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'Imprisoning women: the case against'
This Cheapside Debate took place on 21st November 2008
This Cheapside Debate took place on 2nd October 2008
Oliver James (author of Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist) began from the premise that we live in a sick society. If we are socially well adjusted to that society, we run an increased risk of serious mental illness. Statistics proved, he said, that people who over valued money and status were far more likely to suffer psychologically. Such was the plight of English-speaking nations. Politicians are marketing to consumers rather than electors. Given the current dramatic economic downturn, are we not at a moment in history when a complete change of values is possible as well as timely?
Stewart Wallis (executive director of the New Economics Foundation) paraphrased US President Bill Clinton, saying 'It's the economy that's stupid.' In addition to making us ill, the economic system is vulnerable and unstable - as we have seen from the credit crunch in recent weeks. He went on to describe the scale of damage to the planet's ecosystem because of the overuse of resources in the west. Capitalism had in the past been highly beneficial, but it is no longer the solution. Attempting to make ever increasing profits for the providers of private capital will no longer work. Instead, we need a moral economy. We need to embrace stewardship, not ownership.
Juliet Lyon (Director of the Prison Reform Trust) admitted that the overall intention of parliamentarians seemed to be to have fewer women in prison, but not enough had been done. One crucial concern with regard to women's imprisonment was so often the welfare of their children; nearly half of women in prison had children. Of a total UK prison population of 84,000, only 4,500 inmates were female. Because of their smaller numbers, it was highly likely that women would be imprisoned a long way from home, so access to their children would be made more difficult.
As with male offenders, debt and drug addiction were often present factors when they arrived in prison, though suicide and self harm had a much higher incidence with female inmates. With only 5% of women prisoners' children staying in their own homes during their mothers' sentences, the alternative to gaol, Support Supervision Centres, were far more appropraite for female offenders, whose prison sentences were often disproportionate to their often relatively minor offences. In prison women become more dependent; in Support Supervision Centres, women are encouraged to take responsibility for their lives and their children, so the family-to-family cycle of offending is broken.
The Worshipful Nigel Seed QC (Chancellor of the Diocese of London and Recorder of the Crown Court) cited the government's predilection for imprisonment. He believed that there should be fewer UK prisoners in total, not just women. Despite the arguments for avoiding women's imprisonment, we should not lose sight of the essential need for offenders to become rehabilitated. In some cases, refraining from sentensing a female offender to prison could deprive her of the only real chance of rehabilitation she has.
He stressed that he was approaching the argument from his experience as a sentensing judge. He agreed that women were being disadvantaged by the prison service, but the solution was not to stop imprisoning them, but for the prison service to be improved. There is no such thing, he said, as a 'victimless' offence: even with a crime like shoplifting, the public ends up footing the bill. Judges must be at pains to take into account the impact of sentensing on the offender, and that applies to men just as much as women.
On the 'affluenza' epidemic
'Islam and democracy: are they compatible?'
This Cheapside Debate took place on 15th July 2008
Amedee Turner QC specialises in intellectual property and industrial law, is a former chief whip of the Conservative MEPs and chairman of the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. He introduced the debate with evidence from a recent 'grassroots' project which produced 300 hours of discussions from round-table groups of Muslims considering democracy. The general consensus had been an acceptance of decocracy provided that it did not run contrary to the Qur'an.
Dr Usama Hasan is a senior lecturer at Middlesex University, a part-time imam at a London mosque and director of the City Circle, promoting the development of a distinct British Muslim identity. He responded to the debate's title with a 'resounding yes'. The most important principle of political life in the Qur'an, he said, is 'consultation'. Transplanting an evolved western system of democracy to an Islamic society can be problematic because that democracy has not been given the opportunity to evolve organically. 'Western' Muslims are in a useful position to comment because they have a foot in eastern and western traditions, he said.
Douglas Murray is an author, commentator and broadcaster; his most recent book is entitled Neoconservatism: why we need it. He is director of the Centre for Social Cohesion. He said that he admired democracy because he did not admire intellectual elites. Islam, he said, had to understand freedom of expression, which had taken Christianity so long; it was not just a right, but a duty to offend. Democracy was created by humans; he would argue that religions were too. He believed that democracy, secularism and the right to be judged by people, not gods, was a universal right, not merely a western one.
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