The Guardian View on the condemnation guidelines: right -wing politicians don’t have to call the melody | Editorial
COurs will know more about the people who are condemning is a good thing. Last month Attack by the Secretary of Justice ShadowRobert Jenrick, on the guidelines that recommend that individuals of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as women and young adults, should have pre-fractures on them, characterize the corrosive cultural policy in which it specializes.
Mr. Jenrick wants Undermine the independence of the judiciary Of changing the law So that the Secretary of State, and not the sentence of 14 members for England and Wales, has the last word. The guidelines have now been on pause, after the government introduced legislation that would have made illegal parts of them.
Jenrick is playing with populist politics. In affirming that the courts that follow the guidelines would be distorted against Christians and “heterosexual white men”, he was fomenting racial and religious divisions. Since there is nothing in the guidelines on sexual orientation and the “community of minorities of faith” could include many Christians (such as Catholics or Quaccheri), his statements were not only harmful but false. The inflammatory statements on “two -level justice” deliberately increased the temperature on what should be a calm and guided process by experts. They also distract from important practical issues such as the high rate of vacant places in the supervised freedom service. Without staff, the high quality relationships that the courts they need cannot be produced.
Racial disparities in the sentenceas well as the police, they are widely recognized, in particular in relation to Black men condemned for drug crimes. The most recent research notes that, although the overall disparities are not as wide as they were supported at the reference point Lammy relationshipAnd class prejudices can also be identified in the condemnation, black transgressors in England and Wales are 40% more likely be imprisoned with respect to whitented whites for equivalent crimes.
It should not be controversial to propose the most frequent use of relationships, as a means of dealing with this problem and others, including the damage caused to children when their mothers are imprisoned. But presumably for fear that the right attempts to feed a sense of complaint – in particular among the white voters – would have affected an agreement, the secretary of justice, Shabana Mahmood, took the cause. Unless the government change your mind, it will do so soon be illegal to give advice on pre-fracture relationships that differentiates between defendants on the basis of “personal characteristics”, although the consideration of circumstances It will still be allowed.
Law and Order has long been the favorite theme of authoritarian populists. A previous draft of the guidelines was rejected by Mahmood’s predecessor of Tory, Alex Chalk. He should have seen difficulty coming and keeping courage when he did it. THE relation Between the condemnation council and its ministry, as well as with Parliament, it seems underdeveloped. The last time its president provided evidence to the justice committee was in 2022.
Mahmood’s work It is far from easy. Prisons are chronically overcrowded and the public finance committee has recently warned that the delivery of another 20,000 places will cost £ 4.2 billion more than expected. Things were left in bad shapes of Tortes that Mrs. Mahmood has released thousands of prisoners at the beginning of autumn last. Ministers are waiting a relationship From the former Secretary of Conservative Justice David Gauke before deciding what to do later.
It is impossible to see a way out of this crisis that does not involve a greater use of Community phrasesSupported by technology and by a strengthened supervised freedom service. Mahmood urgently needs to recover the initiative. The cynical attempts to portray white Christian men since the victims of judges dedicated to equality should be fired out.
