YOU have to hand it to the SNP; they hit the ground running so hard and fast that the Royal Parachute Regiment will soon be knocking at their door asking for advice. Last week the party leaked some tasty wee morsels from this year’s great autumn initiative to one of its favourite Union-supporting newspapers. Perhaps this was by way of a bribe to ensure that the report that followed was fair and balanced.
Now, within a matter of days we are seeing some early fruits of the SNP’s brand, spanking new reform agenda which followed last year’s great “Summer of Independence” of which we have since heard nary a peep.
Without any further ado I give you “No fags for lags”. This follows the SNP’s “No Tails for Dogs” and will be followed, we are told, by no urinals in Scotland’s schools. The incorrigible cynics among you might suggest that not only will these initiatives fail to set any heather alight; they probably wouldn’t even fire up a Swan Vesta. Being a glass half full kinda chiel though, I’d prefer to say that they’re just baby steps on the road to revolution.
The “No Fags for Lags” policy is the real eye-catching one among them. Only a genius motivated by a selfless desire to keep Scotland’s prison population down could have come up with that one. For decades the best and brightest brains in the crime reduction sector have sought in vain for the answer to the question of why Scotland insists on locking up so many of its citizens.
Now, with a subtle but brilliant flourish Michael Matheson, the cabinet secretary for justice, has emerged with a winner: stop all prisoners in Scotland’s jails from lighting up in the privacy of their own cells. That’ll soon learn the recidivist oiks.
With this proposal Matheson has sent a collective shiver down the slimy spines of Scotland’s law-swerving community. Previously, even the prospect of a 20-year stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure has failed to cut out the stabbings, slayings and casual drive-by shootings in Glasgow which make Gangs of New York look like Pride and Prejudice. Now Scotland’s criminal fraternity are faced with the prospect of being banged up without recourse to a few wee Bennies to lighten the gloom.
Those who might ungenerously point to Scotland’s high rates of re-offending are just being pedantic curs. According to the Scottish Government’s own report on the matter re-offending “costs around £3 billion a year, creates victims, damages communities and wastes potential”. Well, quite. We also know from a Council of Europe report released last year that Scotland’s prison population rate has risen by more than 10 per cent in a decade. Currently, there are around 148 people in jail per 100,000 of the population in Scotland, compared with the European average of 136.
Apparently, the SNP are concerned about the dangers that passive smoking hold for Scotland’s hard-pressed and neglected prison warden community. These unsung heroes of the criminal justice system had for years been forced to impose a heartless regime of forcing common criminals to slop out their own bodily waste in buckets. So, it’s only right their welfare is uppermost in the minds of all right-thinking people everywhere.
But why stop there? I believe most sincerely that a Royal Commission be set up to investigate reports that our prison population isn’t being made to eat its greens. There have also been disturbing eye-witness reports that people doing time aren’t getting anything like their five-a-week intake of fruit and vegetables. Look, we might be failing miserably to stop hardened criminals learning new methods inside jail of evading the long arm of the law. But surely in a compassionate and enlightened society the least we can do is to ensure that they when they get back to re-offending they can do so while pursuing a healthy and balanced lifestyle. There must also be very many prison officers who are vegans and even vegetarians.
We can only guess at the deep emotional and spiritual distress they must encounter when faced with tables groaning with mince and chicken liver pate.
I’d also look at the taxing issue of swearing by inmates in our jails. I’m told that the casual deployment of obscene language in our nation’s correctional facilities is reaching epidemic proportions. You don’t need me to tell you how much this much upset our blameless prison officers, especially those with young families. And so, I would begin a campaign of tough love to stamp out swearing in our prisons once and for all. I know this will be really difficult to manage and to impose, so perhaps we could pilot a system whereby foul-mouthed prisoners are subjected to degrees of light physical chastisement whenever they indulge in profanities. I’d suggest cattle prods at first followed by tasers for the most persistent offenders.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the SNP has up its sleeves next to address child poverty, multi-deprivation and the educational attainment gap which continue to stalk our most dis-advantaged communities. Some of the topiary in these neighbourhoods is beginning to look a bit unkempt. Don’t poor people deserve to have handsome hedges in their gardens too?
In the meantime I wish the Labour MSP Monica Lennon all the very best when she launches her members bill consultation on period poverty, a real issue that affects many women in our less affluent communities. A year ago Lennon asked the Scottish Government what it was doing about “period poverty”. The answer was in the “zilch to nothing” range. Lennon’s indefatigable campaign has since led to this issue coming to the forefront of Holyrood’s reform agenda.
Predictably, some SNP politicians have tried to claim retrospective credit for this by citing the fact that the issue was previously raised with the SNP National Council. This though does not constitute a properly-run and committed campaign that gets results.
The SNP has four years to make a cast-iron case for independence. The feeling persists though, that for some of its members this has ceased to be a sacred cause (which it is) and more of a career choice.
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