Lord Farmer: Penal Populism Isn’t Really ‘Hard on Crime’

Penal populist policies such as extending sentences are not really “hard on crime” because they don’t reduce crime, according to Lord Farmer. The Conservative peer, who previously carried out two reviews for the Ministry of Justice on the role of families and other relationships to prisoners’ rehabilitation, told NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” programme that he believes strengthening visits in prison is “hard on crime” because data suggest it’s the best way to reduce reoffending. “So penal populism is [a] very simple and unthought-through policy,” he said, adding that there tends to be “competition between the parties as to who can be hardest on crime.”...