punishment to serve as a deterrent.”
The context in which she now finds herself, in charge of the Home Office, is one where such a categorical
statement in support of a change could never – thankfully – be legislated for by parliament. So now she says:
“I have never said I’m an active supporter of it.”
The Independent would rather she said she had changed her mind because of the risk of killing an innocent
person by a miscarriage of justice; but if we do not rejoice over the sinner that repenteth, we can at least
welcome the sinner that pretendeth not to have said what she said in the past.
And we welcome another sign in her interview that Ms Patel is prepared to adjust to the reality of the
criminal justice system. It was notable that she was not prepared to endorse the dictum of one of her
predecessors, Michael Howard, who said: “Prison works.”
Instead, she says: “We are doing much more with prisoners in rehabilitation. You need that. You cannot just
support this cycle of reoffending.” These are just words at this stage, but at least they are the right words
rather than, as in Mr Howard’s case, the wrong ones.
Prison works only in the most basic and limited sense of keeping people who are a danger to others away
from the general public. In all other respects, prison is a collective admission of failure, and one that tends
to make problems worse. It turns petty criminals into hardened ones, casual drug users into addicts and
potentially useful members of society into people incapable of supporting themselves.
If Ms Patel and Lucy Frazer, the new prisons minister at the ministry of justice, can work together to carry
on the reforming intentions of Rory Stewart and David Gauke, that would be a good thing. Unfortunately,
the cause of prison reform has been set so far back by decades of neglect that we are not hopeful.
Nor is the rest of Ms Patel’s rhetoric in her interview encouraging. We have no problem with a home
secretary wanting people to be “terrified” of committing a crime, but how is she going to ensure that they
are more likely to be caught? “I fundamentally think the Conservative Party is the party of law and order,”
she says. “Full stop.” And that is about as far as she gets in her detailed analysis of crime prevention.
It seems that she has been appointed to her position by Boris Johnson for largely symbolic purposes.
Theresa May was held responsible, as home secretary and prime minister, for cutting spending on the
police and therefore for damaging the Conservative brand identity of being “tough on crime”.
Never mind that there has been only a slight increase in crime over the past two years, as recorded by the
Crime Survey for England and Wales, after two decades of decline. The perception is that crime is getting
much worse, and Mr Johnson may hope that putting someone seen as tough on law and order in charge at
the Home Office, combined with recruiting more police officers, will change people’s views.
But it needs more than just rhetoric, or even just police numbers, to get a grip on law and order. There was
once a politician who was “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. Ms Patel needs both parts of
that equation if she is to be more than a mere purveyor – and occasional disowner – of sound bites.