CHIEF JUSTICE CLASHES WITH STRAW ON JAIL POLICY

Lord Woolf Describes Overcrowding As 'AIDS Virus Of Prison System' While
Report Shames Failing Brixton

Britain's most senior judge clashed with the Home Secretary, Jack Straw,
last week over Labour's plan for longer prison sentences for the 100,000
most persistent offenders, which is to form a centrepiece of the party's
election manifesto.

Mr Straw is prepared to see prison numbers rise to tackle the hard core of
persistent criminals who he claimed were responsible for nearly half of all
crime.

Within hours the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, described jail
overcrowding as the "Aids virus of the prison system" and called on courts
to pass shorter sentences.

"The judiciary must play their part in reducing the use of custody to what
is the acceptable and appropriate minimum," he said ". . . Frequently one
month will achieve everything that can be achieved by three months, and
three months will achieve everything that can be by six months, and so on."

Lord Woolf made it clear in his Prison Reform Trust lecture that the best
way of cutting crime was a higher detection rate rather than an increase in
the prison population of 62,000, which is already forecast to rise to more
than 78,000 by 2007.

His views were in sharp contrast to those of Mr Straw, who said community
penalties did nothing for 80% of the 100,000 hard core of the most
persistent offenders.

"Almost without exception, every persistent offender sentenced to custody
has been through the mill of community sentences and has still
re-offended," Mr Straw said in a lecture to the Social Market Foundation.

Tony Blair told the Cabinet that the "war on crime" would be a central part
of Labour's election manifesto, and at its heart would be a radical reform
of sentencing to ensure that the persistent offenders received longer
sentences each time they were convicted by the courts.

Meanwhile the full extent of the appalling conditions inside Britain's
first "failing" jail was revealed in a report published last week by the
Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham. He said that far from
improving, standards at London's Brixton prison had deteriorated since his
previous inspection, and included practices that were "totally unacceptable
in any jail".

His inspection team had found that the facilities for patients in the
jail's healthcare centre were "without doubt the worst that we have seen
anywhere in England and Wales".

The snap inspection was carried out last June, eight months after the
prisons minister, Paul Boateng, had named Brixton as Britain's first
failing prison. It was given a year to improve or face the threat of
privatisation.

Sir David said it had been failed by everyone in the Prison Service, from
the ministers and the prisons board that had failed to provide the
necessary resources, to the "too many poorly performing staff at Brixton
who are failing to pull their weight in regard to their duties, or to do a
day's work for a day's pay".

At the time of his inspection Brixton had no workshops, no educational
facilities worthy of the name and no gymnasium available to the vast
majority of prisoners. "In short, there is virtually nothing with which to
occupy prisoners in purposeful activity."

The report included findings that the system by which inmates contact staff
in an emergency had been sabotaged by staff on more than one wing. This
betrayed "a disgraceful attitude by staff towards those in their care".

The report also found that staff on suicide watch were falsifying their
entries on monitoring sheets. At 2.45pm the inspection team found
observations already entered for 4pm - "a despicable practice, displaying
both a lack of care and worrying certainty that no manager would check the
malpractice".

The jail now has a new governor, its fourth in four years, and bids will be
invited this month from reluctant private prison companies to take over the
jail.