THE coalition government has published its plans to turn Britain into one big prison with its own version of the US’ two strikes and you face a life jail term.
The government wants mandatory life sentences for crimes other than murder.
Under the proposals, a conviction for a second serious sexual or violent crime in England and Wales would get an automatic life sentence.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke admitted: ‘It is a big step and I don’t take it lightly’.
The plan includes tougher sentences for youth carrying a knife in a threatening manner.
The plan overall is being spun by Clarke as a moderate measure of relief.
He said: ‘We’ve got 6,000 people languishing in prison, 3,000 of whom have gone beyond the tariff set by the judge, and we haven’t the faintest idea when, if ever, they are going to get out,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He added: ‘It’s a gross injustice, a bit of a stain on our system.’
In fact, the UK under Labour and Tory regimes has built up the present total of 12,000 life sentence prisoners, more than Russia, Poland, Germany and France taken together. Mandatory life sentences will see this figure double or treble.
Clarke, in introducing the scheme, also made it clear: ‘We have already announced that we are bringing in an automatic prison sentence for any adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger.
‘Clearly any extension of this sentence to children requires very careful consideration. However, we need to send out a clear message about the seriousness of juvenile knife crime, so we are proposing to extend a suitable equivalent sentence to 16 and 17-year-olds, but not to younger children.’
Frances Crooke, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said she was ‘very worried’ about the proposals for mandatory life terms for crimes other than murder.
She added: ‘We are using the mandatory life sentence and discretionary life sentences like confetti already, and it is causing huge problems in the prisons.’
The plan for life sentences for serious crimes of violence cannot be taken outside the economic and political crisis, where the government is taking action to turn the UK into a nation of paupers and is expecting the ‘silent majority’ to rise up and challenge its measures.
The police have already used Taser shotguns, and are demanding the right to use rubber bullets, armoured LandRovers, CS gas and water cannons in inner city areas.
The government is bringing in legislation that will allow it to declare area curfews and to clear the streets of those who will insist on not being curfewed by a police state.
As the class struggle sharpens and millions take to the streets, as in Greece, there will be major clashes with the forces of the state.
The legislation that the Tory-led coalition is bringing in will be ideal for putting out of the way determined opponents of its austerity regime who take to the streets and commit ‘heinous crimes of violence’ when they refuse to allow riot police to batter them senseless or kettle them.
Britain already has the toughest anti-union laws in the world. Even these are not proving adequate, with leading bosses’ men demanding that they be made tougher so that legal strikes become impossible.
Already, the right to assembly has been threatened by measures such as banning all demonstrations in a large area, over a period of 30 days, when the English Defence League announces anti-Muslim demonstrations.
Now ‘violent crimes’ of resistance to police attacks are to be dealt with by a threat of mandatory life sentences.
The Tory version of going forward is to thrust Britain backwards towards the 19th century. All it lacks are plans for deportation to prison colonies in some new Van Diemen’s Land, such as the Falklands.
Britain has to go forward and put an end to backward out-of-date capitalism. This will require a socialist revolution in the period ahead.
