‘Life to Mean Life’ for Child Killers Under Sentencing Reform

Killers of young children would never be released from prison under Boris Johnson’s sentencing reforms to ensure that ‘life means life’. According to a report in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, Downing Street would use the prorogation of Parliament to ‘relaunch the Prime Minister’s domestic policy agenda by unveiling a tough new approach to criminal justice’ and a new Sentencing Bill.

‘For the first time, murderers of preschool children will be subject to whole-life orders, while Mr Johnson’s administration is also considering increasing minimum tariffs for other types of killings,’the Telegraph reported. Ministers plan to ‘rip up’ Labour’s policy of prisoners becoming eligible for release at the halfway point of their sentences instead, it wants violent and sexual offenders to serve ‘at least two thirds of their full terms’.’ The changes mean rapists sentenced to an average of nine years will no longer be released from prison after four-and-a-half years, or even earlier if they spent time on remand,’ it continued. ‘Nearly 2,000 criminals could be affected.’

‘Most people think all parties and the courts have lost the plot on sentencing. We agree with the public. We will act as quickly and aggressively as we can, given Parliament does not want to do what the people want on crime, just as it doesn’t on Brexit.’ A government source to the Sunday Telegraph

The government is also apparently looking at ‘sobriety tags’ that monitor alcohol intake and were piloted by the Prime Minister when he was mayor of London for repeat drunken offenders. Boris Johnson flagged his intention to clampdown on ‘soft justice’ in an editorial about drug dealer Luke  ewitt who spent (in his words) ‘a delightful day at a health spa’ on release during a four year sentence in his weekly Daily Telegraph column back in July. ‘You may have decided it was yet another example of our cock-eyed crookcoddling criminal justice system and succumbed to the apathy of despair,’ he wrote.

Source: Jon Robins, Justice Gap, https://is.gd/zFqySX