers - she said it was alarming that England imprisons a greater percentage of its population than any other country in Europe. "The huge increase in numbers and the prevalence of short-term sentences is crippling to any attempt at a constructive approach to prison," she said.

"It is particularly worrying that more than one in six of the current prison population is on remand - in other words they have yet to be tried or sentenced. In fact, the majority of this group doesn’t ultimately go on to receive a prison sentence."

In her speech, entitled, The Law, the Victims and the Vulnerable, she expressed particular concern about the impact of prison on women.

"A significant number of these families are permanently broke as a result of the mother's imprisonment and as many as four out of ten lose their homes," she said.

Although speaking in her capacity as a lawyer, her speech was taken as a message that she has no intention of stepping back from political life after being lambasted for her comments about Palestine.

Her Palestine comments came as she launched a charity for victims of the Intifada - hours after a suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis on a Jerusalem bus: "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress"

Although at the time she did not offer any sympathy for those killed, she later condemned the bombing and apologised if she had given offence by her remarks.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002

Answers

As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress

She has a point. If the kids had some hope of a better future than their parents had, the number of suicide bombers would drop.

If only the schools would stop preaching to the kids that there is only one way.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002


There have been two photographs of very small children dressed up like homicide bombers. Those kids have no comprehension of "hope" or much of anything else. Being dressed like that tells them their parents think it is "normal" for people to blow themselves up in order to try to take their enemies with them. I didn't notice the parents dressed the same way, just the kids. If it's such a good idea, why don't Arafat or any of the other leaders blow themselves up? If the situation is so hopeless why doesn't Hanna Ashrawi bloew herself up? If the leaders aren't blowing themselves up, it can't be that hopeless can it? Or is it that the Palestinians see their leaders misappropriating aid money (like on their wife and child's safety and security in Paris) and THAT makes them feel hopeless? If they feel hopeless it's because they have been TAUGHT (brainwashed) to feel hopeless.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002

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