Daniel and the Lion's Den

I seem to spend an improbable amount of time on trains. Mostly to and from the Westcountry and Paddington, on which station I am now an expert. If you need to find a free loo or handy powersocket, I'm yer man.

Today – a rare weekend excursion – I'm off to points Northwards to the www.FACTuk.org conference. This is behind closed doors and in an undisclosed location for the obvious reasons – FACT do the excellent if unpopular work of campaigning around false accusations of abuse. My attendance as a speaker is likely to be somewhat more awkward than my usual talks, as I am attending solely to explain how and why it was I came to make a false allegation myself some 15 years ago. Once I knew the guy was actually innocent, I withdrew my claim and have banged the drum for his innocence and against the police trawling process in such cases. Nevertheless, on the lies of others – cleverly manipulated by the police – the guy was convicted and served 12 years in prison. For crimes he did not commit I expect some harsh quesioning....but it is only fair I take it and just hope that my perspective on how the police manipulated their investigation can somehow help those fighting such cases.

In my work at Inside Justice one of the types of cases that cause me to groan with frustration are those characterised as "historical abuse". There are no forensics, rarely a clear alibi, and the whole thing reduces to "he said, she said". It is difficult to move such cases forward, especially once you realise that the Court of Appeal  does not exist to correct a clearly insane jury verdict. No matter how mindboggling the verdict may be on the face of the evidence, that is not a ground of appeal. Being innocent isn't a persuasive argument to gain a hearing before their Lordships.

It is important, then, that those like myself who have been on the inside of such cases and investigations stand up and give an account of not only our own actions, but a clear analysis of how it is that the police can take an innocent man and marshall enough evidence out of thin air to have them incarcerated.

If attempting to redress these injustices at the end of the criminal justice process is so very difficult, perhaps it may be better to try to prevent them in the first place.

Off to take my lumps now. Ho hum.

Versus...Grayling

No sooner had I bitched about Grayling and the broad thrust of Tory prison policy then the man himself decided to make the nightmares come true. The first I really knew about it was when a couple of media orgs contacted me to see if I was available to comment on Graylings announcement the next day. Unlike the rest of us, media folk are given copies of ministerial waffle a day in advance, on the understanding that it is under embargo until a specific time. These were duly winged my way, and I went to sleep with a nasty taste in my mouth at what was to come on awakening.

Whizzed down to London I duly popped up on the ITV daybreak programme at the unearthly hour of 0640. A time I had previously existed only as a myth. The green room there on the south bank is populated by two long sofas and a coffee bar. The latter is the most essential item. The sparse population of guests for the programme at that hour were all seated, being shuffled between makeup, coffee and nibbles. As is the way in TV land, I was accompanying a victim of crime into the studio. Mrs X’s son had been killed in a particularly empty assault and, unsurprisingly, she had views that diverged from mine. We met in the green room and chatted quite pleasantly I was was pleased to learn that she was keen on education and training, albeit in a punitive environment, and not a dull person filled with blind hatred.

At the appointed moment we were gently molested by those tasked to administer microphones about our person and led into a corner of the studio. The presenters were about their business and, as a video tape played, we were ushered onto the sofa. A few words of greeting and straight into the questions… here’s a secret. I never prepare responses; I never try to fathom what may be thrown at me and pre plan any response; neither do I have prepared points I wish to lever clumsily into the exchange. My working theory – and its succeeded so far – is that there isn’t a single issue around prison that I haven’t spent years considering, and so my responses flow from that history spontaneously. The danger in this is that a question may floor me completely, but we shall see!

Time takes on a different meaning before a camera. I know, objectively, that the telly puppet masters are controlling the whole environment down to the last second but in the moment I somehow fail to recognise this in that I don’t try to squeeze in as much of what I want to actually say as possible. I just talk. When time runs out every guest feels slightly bereft, left knowing there was so much more to say…

I shot out of the studio like a jackrabbit, knowing a car was awaiting to scuttle me across the Thames to the BBC – Radio 5 Live Breakfast with Nicky Campbell. It was one of the grand artdeco buildings the BBC still clings to – thankfully – and I shot up the grand staircase to reception behind schedule. Radio 5…breakfast..Ben Gunn…guest…” and the guards pointed this wheezing apparition to the next floor. Where I found, in the corner, an incongruous room that leapt from grander days but was now fitted with headphones, mikes and the paraphernalia that wafts disembodied voices across the airwaves. Max from thePpolicy Exchange was already there and we faced each other across a small table. No idea where Nicky Campbell was, not even in the same county as far I ever knew. Voices of producers and presenters streamed through our headphones and we said our respective pieces. Somewhere in all of this I'm pretty sure I also spoke with Nick Ferrari on LBC. Forgive me, this was all absurdly early and very rushed!

That episode concluded, off up the stairs several minutes late to the sky breakfast studio. Shoved into a cubicle to be faced with a monitor, camera and microphones I felt slightly disembodied as Eamonn Holmes spoke to me. Item concluded, I sat for a moment…no one came. TV folk assume everyone knows what’s what but this was all new to me. Rather timidly I pulled the door open to be faced with….Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling. Yep, it was himself. And a flunky. Probably a PPS or the like, but anyone trailing behind someone I recognise carrying pieces of paper falls under the heading of “flunky”.
Grayling extended his hand and said good morning. I grinned, shook his hand and said, “Just so you know, ‘ve just given you a kicking in there.” Unperturbed he replied, “that’s alright, I’m on in 10 and will return the favour…” I shot off to the exit and the next car, wondering just what the hell I could say to him in a few brief moments that could convey the depth of my meaning.

On the pavement TWO cars awaited. Like an idiot I forsook the Mercedes for the Prius (Clarkson, forgive me…) and shuddered back to ITV for round two at the coveted 8.10 spot. Essentially a repeat of the earlier exchange, but made more interesting by the appearance of Julian Clary into the Green Room. I pondered. And couldn’t resist. Leaning around the PA who sat between us I spoke. “Mr Clary, did you ever meet Norman Lamont?” Alas “No”. And if you need the potential humour in that meeting to be explained, you’re way too young.

And here my mind begins to fade, my memories fragmenting. It was only just past 8am and I had already done 3 TV and 2 radio interviews. Something else happens here, another interview to fill an hour of my time? Because I knew I was due at Portland Place for the Beeb again at 10 till 1130. No snazzy green room with nibbles and coffee at the Beeb, just straight into a “sound pod” which made a cell seem spacious, to give 9 back to back interviews with local radio stations.

By the end of this I was in need of coffee and sleep. Or either. Instead I found myself being led into the lower levels of the building to the News 24 studio, where I bumped into my old boss from the Howard League who was also giving interviews reacting to Grayling’s proposals. In response to my bemoaning this treadmill he told he he had recently given 25 interviews in a single day. Blimey.

Without any experience of TV studios we have a mental image of how it must be. Presenters, technical people and, obviously, cameras and camera operators. All of my experience to date only reinforced that picture, until I came face to face with what I can only call a robotic studio- BBC News 24. The presenters sit in front of a glass wall with the floor of the Beeb dedicated to news hustles and bustles behind them. The circular desk at which they sit has monitors recessed beneath the glass surface. So far, not so odd. But as I was led in I noted only one other person…and four cameras whizzing around on semi-circular rails, televisual C3PO’s that popped up next to you without warning. It was weird.

After saying my piece and backing away from the robots, it was back upstairs for two further radio interviews and then to re-enter the normal world. I stood in a small alley behind the nearby church at Portland Place and felt utterly and completely drained. The alley was full of piss smelling cardboard, and I won’t deny that the idea of just laying down to go to sleep didn’t cross my mind!

Not an option…I had to catch up on a dozen voicemails and phone my long-suffering probation officer. And explain just why I wasn’t sitting in her office as per established appointment. For amongst this chaos my travel plans had gone massively awry. It’s fortunate that I have never even come close to never making any previous appointments and oil was poured upon the waters to everyone’s satisfaction.

Which still left me exhausted. So I wended my way across London to the Howard League, turning my mobile off for respite, to catch up with the bits and pieces  do there with students and youth. This gave me a few hours calm. At some point I made the error of switching my phone on, to find myself with engagements for Channel 5 News and then the Iain Dale phone-in show on LBC.

At Channel 5 I bumped into Max from the Policy Exchange again, who somehow forgot to mention that he had designed the IEP Scheme in several prisons…but a fair opponent in these debates. And as is the way when time is vital, in the car to LBC I hit every set of red lights across London. Dripping sweat I ran up the
stairs 20 minutes to late, to be welcomed by the always urbane Iain Dale. This was a phone-in, a new experience for me and one fraught with potential to be a vicious engagement. It wasn’t.

I finally staggered into bed at midnight. This was the most hectic and gruelling day I have experienced since release and if nothing else increased my respect for those celebs touring to flog us their wares. And then I had to ponder quite why I said yes to any of these things , rather than no.

This is a serious business. There are so few ex prisoners able or willing to stand in public and risk speaking, especially when that message may not be the one most popularly received. Prison is in my bones, perhaps inevitably, and whilst I no longer feel the sharp anger of the prisoner there is rarely a conversation where I don’t inadvertently say “we” rather than they. I am a prisoner, albeit on license, and I also have the outrage of any sensible person when faced with populist political interference in prison life.

The core issue at hand, whether prison life is too hard or too soft, is to be distracted from the true path. The question Grayling should be asking – if need be on the insistence of the electorate – is whether anything he proposes will actually reduce future crime.

And that is the question our politicians won’t go near, for fear of popular dissent. The assumption is that people prefer “tough” to effective”. If that is right, then the consequences fall on our heads and consciences and we should be ashamed of ourselves for swapping the pain of future victims for a brief atavistic twitch of glee rooted in prisoner-hating.

For one night only....

Some have complained that I rarely mention my daily doings here but instead splash about on Twitter. Fair cop. So.... Tonight I am talking at Kaplan Law School in London, having a chat with a journalist from The Economist, and attending my weekly probation appointment.

Involving a trip to London, today will invariably include a foray onto Twitter to launch my usual bitter diatribe against GWR as I travel back, and quite possibly some harsh words to those who peddle simplistic ideas about criminal justice.

Tomorrow I take possession of my new place.

There, now you know. Happy now?

All The Best Bands Have A Conductor of Genius

Recent weeks have been a time of great turmoil. My silence here, and on Twitter, may have been the only visible clue that something was amiss. I am moving out of the home created by The Editor and into my own place, hopefully for no more than a few months.

Only the other night we were talking about the origins of the blog, and realised we couldn't recall who first thought of the idea. I think it was her. Whichever of us had that spark of inspiration doesn't really matter, because it grew into being Ours. It is her efforts and struggles that have afforded me the life that I now live and struggle to adapt to, with all its positive potential.

It shadowed our relationship, its birth, how we developed and the mess I have made of it. But the blog continues and I hope it will prosper in every way and lead me back to the obvious conclusion. That the blog, and I, need The Editor.

Watch this space.

One Man Band

Long term readers will know that this blog has always had someone in the background   Whilst in prison, Ben could not post the blogs himself.  He sent them to me - usually typed on a word processor but sometimes handwritten - and I would scan, edit if need be, and post to the blog. Since release, Ben has not really needed an Editor. I just hunt for the odd rogue apostrophe or typo before hitting the publish button.

Sadly, Ben and I are going separate ways.  He needs to find his path and I need to pick up the threads of my life as it was before he came into it.  So please forgive him the occasional typo, for the foreseeable future at least...

Alex (the "Ed")

Plain Nasty

There is a rather vicious strain of old Tory nastiness beginning to peep through the urbane curtain that cloaks the Minister of Justice, Chris Grayling. Those of us who were quietly hoping that he would broadly follow the course of Ken Clarke, even whilst talking tough to please the Tory Right, are having to cope with pointed reminders that the Conservative Party does contain a streak of straightforward oppressive nastiness. This was last seen in relation to criminal justice, to any great extent, with Michael Howard and Ann Widdecombe.

Jack Straw attempted to pick up their baton and did a fair facsimile, but the reality of him was that not only couldn’t he couldn’t resist the authoritarianism inherent in the Leftist ideology but he coupled it with a populism that was so barefaced and naked that he was in perpetual risk of being visited by the Porn Squad. The policy outcomes may look similar in intent, but in motivation Leftist authoritarianism and Rightist nastiness are worlds apart.

This is no consolation for those on the receiving end of Grayling’s venomous proposals. Three, in particular, strike me as being not only repellent but utterly futile – they will cause untold harm but add nothing to the social good. This is a hallmark of Conservative law and order spasms.

The bill for legal aid is high. Not staggeringly so, and given the importance of Justice to a society it would be hard to fairly say what is too much. Even so, removing legal aid from those at risk of genuine personal harm and persecution should be the last consideration of a Government in straightened financial times. Asylum seekers appealing deportation no longer have the ability to claim legal aid. A thousand miles from home, afraid to return for fear of the consequences, all of a sudden these people have to grapple not only with their personal situation but with an alien language and a legal procedure that baffles even the natives of this country. Quite how much will be saved from the bill for this, and how many will be returned to countries who will abuse them, is a calculation only the most immoral will be willing to contemplate. Grayling has chosen that mantle.

The nature of prison regimes is a perpetual bugbear, a target for the ill informed, the plain stupid and tabloid journalists. These categories are not mutually exclusive… Having trundled along for nearly 20 years with a system of earned privileges and regimes as set out by Michael Howard, Grayling has thrown this stability into the shadow of potential chaos. I wrote a blogpost on his idea – Grayling's Riot Recipe – which sums up my view of the potential consequences. And, as with legal aid changes, there is no earthly possible good that can come from this. It is simply an attempt to make people miserable, at risk of huge instabilities and suicides, with no known or foreseen reductions in crime.

Four million quid. That’s less than the Ministerial biscuit-budget. But in order to shave this off a 2 Billion legal aid bill Grayling is preventing prisoners gaining legal aid to sue the prison service for a whole range of issues. One of these is transfers. With about 130 prisons to choose from, prisoners are shuffled around the nation on an hourly basis, all to suit the particular needs of governors. It is, essentially, “bed management”. Like many internal prison issues this may seem trivial to outsiders, but consider – being transferred a hundred miles away from home, too far and too expensive for your family to visit. Children lose their father, wives lose their husbands, and society will later pick up the many costs of that. Such are the issues Grayling insists can be dealt with by the internal complaints system- that is, the prison service holding itself to account. The main cause of the riots in 1990 was the perception by prisoners that they were not being treated justly….Anyone else see the flaw in this idea?

It is being plain nasty for the sake of it. Which brings me to the latest uttering from Grayling – to make those convicted of a crime pay the costs of their own prosecution. So we take the largely disposessed and poor, sling them in prison, then release them back into a society that doesn’t want to employ them with a bill for their own punishment.

Morally, I would suggest this is ambivalent at best. Courts already have the power to make compensation and cost orders. To make this a mandatory scheme will be a structural invitation to criminals trying to go straight to just throw their hands in the air and reach for the jemmy and the shotgun.

There are ways to cut crime, to deal with illegal immigration and cut the legal aid bill. But to use the ineptitude of Government and the financial system to persecute and further exclude those on the margins and already bearing the weight of government power is repulsive. And yet, it is politically popular or Grayling wouldn’t do it. Whether it is popular with the electorate is a matter yet to be seen; but it is certainly popular with a section of the Tory party which has a nasty, vicious streak running through its psyche.

Hard Blogging

Writing a blogpost on how difficult I am finding it to write blogposts is an invitation to collapse into gibberish and insanity, but bear with me….

In prison I had my writing routine. It involved my comfy chair, bit of wood as a table, my wordprocessor and my telly. At certain times of the day – or night – I could lift myself above my situation and the words would pour through my fingers. Off into the mail to The Editor, to be scanned and uploaded. It took only an evening here and there to hack out a week's worth of blogposts.

Since I have been home, the words just have not come. I have yet to find my writing routine, and without a time and place then the creativity, the fluidity of thought, continues to elude me. Perhaps this is a matter of having too much choice. I could write in the office upstairs. Or settle in the conservatory, mocking the elements whilst surrounded  by cats. In better weather, there is the spot under the pergola, next to the pond. Or, as now, secreted away in my shed…which has remarkably similar dimensions to some of the more meagre cells. With TV, heater and laptop I could settle here for hours. Days. Weeks…

I do try. And yet there are all of the distractions and obligations that comprise “life”, that endless struggle and exploration. Each day still contains something new for me. I am working, as well as attempting to develop a new business, alongside occasional talks and, as ever, being a source of advice for many in sore need of my experience.

Writing, then, has of necessity fallen from being perhaps the most important of my daily activities. It is no longer needed as a source of continuity, a way to bring meaning to the essential meaningless existence that is prison. Living, rather than maintaining an existence, has become the focus of my days.

Adding to the new shape of my life have been the new avenues that have opened up to continue what has always been the essence of the blog – to foster debate around imprisonment. This includes talking at universities and the like, the odd media spot, and that dreadfully addictive tool, Twitter. Blogging has always been my thoughtful space, where I could ponder with greater care some of the issues.

And it will continue to be so. As my technical expertise grows,  I would hope to entwine the various ways I communicate into one place, or share content across platforms (sorry for lapsing into that gobbledygook!). In the meanwhile, I will continue to spread myself too thinly for my own comfort and struggle to find the space and time to seriously maintain all that we share.

For I always remember that blogging is a relationship. Even when my voice was constrained and held at a distance by the bars,  I knew this was fundamental. People don’t turn up regularly on the off-chance there is something to be heard. Regularity of thought, new content, is vital. And some of you have come along with me from the very beginnings of this journey – and I owe you a debt far greater than you could ever imagine.

Bear with me, then, a little longer as I find my place in this new life. I have hopes that the future may be as interesting as the past.

Writer's Block

Ben has writer's block!

It happens sometimes, but there should be a blog post appearing over Easter.  Ed.

PM

Tune into BBC Radio 4 to hear Ben on the radio!

Victims and Debate

In the debate at Nottingham University over the proposition that Life should mean Life there was one regrettable absentee – the victims’ representative. Moya Griffiths was bamboozled by time and traffic and I’m not sure if the debate wasn’t the better for it.

This may sound harsh, but I believe that we advance public policy more through the exchange of ideas than we do through the visceral exposition of high emotion. In the interests of fairness, though, here is Moya’s interview with the university Impact magazine. My commentary follows….

IMPACT MAGAZINE Thursday 28th February 2013
 Moya Griffiths – Proposition and mother of a murder victim

Could you explain your argument briefly?
I represent a lot of people who have lost a loved one. We believe that if you are prepared to take a life then you can fully anticipate losing your liberty. Our campaign is ‘life for a life’. The victims do not get a fair crack of the whip as far as justice is concerned. It’s been proven over and over and over again. Now quite often a life sentence is dictated by ten years depending on the severity, but talking from my own personal experience, ten years is average. That is not a life sentence. We feel that when people are imprisoned even when they do come out after ten years, quite often they will re-offend. The statistics are there to back this up.

Do you think offenders can be too young to know what they’re are doing?
No. A child of seven will know the difference between right and wrong. I’m not saying that there can’t be extenuating circumstances; every case has to be judged on its own merits. For a normal 13 or 14 year old to kill or murder, I’m sorry no. You can quote cases, such as James Bulger; the two convicted killers knew exactly what they were doing, young as they were.

Is there room for redemption?
The proof is there, I’m not taking anything away from what Ben has achieved but the difference is years ago the sentencing was a lot harder, more penalised than what it is today. If it were to happen again, he wouldn’t necessarily go through that process, as he wouldn’t be behind bars for that period of time.

Should ‘life for a life’ extend to the death penalty?
We will never ever have capital punishment back in this country. If you ask any mother or father who have lost a child, initially the reaction would be, ‘Yes’ to capital punishment. But it’s not realistic. I, and others like me, believe in life for a life in prison.

Do you think the same sentence should apply to those who commit crimes of compassion and those who murder with malicious intent?
If it is a crime of compassion then I think it should be viewed quite differently. It’s not someone going out who thinks life is worthless or cheap. Life is cheap to a lot of people - it’s meaningless to them. Those are the people who need to be put imprison and made to stay there.

My Commentary….
“Our campaign is ‘life for a life’”… Is an excellent slogan, and one I appreciate is deeply attractive due to its simplicity. But therein lays its weakness - depriving someone else of their life, or a meaningful existence, does nothing to repair the harm originally done. What it does do is repeat that harm onto the criminal's family. The very pain victims’ decry is then the one they advocate spreading.
”The victims do not get a fair crack of the whip as far as justice is concerned. It’s been proven over and over and over again.” I am never quite sure what such assertions actuially mean. Does the criminal justice system pay enough attention to victims? Possibly not, although the situation in the legal process has changed significantly in recent years and not always to the betterment of Justice. Of course, it is a fundamental tenet of our system that it is the State that takes centre stage as being the one offended against, the victim being only the vehicle of the offence. To do otherwise would be to substitute personal and arbitrary vengeance for Justice.

“Now quite often a life sentence is dictated by ten years depending on the severity, but talking from my own personal experience, ten years is average. That is not a life sentence.” Ten years is not only not a life sentence, it’s not even related to reality. Of released Lifers, the average served is 16 years. Of those still inside….well, my own journey through the system may give an indication. The starting point for sentencing in murder cases is 16 years and then varied according to mitigating or exaccerbating circumstances. What Moya believes is just plain wrong.

 “We feel that when people are imprisoned even when they do come out after ten years, quite often they will re-offend. The statistics are there to back this up.”  Leaving aside the “ten years” error, this is again entirely wrong. Second homicides are committed at a rate of 1 or 2 %, a figure that’s been constant for decades.  Serious reoffending comes to maybe 5%. By any measure too much, but equally by no measure is this “quite often”.

“Is there room for redemption?” “The proof is there, I’m not taking anything away from what Ben has achieved but the difference is years ago the sentencing was a lot harder, more penalised than what it is  today. If it were to happen again, he wouldn’t necessarily go through that process, as he wouldn’t be behind bars for that period of time.”

Utterly and completely wrong. The tariff for murder has been leaping ever higher over the past decade or so. What may once have been an unimaginable and rare tariff – say 30 years – is now frequent. For clarifications sake, under the present schema I would still have received a tariff around 10 years: starting at 16 years, then reduced due to my age. And the implication that I was somehow redeemed due to my sentence is quite, quite wrong.

I do honestly appreciate the raw anger, the bitterness and even hatred that can flow from being a victim of crime. For those private individuals I have all due sympathy and compassion. But I will never allow that to slide into supporting this raw vengeance from being turned into public policy, and one that merely increases the level of suffering in society.

Tweet Tweet

Russell Webster recently interviewed Ben on why he tweets:

Twitter is the local pub, the street corner, the groves of academe... @PrisonerBen on why he tweets: Embracing the digital Twitter. 140 meaningful characters. Daft idea….  Having fought a brutal battle to be allowed to blog from prison and watching the media develop, one of the few conscious decisions I made on release was to embrace the possibilities of digital communication with all the vigour of a randy Alsatian. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, the blog, all sprang to life fairly quickly and with astonishingly little thought. But the idea of compressing anything meaningful into 140 characters seemed utterly absurd. All the more so given that my writing style can veer unexpectedly into the flowery and verbose. And yet it seemed a challenge worthy of rising to. My first tweets were probably as timorous as I’ll ever get! Although my tweeting presence has actually been two or three years - an account being fed links to my blog whilst I was inside. However, that had to end when the Ministry of Justice made it a disciplinary offence for prisoners to access social media, even second hand. Twitter fosters debate As with all of my public writing, my intrusion into tweeting is driven by my perpetual need to foster the debate around imprisonment and the sheer thoughtless stupidity in much around criminal justice. Twitter is the local pub, the street corner, the groves of academe all wrapped up in a simple format. It was an easy decision to plunge in and start splashing about. Obviously, given my history this was a risky move. My existence in any public medium can be a lightening rod for those with the strongest views around criminal justice. And I have wandered into two ferocious twitter-wars, lasting days and becoming hideously personal. I don’t say this lightly – the humanity and support of my followers and onlookers during these exchanges cannot but foster hope that decency is in the ascendant on twitter. Twitter encourages intrusion and exploration of others' conversations Which is not to say this kindness is wholly repaid by my abrasive style. It has to be said that if you say something silly about prison, I will try to lead you firmly by the nose to see that. And I am blessed that so many are willing to engage on that basis. A lump of ocasional idiocy and self mockery helps, I suspect. Significant discussions take place with those who share some of my views and – more importantly – those who do not. One of the central advantages of Twitter is that it encourages one to intrude and explore the conversations of others’, and it is a personal maxim that my effectiveness to prompt thought is directly related to the degree of opposition in viewpoint. Ideally, I would only engage with Daily Mail readers! I tweet regularly, at times obsessively. You can always tell when I am at a loose end or struggling with the machinations of rail travel because my tweet rate rockets. In the many long and lonely hours spent at Paddington Station, Twitter has kept me sane. And pointed me to a free toilet. In these times, not only does my tweet frequency rise, so does the forensic ruthlessness of my responses to those commenting on my areas of interest. Which raises the only weakness, for me, of this incredible medium of communication. 140 characters is so little, we each have to adapt our style of writing. Alas, mine comes across as fairly  terse, even belligerent. Twitter is an opportunity to challenge and change views The benefits of Twitter far outweigh any personal slurs or plain silliness that can abound in any social herd. The ability to leap across social and political boundaries, to leap professional hurdles, to reach audiences that had previously remained unperturbed…the only way to alter anyone’s view is to engage with them, on any level that works, and Twitter offers such amazing opportunities to do that. There are, let’s not understate the matter, personal and professional opportunities. In no other way can I interact with others in the criminal justice community to enrich both my personal existence and my professional opportunities. Twitter. To the novice, a baffling stream on short intertwined ideas. But with only a little time and a few stumbles, it reveals itself to be one of the most fascinating and enriching ways to communicate throughout the human community.

01225 870198

Tonight....

At 10pm tonight  will be taking part in a phone-in show on BBC Radio Birmingham sparked by the Ministry decision to ban smoking in prisons.

I believe that the broad theme will be along the lines of "is prison too soft". Of course, that's the wrong question.

We should ask, what is the intended purpose of prison? And then we can ask, does it do what we ask of it?

To ask "is prison too soft" is to assume far too much, and to overlook the fact that we really are very, very confused about what we expect from the use of prison.

New Abuse and Censorship Blog Policy

Regular readers will appreciate that I have always struggled to give space to even the maddest, most repulsive ideas. I don't like censorship.

When trolling threatened to get out of hand, I suggested corraling it into a particular thread. Such was the outrage that I reconsidered and the venom was allowed to flow. It amuses some, depresses others, but such is the nature of blogging.

However. Abusing me is one thing,but abusing and slandering those nearest and dearest to me is quite another. As of now, comments which are abusive in that way will be deleted. You are free to abuse me, as ever, although we all appreciate some wit and creativity along the way.

I may lose some readers for this change in policy. I will live with that. Protecting my loved ones is more important.

Brand Ben

I have now launched a new company - Mokurai Consulting Ltd

Take a peek, spread the word. I've three cats with expensive tastes in food.

www.mokuraiconsulting.com