Double Standards relating to Crime and Prison issues
January is topically busy ...
I noticed several articles which caused me some alarm:
'Fred the Shred', aka Fred Goodwin, has become employed one year on from the £26 billion Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) disaster where the Treasury own 80%+ the Bank. Noticeably it is being reported as a "disgrace"!!
Article in the Architects Journal by Merlin Fulcher on 17/01/10 entitled "RMJM hires 'Fred the Shred'" (click here)
Contrast this with an article about an ex-RBS employee, Donald Mackenzie, who has been convicted of a £21 million fraud and has been refused permission to become an Optician. Is there something we are not getting here, the article does say he is a "model prisoner and assessed as unlikely to reoffend".
Article in The Scotsman by Roger Pearson on 26/01/10 entitled "Bank Manager behind £21 million fraud looks to new career as optician"(click here)
Fred the Shred survives and is at large uncriminalised where accountability and responsibility have been seen to fail, another is convicted and cannot move on with freedom of choice of employability, further impounding upon his sentence. It is good to see there is an appeal process.
There is then the issue of Billy Bragg's story and his refusal to pay tax unless bankers's bonuses are curbed. This will attract fines and over time criminalisation. But he does have a point.
Article in The Daily Mail by Kirsty Walker on 19/01/10 "Billy Bragg in Facebook protest as he refuses to pay income tax unless RBS bonuses are curbed" (click here)
The Welfare Reforms agenda impacted in Scotland since 2006-2009 - and I assure you I have kept up with all of the relevant Government reading material on this topic as I sat on committees processing the same for the mental health sector including lobbying my MP on specific issues - the policy agenda is meant to assist core jobless categories re-engage with employability: either voluntary work or paid employment or self-employment. Core jobless categories are : loan parents, disabled, mentally disabled, NEET (youths not-in-education, employment-or-training), Age 50+, homeless, ex-prisoners and others.
I then noticed an article the other day about prison riots in Scotland.
Article in The Scotman published 26/01/10 entitled "Two prison officers hospitalised after riot in West Lothian jail" (click here)
And today, we have a forward thinking prison governor notifying in the press about a women's prison, Corton Vale, and the difficulties of some prisoners who should be doing community benefit rather than being in prison. I wholly agree. Non-violent criminality should be dealt with as a community benefit order or half and half. Linking the courts with Volunteer Scotland and possibly the Council could mean that many people involved in criminality are engaged in fruitful and meaningful employment via volunteering which could assist their future employability and social inclusion. I am aware the statistic for the mental health core jobless category is as low as 11% in Scotland, so it is likely to be even lower in relation to ex-prisoners. Most of the focus on the welfare reforms was directed towards loan parents and any of this category could have issues in other categories too. With volunteering, there is a way out, picking up skills, training and social inclusion issues could make a difference especially in relation to re-offending and paid employment posts in the charity sector do come up from time to time which could assist folks to move on where they do well. The cost savings from not being in Prison could be passed onto community projects and some will know that City of Edinburgh Council has a £90 million funding crisis that will impact from April 2010 and will affect the volunteer sector. This is likely to be the case across the UK. Volunteering, is something that appears to me to be an employability issue assisting the most "necessary" issues in society - the gaps in the system and it does make a difference: you get value and value added, plus some. One area where assistance could prove most beneficial is an improvement to the DLA form especially the section asking about hobbies and interests. Folks who become disabled over time often lose their ability, be it hands or walking to continue to have an interest in things that brought them pleasure in the past, and they don't replace the interest with something else. Volunteers anyone!! Peer support from a person needing assistance and some simple guidance - you can learn a lot from others. Volunteering needs to be seen as twofold: those who can volunteer and those who need the assistance of volunteers and people need to be able to ask for assistance - DLA form is a gateway as the box specifically asks about hobbies and interests (I did voluntary work as a Citizen Advice Bureau Generalist Adviser and these forms take over 1 hour to complete!) - what happens to this information, more importantly why is it gathered and, for whose benefit! (There is not even a volunteer leaflet going out with the DLA pack!) Sometimes volunteer and volunteer assisted can learn from each other, assisting both to not dwell on their significant issues, by focus on "the other". However, the welfare reforms does have draw backs: volunteer trapped; little or no employability rights; job retention issues, organisation not receiving enough support and funding to engage "welfare reform volunteers" over their existing reliable "altruistic volunteers", image of it being unpaid work over valueable engagement with your community for altruistic reward only and something to do, reason to get up in the morning and out the house, etc. The Office of the Third Sector was created by Gordon Brown MP but there are hiccups in the system and the OTS and welfare reforms agenda are still in their infancy. Given my earlier post - feedback would probably be useful, plus direction in relation to the Welfare Reforms given a recession has caused a serious setback in the policy agenda. In a recession where costs cutting needs to occur, the prison population is an area where serious "improvement" and "benefit" over "burden" could be garnered. People are not invisible, neither is poverty or social ex-clusion and "unequal" in society. Folks are always human beings first and they need to move on from criminalisation. 'Fred the Shred' has moved on ... from "disgrace". There needs to be better social justice, to include criminalisation of macro criminality as well as micro criminality rather than double standards. Food for thought ...
Article in The Scostman by David Leask on 27/01/10 entitled "Crisis-hit women's prison 'harms' inmates" (click here)
I noticed several articles which caused me some alarm:
'Fred the Shred', aka Fred Goodwin, has become employed one year on from the £26 billion Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) disaster where the Treasury own 80%+ the Bank. Noticeably it is being reported as a "disgrace"!!
Article in the Architects Journal by Merlin Fulcher on 17/01/10 entitled "RMJM hires 'Fred the Shred'" (click here)
Contrast this with an article about an ex-RBS employee, Donald Mackenzie, who has been convicted of a £21 million fraud and has been refused permission to become an Optician. Is there something we are not getting here, the article does say he is a "model prisoner and assessed as unlikely to reoffend".
Article in The Scotsman by Roger Pearson on 26/01/10 entitled "Bank Manager behind £21 million fraud looks to new career as optician"(click here)
Fred the Shred survives and is at large uncriminalised where accountability and responsibility have been seen to fail, another is convicted and cannot move on with freedom of choice of employability, further impounding upon his sentence. It is good to see there is an appeal process.
There is then the issue of Billy Bragg's story and his refusal to pay tax unless bankers's bonuses are curbed. This will attract fines and over time criminalisation. But he does have a point.
Article in The Daily Mail by Kirsty Walker on 19/01/10 "Billy Bragg in Facebook protest as he refuses to pay income tax unless RBS bonuses are curbed" (click here)
The Welfare Reforms agenda impacted in Scotland since 2006-2009 - and I assure you I have kept up with all of the relevant Government reading material on this topic as I sat on committees processing the same for the mental health sector including lobbying my MP on specific issues - the policy agenda is meant to assist core jobless categories re-engage with employability: either voluntary work or paid employment or self-employment. Core jobless categories are : loan parents, disabled, mentally disabled, NEET (youths not-in-education, employment-or-training), Age 50+, homeless, ex-prisoners and others.
I then noticed an article the other day about prison riots in Scotland.
Article in The Scotman published 26/01/10 entitled "Two prison officers hospitalised after riot in West Lothian jail" (click here)
And today, we have a forward thinking prison governor notifying in the press about a women's prison, Corton Vale, and the difficulties of some prisoners who should be doing community benefit rather than being in prison. I wholly agree. Non-violent criminality should be dealt with as a community benefit order or half and half. Linking the courts with Volunteer Scotland and possibly the Council could mean that many people involved in criminality are engaged in fruitful and meaningful employment via volunteering which could assist their future employability and social inclusion. I am aware the statistic for the mental health core jobless category is as low as 11% in Scotland, so it is likely to be even lower in relation to ex-prisoners. Most of the focus on the welfare reforms was directed towards loan parents and any of this category could have issues in other categories too. With volunteering, there is a way out, picking up skills, training and social inclusion issues could make a difference especially in relation to re-offending and paid employment posts in the charity sector do come up from time to time which could assist folks to move on where they do well. The cost savings from not being in Prison could be passed onto community projects and some will know that City of Edinburgh Council has a £90 million funding crisis that will impact from April 2010 and will affect the volunteer sector. This is likely to be the case across the UK. Volunteering, is something that appears to me to be an employability issue assisting the most "necessary" issues in society - the gaps in the system and it does make a difference: you get value and value added, plus some. One area where assistance could prove most beneficial is an improvement to the DLA form especially the section asking about hobbies and interests. Folks who become disabled over time often lose their ability, be it hands or walking to continue to have an interest in things that brought them pleasure in the past, and they don't replace the interest with something else. Volunteers anyone!! Peer support from a person needing assistance and some simple guidance - you can learn a lot from others. Volunteering needs to be seen as twofold: those who can volunteer and those who need the assistance of volunteers and people need to be able to ask for assistance - DLA form is a gateway as the box specifically asks about hobbies and interests (I did voluntary work as a Citizen Advice Bureau Generalist Adviser and these forms take over 1 hour to complete!) - what happens to this information, more importantly why is it gathered and, for whose benefit! (There is not even a volunteer leaflet going out with the DLA pack!) Sometimes volunteer and volunteer assisted can learn from each other, assisting both to not dwell on their significant issues, by focus on "the other". However, the welfare reforms does have draw backs: volunteer trapped; little or no employability rights; job retention issues, organisation not receiving enough support and funding to engage "welfare reform volunteers" over their existing reliable "altruistic volunteers", image of it being unpaid work over valueable engagement with your community for altruistic reward only and something to do, reason to get up in the morning and out the house, etc. The Office of the Third Sector was created by Gordon Brown MP but there are hiccups in the system and the OTS and welfare reforms agenda are still in their infancy. Given my earlier post - feedback would probably be useful, plus direction in relation to the Welfare Reforms given a recession has caused a serious setback in the policy agenda. In a recession where costs cutting needs to occur, the prison population is an area where serious "improvement" and "benefit" over "burden" could be garnered. People are not invisible, neither is poverty or social ex-clusion and "unequal" in society. Folks are always human beings first and they need to move on from criminalisation. 'Fred the Shred' has moved on ... from "disgrace". There needs to be better social justice, to include criminalisation of macro criminality as well as micro criminality rather than double standards. Food for thought ...
Article in The Scostman by David Leask on 27/01/10 entitled "Crisis-hit women's prison 'harms' inmates" (click here)
posted by Lesley McDade at 11:37 am
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