Keeping Our Streets Safe

One of the rioters of August 2011 has paid the ultimate price, which ought to please those members of the House of Claimants who believe prison is too soft an option. A man with asthma, arthritis, high blood pressure, Crohn's disease and a history of mental health problems was convicted of theft after taking a gingerbread man from a shop which had already been looted. He was sentenced, at the Government's behest, with no regard to the normal guidelines, and was remanded in Wandsworth, where the chief inspector of prisons had already found safety to be "a matter of serious concern". The gingerbread thief, having been cleared to use the gym in spite of his physical condition, collapsed and died of a heart attack after a strenuous workout: a rather poetic end for a sugar-stealing member of the idle poor. Inspectors had concluded that the "treatment and condition of simply too many prisoners at Wandsworth was demeaning, unsafe and fell below what could be classed as decent", and found "what appeared to be unwillingness among some prison managers and staff to acknowledge and take responsibility" for problems. Perhaps they blamed the snow or the Euro-wogs, or made points-saving arrangements with their wives.