History > 2007 > UK > Home Office  (I)

11am GMT update

Smith seeks 42-day detention limit

Thursday December 6, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Haroon Siddique and agencies

The government wants to increase the length of time that terror suspects can be held without charge to 42 days, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said today.

The move appears to be an attempt at a compromise as the government had previously indicated it favoured a 30-day extension to 58 days.

But the Lib Dems immediately condemned the government's insistence on pushing for an increase in the detention limit as "pig-headed stubbornness".

Smith said the power would "only be used where there is a clear operational need related to a particular operation or investigation".

"We are proposing that where there is a compelling operational need, the home secretary can extend the operational limit that a terrorist can be held for up to a maximum of 42 days," she said.

"This isn't about win-win. It is about legislating now for a risk that I am clear does exist, chief constables are clear exists and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation is also clear exists."

Before the home secretary signed an order allowing detention up to 42 days, the relevant chief constable and the director of public prosecutions (DPP) would have to prepare a report putting the case.

If approved by the home secretary the powers would then come into force immediately for a 60-day period.

She would have to inform parliament of her decision within two days and then both houses of parliament would have to decide whether to support it within 30 days.

If there was no parliamentary approval, the limit would revert to 28 days. But the 30-day window means some suspects could already have been held for 42 days by the time the houses made a decision.

"It is pig-headed stubbornness for the government to push on with extending pre-charge detention just as the consensus against it is deepening," said the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg.

"All the so-called safeguards in this latest scheme are just a fig leaf for an unwarranted extension."

He pointed out that there had been widespread opposition to the extension and there was "no compelling evidence" for increasing the limit.

Jago Russell from Liberty said he was "very disappointed" and "vital safeguards" were absent from the proposal.

The DPP, Sir Ken Macdonald, the former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, and - briefly - the security minister, Lord West, all expressed doubts to the home affairs select committee investigating the government's counter-terrorism proposals that longer detention was needed.

The committee is expected to report later this month that there is insufficient evidence to justify an extension.

The new plans would require the DPP's consent for individual extensions beyond 28 days, and each seven-day extension would have to be approved by a judge but there would be no need for parliament to look at each case individually, as had been reported earlier today.

    Smith seeks 42-day detention limit, G, 6.12.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2222890,00.html

1pm

Smith announces zero-tolerance crime crackdown

Thursday September 27, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Deborah Summers, Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis

Jacqui Smith today announced a "zero-tolerance" crackdown on anti-social behaviour, burglary and drug and alcohol misuse.

The home secretary's tough message to delegates on the final day of the Labour party conference in Bournemouth was designed to outflank the Tories' renewed push on law and order.

"Let me be clear. I've zero tolerance of anti-social behaviour, and zero tolerance of its causes," Ms Smith said.

"Causes like alcohol misuse. So from Monday, we are giving councils and police new powers to take the licences away from dodgy premises.

"We should give no time to the idea that just because you are drunk and incapable that somehow lets you off the hook."

Ms Smith said that she had zero tolerance of homes being broken into or bags being snatched to feed a drug habit, and zero tolerance of people not getting drug treatment "when the need it".

Amid concerns from some Labour strategists that the party has ceded too much ground on crime, the home secretary also announced a new fund worth tens of millions of pounds to support neighbourhood patrol teams, including the issuing of mobile fingerprint machines to officers who will target low-level crime in every community.

Other measures announced by Ms Smith today included:

· Publication of local crime figures to back up the introduction of local beat patrols in every neighbourhood from next April

· Shared local community safety budgets between police, local authorities and other agencies to help tackle crime and antisocial behaviour

· Renewed attempts to secure cross-party consensus on counter-terror legislation

· A new package of measures to tackle gun and gang culture, including providing "exit strategies" for gang members

· The network of specialist help centres for rape victims across the country is to double from 18 to 36.

Ms Smith's speech was designed to set out her "safety and security" agenda and focus on the tools that were needed to implement Labour's promise to provide a visible policing patrol presence in every neighbourhood.

The extra ring-fenced fund for the next generation of police technology is designed to be used for equipment that gets officers out of the police station and on to the beat, including the 10,000 hand-held computers and mobile weapon detectors promised by Gordon Brown on Monday.

The introduction of local crime data is designed to address the fact that, despite a 35% fall in the national crime figures since Labour came to power, most people believe that crime has gone up. Ministers hope the provision of local crime data will make clear the real situation and reduce fear of crime.

The decision to double the number of sexual assault referral centres, based in healthcare centres and not police stations, is designed to encourage victims to report rapes.

As well as medical help and counselling, specialist staff will offer victims the opportunity to deep-freeze samples so they can be used as evidence should they wish to press charges at a later date.

Forensic evidence will only be passed to the police if the victim agrees.

The increase will mean that there will be a referral centre in nearly every police force area across England and Wales.

Ms Smith also used her speech to take a swipe at the suggestion by David Cameron, the Tory leader, and David Davis, the shadow home secretary, that Britain was a "broken society", branding the claim "just plain wrong".

"The two Davids. What a pair they make," she said.

"While one was on manoeuvers with the Territorial Army, the other was plotting midnight raids on Eton's tuck shop ...

"But I'll tell you what. Neither of them has got a grip on crime, on its causes or on its consequences."

Ms Smith added: "Tolerance and freedom. Fairness and respect, rights and responsibilities. That's what Labour stands for. Protecting communities and securing Britain's future."

    Smith announces zero-tolerance crime crackdown, NYT, 27.9.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2178289,00.html

4.30pm update

Smith unveils latest anti-crime plans

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Guardian Unlimited
Thursday July 19, 2007


Local crime figures will be available and updated every month by next summer, the home secretary promised today as she unveiled a government initiative to cut crime and reassure the public.

Jacqui Smith also pledged a drive to cut crime through better designed technology, so that "the iphones and sat-navs of the future are worthless to thieves".

Her statement came on the day that the Home Office released the annual crime figures, which showed that crime remained stable in England & Wales, but with a 5% increase in violent crimes - according the British Crime Survey.

But the range of measures was dismissed by the Liberal Democrat as a "ragbag of minor, unrelated, media initiatives" rather than an attempt to cut crime.

And the Conservatives called it nothing more than a "few small steps in the right direction".

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, complained: "If you can't calculate crime, you can't tackle crime." The Tories regard the British Crime Survey, based on questionnaire responses, as "flawed data" as it does not include murder, or crimes against children under 16.

However, Ms Smith told MPs today: "As today's crime statistics show, we are holding the improvements to the falls in crime. But we must go further. And now is the time to reinvigorate our efforts to ensure we continue to make strong and sustainable reductions in crime."

In the strategy, which will span 2008-11, Ms Smith proposed setting up a cross-Whitehall national crime reduction board, which will "lead to support and where necessary, challenge local delivery".

There will also be new record kept of how confident the public are that crime is dealt with at a local level by police and other agencies.

And she announced: "Working with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities we will ensure that by July next year, everyone will be able to have access to meaningful local crime information updated every month so they can see how their priorities are being tackled."

Ms Smith, who this morning confessed she had tried cannabis as a young woman, announced she would visit a special session of the youth parliament this autumn to hear firsthand young people's experience of being the victim of crime.

In possibly the most eye-catching initiative, Ms Smith announced that a new Design and Technology Alliance would look at ways in which crime could be "designed out" of technology devices. But there was little immediate detail on how this would be achieved.

The designer who will head the design and technology alliance later told Guardian Unlimited that a variety of simple measures could in future aid crime prevention on gadgets.

Sebastian Conran said: "This is really about a mix of experience, expertise and common sense.

"In future it should be easy for retailers to ensure that every phone should be laser engraved on its rear with its number, so that you can have traceability with anonymity.

"It's not the same as putting someone's name and address there, but it would be traceable if nicked."

In her statement, Ms Smith insisted the chance of becoming a victim of crime was at "historically low levels".

On violent crime, she told MPs: "We are seeing signs of real progress here and the statistics today are positive: overall violence down 31% since 1997. But we know we must do more."

And she claimed the government had "revolutionised the crime-fighting landscape", adding: "We have provided record levels of funding, created new powers and partnerships, set targets.

"This formidable combination has seen crime fall by around a third since 1997."

Car crime had halved, with 1.8m fewer incidents, she added. "On average, the chances of becoming a victim of burglary are roughly now once every 40 years compared to every 25 a decade ago.

"Staffing levels across the police service are at a record high at over 223,000 people and the chances of becoming a victim of crime remain at historically low levels.

"These are real achievements that make a real difference to people's everyday lives."

    Smith unveils latest anti-crime plans, G, 19.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2130289,00.html

New home secretary thrust into centre of the storm

· Jacqui Smith put in the limelight as crisis unfolds
· Change of tone evident in response to terror plot

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent

It would have been daunting for the most experienced cabinet minister. But Jacqui Smith didn't have the luxury of even a full day in her new department before being thrown into a potential crisis.

Less than 24 hours after becoming the first female home secretary she was woken in the early hours to be informed of the bomb. She then held talks with police and security experts at her department, chaired a meeting of the government's emergency committee, spoke to the main opposition party spokesmen, briefed the cabinet and the prime minister before giving two statements to the media.

She also announced the appointment of Admiral Sir Alan West, a former first sea lord, as a junior security minister.

"We are currently facing the most severe and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism," Ms Smith said in Downing Street.

Not that she would have been entirely on her own as events unfolded. Sir David Normington, permanent secretary at the Home Office, was involved in briefing her as was Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet secretary.

Gordon Brown made a few comments about the situation on a visit to a school in the morning but left the important statements to Ms Smith. Observers detected a change of tone, away from some of the more dramatic responses to terror alerts from former home secretary John Reid.

When asked about the bomb during a radio interview yesterday morning, Jack Straw, also a former home secretary, said the discovery was "very saddening" but "these things happen".

At 10am Ms Smith chaired a meeting of Cobra, the emergency response committee, at the Cabinet Office, attended by senior members of the security services and police officers including Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard. The meeting lasted 50 minutes.

Shortly afterwards she briefed the cabinet at a meeting which was arranged to discuss constitutional reform. She and Sir Alan then gave Mr Brown more details in a private session.

On a visit to a children's centre in north-west London, Mr Brown said: "The first duty of the government is the security of the people and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions we face a serious and continuous threat to our country." Ms Smith then briefed the shadow home secretary David Davis and Liberal Democrat spokesman Nick Clegg on the operation. They did not discuss the prospect of further anti-terrorism legislation. Opposition leaders David Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell offered support for the government's position. "This is a time for parties to work together to make sure we make our country as safe as possible," Mr Cameron said. Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, sacked by Mr Cameron as security spokesman, said: "This is a time that we always knew was going to be tense - the end of the Blair era and the start of the Brown era."

The new security supremos

Admiral Sir Alan West, pictured below, the former head of the navy and surprise appointment as minister for security, is known for his straight talking, notably in his role as first sea lord where he lamented the decline in the number of ships in his fleet.

His appointment, along with that of Lord Stevens as adviser on international security, is likely to ensure that the fight against terrorism will take on a high profile under the new administration.

Whether that profile, in the task of inspiring public confidence, will turn out to be too high for the liking of Scotland Yard and Britain's three security and intelligence agencies - MI5, MI6, and GCHQ - remains to be seen.

Sir Alan was typically forthright last year when asked his view about military action against Iran. "The impact would be absolutely horrendous," he replied. "Getting involved in military action would be a very silly thing to do." Lord Stevens, 64, brings more than 40 years experience in the police to his new role. He was commissioner of the Metropolitan police between 2000 and 2005, a post he took over after being chief. He also chaired the inquiries in Northern Ireland into the alleged collaboration between the security services and paramilitary groups.

Richard Norton-Taylor and Duncan Campbell

    New home secretary thrust into centre of the storm, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115287,00.html

1.30pm update

Reid unveils Sarah's law proposals

Wednesday June 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland and Matthew Tempest

More sex offenders could be offered "chemical castration" under a range of "Sarah's law" measures unveiled by the home secretary today.

John Reid said that families would be informed about offenders who might pose a specific threat to their children and there would be lie detector tests for persistent paedophiles.

The home secretary said that the move - which stops short of publicising the whereabouts of paedophiles but creates a "presumption" for police to tell a mother that her partner was a sex offender - was part of a "radical" package to protect youngsters.

Individuals provided with information could be committing a public order offence if they disclose it to others.

Mr Reid told MPs: "Information should and can no longer remain the exclusive preserve of officialdom.

"We will therefore update the law to give the police and other agencies a duty to consider in every case whether a member of the public needs to know about an offender's history to protect the child."

Chemical castration - offering sex offenders drugs to curb their libido - is not new. But today's announcement saw an expansion of the scheme.

Mr Reid said it would not be compulsory, nor a substitute for punishment or prison.

The Tories said that vulnerable children deserved better but the reforms were hailed a "massive step forward" by campaigner Sara Payne.

The murder of her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah Payne, by paedophile Roy Whiting in July 2000, sparked a nationwide campaign for the UK to adopt a US-style "Megan's law" publicising information about sex offenders.

The NSPCC welcomed the limits on information sharing, saying that "open access" for everyone could force convicted paedophiles underground and place youngsters at greater risk of assault.

But the children's charity warned that the new disclosure plans could overstretch limited resources.

Other moves in the package include a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the fact that 90% of child abuse takes place in a family setting, and compulsory lie-detector tests.

A Home Office pilot scheme used polygraph tests on 350 offenders and questioned them about whether they had reoffended or breached their parole or community order conditions.

In all, 44% were found to be deceptive in the voluntary trials, which will be followed with a compulsory scheme under today's package.

New information about paedophiles' behaviour - which could be vital in protecting children and others from sex attacks - was obtained in nearly eight out of 10 cases in the pilot.

At an earlier briefing Mr Reid told journalists: "We are taking some radical steps in what we are doing but it's possible to take radical steps with a degree of caution."

He insisted that the measures were not the same as "Megan's law" in the US, which ministers believe has not been effective in tackling paedophilia and may have driven some offenders underground.

"The idea that we wanted to adopt Megan's law was never put forward by us," Mr Reid said.

"What we did want to do was address the campaign that Sara Payne put forward amongst others.

"If someone wants to call that Sarah's law, then I am delighted for her."

Mr Reid said that initially three pilots would be run in different parts of the country, and legislation would be brought forward later.

Mr Reid said that programmes to tag offenders and then monitor them by satellite would be extended, and methods of ensuring safeguards on paedophiles' computers would also be tested.

Announcing the measure in the House of Commons, Mr Reid said: "There are very few crimes more horrific than sex offences against children."

But responding to Mr Reid's statement in the house, shadow home affairs spokesman David Davies warned that the measures could drive paedophiles underground.

Mr Davies also said that the proposals had implications for the police and other agencies which could hamper delivery.

"The NSPCC are warning that the police are overstretched and do not have the resources to manage the system properly," said Mr Davies.

"Then there is a much wider issue of enforcement. Without competent implementation, no policies will work. Indeed, they may give a false sense of security, but no protection.

A voluntary system of "castration" through medication would also fail to curb the problem, added Mr Davies. "Whilst it may be useful in some cases, it will not deal with the worst offenders, who do not wish to reform," he said.

The director of the NSPCC, Dame Mary Marsh, said: "Someone with a clean criminal record does not always have a clean bill of health; people must never be lulled into a false sense of security."

The multi-agency public protection arrangements, or MAPPA, which monitor sex offenders in the community, will receive a £1.2m funding boost.

The package of measures applies to England and Wales.

    Reid unveils Sarah's law proposals, G, 13.6.2007, http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,,2101788,00.html

Q&A: Chemical castration

Ian Sample explains the background to the government plans to offer sex offenders 'chemical castration'

Wednesday June 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Ian Sample


How does it work?
Chemicals are used to suppress the production of testosterone, the male hormone responsible for sex drive. The drugs can be given in a number of ways, but injections and implants are most common because the man does not need to keep taking the drug to keep his sex drive down.

Which drugs are used?
Some prostate cancer drugs work by shutting down testosterone production in the testes, which slows the rate at which cancer cells multiply.

France has conducted tests using the prostate cancer drug Leuproreline to dampen the sex drive of offenders when they are released from prison.

Also being used are Prozac, the breast cancer drug Tamoxifen and Depo Provera, a female contraceptive that can be given by injection every three months.

One of the most effective ways to turn off testosterone is to use a chemical called a GnRH agonist, which can be injected or given as a nasal spray. This overstimulates the pituitary gland and stops it producing a hormone which regulates testosterone production.

Do they work?
Evidence from Scandinavia suggests that chemical castration can cut rates of reoffending to 5% from more than 40%. But in 2004, the Australian government rejected calls to introduce chemical castration on the grounds that there was no proof it worked.

Are there side effects?
Some experts believe too little is known about the side effects that come from using testosterone-dampening drugs.

Although the hormone regulates aggression and sex drive, reduced testosterone levels can also leave people feeling lethargic. Drugs that stimulate oestrogen, the female sex hormone, can trigger breast-like growth in men.

Which countries have tried it?
Sweden, Denmark, Canada and eight US states offer chemical castration to repeat sex offenders.

    Q&A: Chemical castration, G, 13.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2101997,00.html

What medication can't achieve

June 13, 2007 10:30 AM
The Guardian
David Wilson



I spend a great deal of my time as an academic criminologist working with convicted paedophiles both in prison and the community, and I know from my research - and previously from my work as a prison governor - three things.

First, that "traditional" punishments - whatever form they take - do not necessarily stop paedophiles from committing further crimes. I have worked with those paedophiles, for example, who have been "named and shamed", which has merely driven them further underground. This made it more difficult to keep track of their movements and also, therefore, made it harder to control their access, or potential access, to children. So too have I worked with those who have been chemically castrated - metaphorically had "their balls cut off" - but who still harbour desires to do awful things to children, because ultimately what motivates them has much more to do with psychology than physiology, and therefore what they can't achieve physically they can none the less achieve with fingers, bottles and in one particularly harrowing case, sticks.

Second, and as the previous paragraph was deliberately constructed to show, when we use the word "paedophile" or "paedophilia" we usually mean it to describe predatory paedophiles - strangers from outside of the family who abduct children and are then interested in penetrative sex with babies, infants or young children. Yet, the majority of those paedophiles that I have worked with, or am working with, display a range of behaviours - from those who have downloaded a few (and yes I do mean a few) images of child pornography, to a 21-year-old man who had a three-month relationship with a 15-year-old girl whom he believed to be 19. In short, paedophilia is a continuum that covers a range of behaviours - some of which demand greater attention from us than others.

Above all, those that I work with have abused a position of trust or authority that they held over a child - either as a family member, a sports coach, a teacher, youth worker or priest. In short, I rarely see "stranger-danger", as most children are abused by someone that they knew, trusted and, in many cases, liked.

Finally, I know that the most successful ways to stop paedophiles - both the thankfully fewer "predatory" types and these others that I have just described, stem from two sources that rarely get mentioned when politicians or media commentators want to be seen to be doing something about the sexual abuse of young people. Both sources are inspiring and remind me that we can do something positive to stop paedophiles from offending, or reoffending.

The first is a scheme developed in Canada and now gaining a foothold in this country through the Quakers and the Thames Valley Partnership and is called Circles of Support and Accountability. I have described this scheme in Comment is free before and since that last blog further research by Dr Robin Wilson in Toronto has again demonstrated the long-term success of this scheme that seeks community reintegration of warrant-expired paedophiles, and remains the one real source of optimism when dealing with post-conviction paedophiles.

The second source has been children themselves. Despite being condemned culturally and within our policy approach to be "seen and not heard", I have none the less been amazed time after time when I have interviewed children about how they have overcome abuse, or the threat of abuse, by their resourcefulness and creativity. Some children described to me how, in effect, they would communicate with each other about which family member, teacher, or coach to avoid, and others would talk about strategies that they adopted such as not washing to make themselves unattractive, sleeping with the family dog on the bed to alert them to when someone was coming into the room, or in one particularly sad case forming a relationship with the school bully so that he would keep the stepfather at bay.

What does this latter source reveal? It suggests that children who are being abused or threatened with abuse do not look to the adult world for solutions, but rather to themselves. Not for them demands for "naming and shaming", or a "Sarah's Law", or chemical castration, but rather the simple reality that they have to find ways out of the situation that they find themselves in because mum has a new boyfriend, dad gets drunk, or the coach on the swimming team is getting too personal. It suggests that we should be listening far more clearly to what children are saying about their lives, and the threats that exist within their lives, and that we should act upon what they say rather than dismissing it as nonsense. And you know what, you don't need new laws to do that - just a change in attitude about children and childhood.

    What medication can't achieve, G, 13.6.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_wilson/2007/06/what_medication_cant_achieve.html

1.15pm update

Damilola report exposes 'human errors'

Friday May 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke

The Home Office today described forensic failures during the investigation into the killing of Damilola Taylor as "extremely regrettable".

It came after an independent inquiry into the 10-year-old's death found that government scientists had made "human errors".

However, the investigation, conducted by Alan Rawley QC and Professor Brian Caddy, found no systemic failures at the government's Forensic Science Service.

Damilola's parents, Richard and Gloria, said they were "enormously disappointed" with the findings.

"The report describes the catalogue of errors as 'extremely regrettable' - a conclusion that the family feel is lame in the extreme," they said in a statement.

"The government should instead now act decisively to overhaul the quality of forensic science used in court."

The inquiry arose after it was disclosed that the FSS had missed vital blood evidence when it investigated the murder of Damilola, who bled to death after being stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle on a south London estate in 2000.

The report said the setting up of an independent forensic science regulator to define standards, monitor performance and deal with breaches in quality was "long overdue".

It found that three scientists - two men and a woman - had made errors in their analysis of bloodstained clothing submitted for testing by police.

In a ministerial statement, the Home Office minister Joan Ryan said she would be assessing a number of recommendations in the report.

"The review has concluded that there were no systemic failures in the procedures carried out by the FSS at the time, but that there were human errors made by some individual scientists, which is extremely regrettable," she said.

"Their report makes a number of recommendations, and I have asked the chair of the FSS to provide me with a considered response to those recommendations concerning the FSS. I will then be able to give full consideration to all the report's recommendations."

Last August, Danny and Ricky Preddie were convicted of Damilola's manslaughter after two previous trials had cleared seven people - including the Preddie brothers - of his murder.

After the first trial collapsed due to a lack of evidence, police appointed a new officer to lead the investigation and a different forensic firm re-examined available material.

The second trial, which took place last January, heard how key forensic evidence was missed by scientists at the time of Damilola's death, only being uncovered years later.

Crucially, a spot of Damilola's blood and a fibre indistinguishable from his school trousers were discovered on a trainer owned by Danny Preddie. Staff at the original laboratory had missed the evidence.

In compiling today's report, the authors looked both at the Damilola investigation and a number of other cases in which the FSS had been accused of failing to find evidence.

Mr Rawley, a senior barrister, and Prof Caddy, an emeritus professor of forensic science at Strathclyde University, said they carried out "an exhaustive examination" of FSS operating procedures.

"Our conclusions (which are without hesitation or qualification), based upon documentary evidence and oral testimony, are that there was no systemic failure in the operations of the FSS," they said.

"There were, however, human failures in implementing the operating procedures of the FSS which brought about the failure to recover crucial evidence."

That crucial evidence was Damilola's blood on the trainer, and more blood on a black sweatshirt said to belong to Rickie Preddie.

Following Damilola's killing, 441 items were sent to the FSS for examination. Most were marked "urgent", putting the service under "enormous pressure", the report said.

An unnamed FSS assistant scientific officer, who was regarded as "highly competent", examined the trainer but failed to consult with her superior about the blood stain as she "undoubtedly ought to have done", the authors found.

That error was compounded by the senior investigator, known as a reporting officer, "wavering" on best practice on some items.

Another assistant scientific officer examined the sweatshirt, and the report said the stain "should have been found". There were "clear examples of human fallibility" in the checking of four other items.

The report recommended the establishment of an independent forensic science regulator to have control and oversight of forensic issues, potentially with powers to deal with standards and performance breaches.

Best practice and double-checking of items should receive "more focused treatment" in FSS training manuals and standard procedures, it said.

There should be more second examinations, despite cost implications, and forensic labs should be evaluated at least once a year.

In further embarrassment for the FSS, a report released yesterday revealed that a backlog of DNA profiles had left almost 200 crimes unsolved for up to 11 years.

The report revealed that more than 26,000 DNA profiles were left off the national database between 1996 and 2004. The blunder was discovered in July 2005 and reported to senior officials, but ministers were not told until January.

    Damilola report exposes 'human errors', G, 18.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2082895,00.html

11.45am

More police to get Tasers

Wednesday May 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Fred Attewill and agencies

The home secretary has announced that many more police will be authorised to carry Taser stun guns.

John Reid told a Police Federation conference he wants non-firearms officers to have the devices, which stun suspects with a 50,000-volt shock.

Police will also be able to use them in a wider range of situations.

Mr Reid insisted the weapons are a safe alternative to guns and are increasingly needed to deal with violent offenders. However, Amnesty International has opposed the use of the US-manufactured weapons, claiming they can be lethal.

"The police service is facing unprecedented challenges and this government is committed to providing them with the tools they need to meet the demands of modern policing," Mr Reid told delegates in Blackpool.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The intention, subsequent to medical advice, is to start a trial to extend to the use of Taser to specially trained teams. They provide additional options and are less lethal than conventional firearms.

"A 12-month trial will extend it to specially trained units, who will not necessarily be authorised firearms officers.

"It would also extend the use of Taser by authorised firearms officers where the criteria to use firearms do not apply.

"Tasers are used in incidents where officers are faced with violence or the threat of violence, and used only when they need to use force to protect themselves or members of the public."

The spokesman said the trial would only be given the go-ahead after the UK's defence scientific advisory council sub-committee reports next month on the devices' long-term medical effects.

The council concluded in 2004 that the risk of life-threatening or serious injury from the weapon used by police in England and Wales was "very low".

Kate Allen, Amnesty UK director, said: "We are worried that this may be the start of a slippery slope towards a situation like that in the US, where officers are routinely armed with Tasers and use them in a wide range of situations.

"Amnesty has studied the use of Tasers in the US and Canada, where more than 220 people have died since 2001 after being Tasered.

A Police Federation spokesman supported the plan, saying: "We think it is a vital piece of equipment for frontline officers to have."

The trial, expected to begin in September, is expected to involve 11 forces. More than 3,000 Tasers have already been distributed to special firearms officers.

Ms Allen of Amnesty said: "Our message is simple - Tasers are potentially lethal and should be treated as such. We want comprehensive and independent testing to establish that they are safe before the government considers handing them out to every police officer.

"Amnesty would also like a meeting with the minister to discuss the implications of this decision for human rights in the UK."distributed to special firearms officers.

    More police to get Tasers, G, 16.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2080760,00.html

Reid's shock resignation gives Brown a fresh start

Home secretary will stand down from cabinet in the summer

Monday May 7, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Gordon Brown's path to a radical rejuvenation of the cabinet was cleared yesterday when the home secretary, John Reid, his great rival, shocked Labour politics by announcing he was quitting the front bench altogether.

It had been expected that Mr Reid would announce that he would not challenge Mr Brown for the leadership, but his decision to quit the cabinet when Tony Blair stands down next month was wholly unexpected, including by the chancellor.

After weeks of soul-searching with his inner circle, Mr Reid informed the prime minister of his decision only on Saturday night and rang Mr Brown yesterday morning, hours before going on television.

Mr Brown apparently told Mr Reid he would be welcome in his cabinet, but the home secretary saw the changeover at Number 10 as the natural moment to quit and recharge his batteries. It is understood he felt if he remained in cabinet he would become the focus of continuing speculation about ongoing rivalries between Blairites and Brownites.

His departure deprives Mr Brown of a big experienced figure and strong communicator, but will free the new Labour leader to rejuvenate what the electorate clearly regards as a tired government.

Cabinet sources stressed that Mr Reid's planned departure did not presage a wider exit by the Blairites.

Mr Reid sidestepped whether Mr Brown had promised to keep him at the Home Office after Mr Blair quits, saying: "He has made plain to me there's a place in his government for me, but he understands and he accepts my decision on this. I have made plain to him that from the backbenches I will be there to support him, it will not be a case of sniping, it will be a case of sustaining the Labour government and the new prime minister."

His departure would give Mr Brown maximum flexibility: "In terms of introducing his new ideas, new agenda - same direction, but new policies perhaps in pursuit of that, certainly new people - a fresh start bringing in younger people in many cases," Mr Reid said.

"From my point of view, it is better to take the chance, having had nine jobs in 10 years, to recharge my batteries. That is a natural break period, because if I stay a year and leave, that will be misrepresented.

He added that he detected no eagerness in the party for a contest for the Labour leadership, a point echoed by the work and pensions secretary, John Hutton. Charles Clarke, Mr Reid's predecessor, has already definitively ruled himself.

Alan Johnson, a deputy leadership candidate, admitted: "What's called the TB/GBs" has damaged Labour. He added that it was a very unfortunate "that there's different camps and there has seemed to be disunity in those camps. That kind of disunity hasn't helped us."

It is widely thought that Mr Brown will promote Alistair Darling, the trade and industry secretary, to one of the top three jobs in his new government. Mr Straw, leader of the house and former foreign secretary, may also be approached. Hilary Benn is one of the few other cabinet members with Home Office experience.

Regardless of who replaces Mr Reid, there is little likelihood that Mr Brown will sanction a weaker line on the fight against terrorism, even if on some wider issues of democratic disengagement a more emollient message may be offered. Mr Reid's departure may mean other key Blairite cabinet ministers such as Mr Hutton, Tessa Jowell and Lord Falconer may be kept in office.

Lord Falconer yesterday made clear on Sky News that he would like to remain in longterm charge of the new Ministry of Justice, which comes into being on Thursday. He ruled out an early amnesty for prisoners to ease prison overcrowding.

But Mr Brown, aware that he is not a fresh face, must feel under pressure to bring in younger talent, such as Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, James Purnell, Liam Byrne, Caroline Flint and Andy Burnham. Others are warning him not to have a wholesale clearout. One minister said: "You need experience in these top jobs. Fresh faces are fresh only for a week."

In the traditional exchange of resignation letters, Mr Blair praised Mr Reid, saying his decision to quit would be a "great loss to the party and the country ... Your political courage, your ability to analyse and get to the heart of an issue and your understanding of people, their concerns and their hopes, has been outstanding".

    Reid's shock resignation gives Brown a fresh start, G, 7.5.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,2074035,00.html

1.15pm update

Reid: Security policy must not be based on fear

Wednesday April 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Alan Travis, Hélène Mulholland and agencies

The home secretary, John Reid, today cautioned against scaremongering over the nature of the terrorist threat facing Britain but then went on to warn about the "devastating consequences" of a potential al-Qaida assault on Britain's financial markets and energy supplies.

Mr Reid's latest assessment of the terror threat facing Britain came as both Downing Street and the Home Office issued statements backing the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch's condemnation of people whose leaks he said had compromised recent anti-terror investigations.

Despite the high-level denials, the Liberal Democrats produced a dossier of what they said were "numerous cases" in which "Whitehall sources" had given unauthorised briefings during ongoing terror investigations.

The home secretary's latest assessment of the nature of the terrorist threat came in a speech to a Royal United Services Institute counter-terrorism conference in London.

He said that the decision to split the Home Office would ensure a "faster, brighter and more agile approach" to the terrorist threat but, while there would be 100% commitment, 100% success could never be guaranteed.

"Security policy fed only on fear would debase the values and ideas the British at their best have advanced for centuries. For all its uncertainties, our future has to be about advancing liberty and security not liberty or security.

"In other words, scaring people does not produce security," said Mr Reid.

"We are led to value security through what our liberties enable us to appreciate."

Addressing private and public sector experts involved in protecting what is called the "critical national infrastructure" - such as nuclear power stations - the home secretary said that the introduction of a new Office of Security and Counter-terrorism within the Home Office was needed to provide a greater strategic capacity in the fight against terrorism.

It was necessary because of al-Qaida's ambitions to "cripple the financial markets" so they "bleed us to bankruptcy" and attack the west's energy supplies and electronic networks.

"I believe it is crucial that the home secretary wakes up and thinks about the security of the nation first and foremost every morning. That is what I do now," said Mr Reid.

The Ministry of Justice, due to open on May 9, will deal with criminal justice.

Yesterday, Mr Reid revealed that beefing up the Home Office's counter-terrorism work is expected to cost £15m and Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary, confirmed that the department would recruit 150 extra staff.

Mr Reid also told the Commons all-party home affairs select committee that the maximum time terror suspects could be held without charge would not be extended beyond 28 days unless agreement could be reached across parties.

Only last week, Tony McNulty, the junior Home Office minister, told MPs that he hoped to create a new system that would extend the period suspects could be held without charge.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have expressed their opposition to such a move.

Mr Reid said: "If there is no national consensus then I will not proceed with it."

Meanwhile, the new head of MI5 yesterday briefed Mr Reid, Tony Blair and other cabinet colleagues on the terror threat facing Britain.

Jonathan Evans delivered his briefing at the first meeting of the government's new committee on security and terrorism.

The committee was set up as part of the reorganisation of the Home Office.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said it was "extraordinary" that it had taken more than five years since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, to set up the new committee.

    Reid: Security policy must not be based on fear, G, 25.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2065158,00.html

10.45am

Reid: New department will boost fight against terrorism

Wednesday April 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland and agencies

The new department set up to combat terrorism will be "faster, brighter and more agile" than the Home Office, John Reid said today.

The Ministry of Justice, due to open on May 9, will deal with criminal justice and boasts a new Office for Security and Counter-terrorism which will serve as a strategic centre for counter-terrorism.

Countering claims that the decision to split his department will weaken it, Mr Reid told a conference organised by the Royal United Services Institute in London that the move would significantly boost Britain's security.

"It is vital that in the 21st century we have a department concentrating on managing migration, cutting crime and tackling terrorism," he said.

"The new Office for Security and Counter-terrorism will play a pivotal role in this by enabling the Home Office to focus on personal, community and national security.

"It will provide that faster, brighter and more agile response to the terrorist threat through a new drive, cohesion, and by providing a greater strategic capacity to our fight against terrorism."

The new organisation must make better use of "science, innovation, the private sector and academia" to fight terrorism, he added.

Mr Reid has been plagued by a string of high-profile blunders at the department which prompted him to admit to a parliamentary committee that it was not "fit for purpose".

Yesterday, Mr Reid revealed that beefing up the Home Office's counter-terrorism work is expected to cost £15m and Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary, confirmed that the department would recruit 150 extra staff.

Mr Reid also told the Commons all-party home affairs select committee that the maximum time terror suspects could be held without charge would not be extended beyond 28 days unless agreement could be reached across parties.

Only last week, Tony McNulty, the junior Home Office minister, told MPs that he hoped to create a new system that would extend the period suspects could be held without charge.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have expressed their opposition to such a move.

Mr Reid said: "If there is no national consensus then I will not proceed with it."

Meanwhile, the new head of MI5 yesterday briefed Mr Reid, Tony Blair and other cabinet colleagues on the terror threat facing Britain.

Jonathan Evans delivered his briefing at the first meeting of the government's new committee on security and terrorism.

The committee was set up as part of the reorganisation of the Home Office.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said it was "extraordinary" that it had taken more than five years since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, to set up the new committee.

    Reid: New department will boost fight against terrorism, G, 25.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2065158,00.html

Midday update

Reid defends 'talking' CCTV plans

Wednesday April 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

The home secretary, John Reid, today denied that plans to expand the use of "talking" CCTV cameras across the country were akin to "Big Brother gone mad".

Loudspeakers are being fitted to cameras in 20 areas, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people committing antisocial behaviour.

An existing scheme in Middlesbrough which has been used to stop vandals and tell litterbugs to pick up their rubbish has received widespread support from locals, Mr Reid said.

"It helps counter things like litter through drunk or disorderly behaviour, gangs congregating," Mr Reid told GMTV. "They are the sorts of things that make people's lives a misery. Anything that tackles that is better."

Council workers in a control centre can monitor pictures from 12 talking cameras in the town, and communicate directly with people on the street at the flick of a switch.

The scheme has been criticised by opponents as "Big Brother gone mad".

But Mr Reid insisted it was proven to work, and that the communities sharing nearly £500,000 in grants to adapt cameras would feel the benefits.

Mr Reid denied that this new scheme was being used instead of putting more police officers on the beat.

The home secretary said that since 1997 there were 14,000 more police officers, and the Labour government had introduced 11,000 police community support officers and street wardens.

"We've got more powers than ever before, more resources than ever before. This is just an additional thing," he said.

"The vast majority of people are pretty decent. But if people persistently refuse to do this we have got pictures, which provide evidence and the police can be called.

"We hope it doesn't come to that. Again it saves police time and of course it is not a substitute for having police on the beat. It complements it, and it is another way of using technology, which is why we are introducing it to 20 other places."

Competitions are being held at schools in many of the areas for children to become the "voice" of CCTV cameras.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "This could be a useful tool against anti-social behaviour, but it is no substitute for having a real police presence on our streets and communities, detecting and deterring crime. People want real policing, not scarecrow policing. "It remains to be seen whether this scheme goes the same way as night courts and cashpoint fines for yobs."

    Reid defends 'talking' CCTV plans, G, 4.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2049786,00.html

Analysis

Divide and rule

It is unclear whether splitting the Home Office in two will help or hinder the ongoing quest for joined-up government, writes Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian's security affairs editor

Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

It's not good, a senior security official told me the other day, when you want to talk to the home secretary about the latest terrorist threat assessment and you know his mind is on the latest prison scandal.

MI5, and the police, are likely to welcome the decision, after a battle royal in Whitehall, to break up the Home Office.

John Reid's new department, a kind of ministry for security, will now concentrate on counter-terrorism, police and crime, while responsibility for prisons and probation will be hived off to a ministry of justice under the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer.

So crime will be in dealt with one place, the consequences of it, and its effects, in another. Whether that helps in the continuing quest for joined-up government remains to be seen.

The Home Office will have a new office for security and terrorism, a unit which will drive and try to coordinate all the different elements of the fight against terrorism - including, presumably, the struggle for "hearts and minds".

The prime minister will chair a monthly meeting of what is to be called a security and counter-terrorism council. Weekly meetings of a security and counter-terrorism board will be chaired by the home secretary.

The irony is that the cabinet committee on security and intelligence - in existence before Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997 - rarely met after he entered Downing Street.

Indeed, the parliamentary intelligence and security committee regularly chided him for never discussing such urgent matters with his cabinet colleagues.

    Divide and rule, G, 29.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045547,00.html

Analysis

Split for purpose

Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Home Office ministers are joking that their department is being "split for purpose" but today's announcement on the major Whitehall shake-up marks the creation of a continental-style "ministry of interior" in Britain for the first time.

The decision by Tony Blair and John Reid means that as of this morning a new office of national security and counter-terrorism has started work within the Home Office in addition to its responsibilities for the police, fighting crime, tackling immigration and asylum and setting up the new national identity card and passport scheme.

That is the bad news. The good news is that from May 9 a new ministry of justice will open its doors, responsible not only for the courts but also for criminal justice policy, sentencing, prisons, probation, and youth justice.

For the first time a minister will be sitting around the cabinet table who has a specific responsibility for protecting human rights.

It is also made clear that that new minister will sit in the Commons so Lord Falconer can be expected to go in May. The frontrunners for his job are Jack Straw or Harriet Harman.

The good news was immediately tempered by a warning from the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, that the new ministry must not be used to put political pressure on judges to impose inappropriate sentences. This will prove the source of a running battle.

But it is the decision to give the Home Office a much stronger role in tackling the terrorist threat that is most problematic. It leaves all the main elements of the domestic state apparatus in the hands of one minister - the home secretary - without worrying about such consequences of their operations, such as prison crisis or reoffending rates.

The former home secretary, Charles Clarke, called the split decision "irresponsible" and the former Home Office minister, John Denham, said it would create more problems than it solved.

It certainly leaves some wondering just how bothered Mr Reid - who can now wake up every morning worrying solely about tackling the terrorist threat - is going to be about tackling anti-social behaviour - especially if youth justice is no longer his responsibility.

The foreign prisoners crisis that sparked the "fit for purpose" debate over the future of the Home Office stemmed from the failure of the immigration service to talk to the prison service.

Now one has to wonder how that coordination will be improved by moving them into separate departments.

    Split for purpose, G, 29.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/comment/0,,2045614,00.html

PM's statement on Home Office

Tony Blair issued a written ministerial statement today on the division of the Home Office

Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

I am today announcing Machinery of Government changes to the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. These changes build on the 'Security Crime and Justice' strand of the Government's policy review, which sets the broad direction for the Government's policy response to security, public protection and the criminal justice system issues over the next decade.

The Home Secretary will be developing our capabilities to tackle the threat posed by terrorism. The security and counter-terrorism changes will have immediate effect. Alongside this, a new Ministry of Justice will be established, with the National Offender Management Service and lead responsibility for criminal law and sentencing policy being transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. This change will take effect from May 9.

I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses a paper by the Cabinet Office, which sets out these changes in further detail.
 

Security and Counter-Terrorism

All those working in the field of counter-terrorism, particularly the police, security and intelligence agencies, have worked unstintingly to protect the country from the threat that we face. Our counter-terrorism capabilities are among the best in the world. However, the continuing and growing threat from terrorism means that the Government must develop and improve its counter-terrorism and security capabilities, and its governance.

I am therefore strengthening the role of the Home Secretary and the capabilities of his Department in facing the terrorist threat. While critical areas of the counter-terrorism strategy are overseen by other Secretaries of State, notably the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Home Secretary has the lead responsibility for the strategy in relation to security threats in the UK, including their overseas dimension.

A new Ministerial Committee on Security and Terrorism will be established, subsuming the current Defence and Overseas Policy (International Terrorism) Committee and the counter-radicalisation aspects of the Domestic Affairs Committee's work. The Prime Minister will chair the Committee, with the Home Secretary normally acting as deputy chair, although other Ministers such as the Foreign Secretary, and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, will deputise as appropriate. It will be supported by a sub-committee focusing on counter-radicalisation, which will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The Committee will meet regularly, and will be supported by a more frequent meeting focusing on the threat to the UK, which will be chaired by the Home Secretary.

In order to support the Home Secretary in his new role, an Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism will be established in the Home Office. This will report to the Home Secretary. The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism will take on overall responsibility for the CONTEST strategy, reporting through the new Ministerial Committee. The Government will also establish a research, information and communications unit in support of the struggle for ideas and values. This will be based in the Home Office, reporting to the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

The changes set out here are aimed at producing a step change in our approach to managing the terrorist threat to the UK and winning the battle for hearts and minds. These changes do not alter the responsibilities of the Foreign or Defence Secretaries, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, or other ministers, or the strategic and operational reporting lines of any of our security and intelligence agencies. The Cabinet Office will retain its role supporting the Prime Minister on national security and counter-terrorism.

Criminal Justice System

A new Ministry of Justice will be established. The National Offender Management Service, including the Prison and Probation Services, will move from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs on May 9, to form the new Ministry. The Home Office will retain its other existing responsibilities, including for policing, anti-social behaviour, drugs, overall crime reduction, immigration, asylum and identity, in addition to its responsibilities for security and counter terrorism.

The Ministry of Justice will be responsible for policy on the overall criminal, civil, family and administrative justice system, including sentencing policy, as well as the courts, tribunals, legal aid and constitutional reform. It will help to bring together management of the criminal justice system, meaning that once a suspect has been charged their journey through the courts, and if necessary prison and probation, can be managed seamlessly.

The Ministry of Justice will take the leading role in delivering a fairer, more effective, speedy and efficient justice system, and also in reducing reoffending. In doing so it will, with the Home Office and the Attorney General's Office, respect the vital roles and independence of the judiciary and the Prosecuting authorities.

Public protection and crime reduction will continue to be the core focus of Government policy. The Government has made clear that prison will continue to be necessary to protect the public from the most serious offenders, although some non-dangerous offenders do not need to be in custody because their offending can better be addressed through non-custodial means. The Government has announced plans to build a further 8,000 prison places by 2012, having already increased capacity by 19,700 since 1997.

Criminal law and sentencing policy will move to the new Ministry of Justice. In order to maintain the Government's clear focus on public protection, the Home Secretary will continue to have a core role in decision making in this area, reflecting his responsibilities for crime reduction. The Secretary of State for Justice will work with the Home Secretary, the Attorney General and other ministers to ensure flexible and effective responses to different types of crime, from anti-social behaviour to serious and organised criminality, including through the expansion of summary powers. Government policy in this area will, in future, be decided by a new Cabinet Committee on Crime and the Criminal Justice System, chaired by the Prime Minister.

Responsibility for the Crown Prosecution Service and the other prosecuting authorities will remain with the Attorney General, who has a statutory duty to superintend them. The prosecuting authorities are an integral part of the criminal justice system and the Ministry of Justice will continue to work with the Attorney General's Office to deliver a world-class criminal justice system.

The existing trilateral arrangements have been a success in delivering improvements to the criminal justice system, and will continue under the new structure. To facilitate this, there will continue to be a shared National Criminal Justice Board and an Office for Criminal Justice Reform, based in the Ministry of Justice, which will work trilaterally between the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General's Office.

The relationship between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice remains vital, and strong working level agreements will be put in place, for example between the NOMS, the Police, and the Immigration and Nationality Department.

    PM's statement on Home Office, G, 29.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045575,00.html

Home Office crises: a timeline

Today's confirmation that the Home Office is to be split into separate security and justice ministries comes after a long saga of blunders, gaffes, errors and strains in the system. Here is a timeline of the difficult past 12 months.

Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

February 2007
A rapid succession of fatal shootings and stabbings of teenage boys in separate incidents across south London throws the spotlight back on the Home Office's crime strategies.

February 14 2007
Despite John Reid having apparently sent Tony Blair proposals for splitting the Home Office in two before Christmas, it is reported the whole project is on hold until after the PM leaves Downing Street, allegedly because of scepticism from Gordon Brown.

January 29 2007
John Reid is repeatedly forced to insist that he will not resign - indeed, that the Home Office needs "two-and-a-half years" to have its failings rectified - after a weekend of blunders exposed by the Sunday press. Mr Reid tells the Guardian "I expect more problems" and asks to be judged "not on the challenges but on my response to them".

January 28 2007
The News of the World finds that 322 convicted sex offenders across the UK have been lost track of by police forces. It also emerges that the Identity and Passport Service has failed to enforce travel bans on 147 convicted drug traffickers. The Tories mock Mr Reid's intention to force sex offenders to take lie detector tests as being re-announced for the third time.

January 23 2007
The home secretary writes to courts urgently demanding they send fewer convicts to prison, as jail numbers in England and Wales go through the 80,000 barrier with nearly 500 held in emergency police cells.

January 21 2007
Mr Reid, despite previous opposition to splitting up the Home Office, puts a plan to cabinet to divide the Whitehall colossus into a national security ministry - dealing with terrorism, the security services, the police and immigration and identity - and a separate ministry of justice, responsible for the prison and probation services, criminal justice policy, and the current portfolio of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. This bears a remarkable similarity to long-standing Tory party policy to create a new "homeland security" minister out of the Home Office.

January 16 2007
It emerges that a third terrorism suspect held under the government's control orders has absconded without trace.

January 14 2007
The first victim of the internal Home Office inquiry into how police records of Britons convicted abroad were not updated on to a computer for more than two years is found, as a senior civil servant is suspended.

January 9 2007
It is revealed that more than 27,000 records of Britons convicted abroad, including 500 serious criminals, have been left sitting around the Home Office rather than being uploaded into the national police computer database for the best part of two years.

December 19 2006
In another U-turn, Mr Reid reveals that instead of a new "from scratch" computer database to handle the national identity register - the network underpinning a future ID card scheme - the database will be compiled from existing records across three IT systems.

July 12 2006
In a major U-turn, Mr Reid abandons the plans of his predecessor, Mr Clarke, to merge police forces in England and Wales, creating around 23 forces instead of the existing 40.

May 23 2006
Little more than two weeks into the job, the home secretary, John Reid, appears before the home affairs select committee to declare his department "not fit for the purpose, averse to a culture of personal responsibility, technologically ill-equipped for an era of mass migration and led by officials that are incapable of producing facts or figures that remain accurate for even a short period". He also signals that he is willing to sack the senior civil servants responsible.

May 22 2006
In a mini-reshuffle of junior Home Office ministers interpreted as a demotion for Tony McNulty in the wake of the foreign prisoners fiasco, Mr McNulty is switched to be police minister, while Liam Byrne leaves that post to become minister for immigration, asylum and citizenship.

April 25 2006
It is revealed that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners have been freed without being considered for deportation. Of those offenders, five have been convicted of committing sex offences on children, seven have served time for other sex offences, 57 for violent offences and two for manslaughter. The National Audit Office says it had warned ministers in July 2005 of the problem, but 288 foreign offenders were still released from prison between August 2005 and March 2006.

By October it emerges that three of the most serious offenders are still at large and only 86 of the 1,013 total have been deported. Charles Clarke - who refused to resign at the time - is sacked shortly afterwards in a cabinet reshuffle following the disastrous Labour performance in the May local elections. He is replaced by the defence secretary, John Reid.

    Home Office crises: a timeline, G, 27.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1987030,00.html

4.45pm update

Reid announces plans for new prisons

Friday February 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Two new jails are to be built to ease serious overcrowding in the prisons system, the home secretary, John Reid, announced today.

In a speech at the site of one of the planned jails - to be built next to the Ashworth high security mental hospital, on Merseyside - Mr Reid said the move would provide an extra 1,300 prison spaces.

He said the public wanted more people in prison for their own safety, but warned that this put inevitable pressure on the existing jail system.

Planning permission had already been granted for the 600-place Merseyside jail, to be called HMP Kennett, the home secretary said. It is being built in addition to a "temporary" 350-place jail on the site, announced last month and due to open in the spring.

The second new prison, with 700 places, is planned for a site next to Belmarsh, in south-east London, although planning permission for the scheme had not yet been granted.

While Belmarsh is one of the most secure prisons in the country, holding a number of convicted terrorists, the planned new prison is expected to be a lower risk category C facility.

The plans come with the country's prisoner population having exceeded 80,000 for the first time - the highest per capita in western Europe - and Mr Reid said he wanted to create space for at least another 8,000 inmates by 2012.

He said the increase in prisoner numbers was due to a series of factors including stiffer sentences, proper enforcement of bail conditions and community sentences and the use of indeterminate sentences.

The latter measure alone currently accounted for an extra 2,200 people in jail, and this figure is set to rise to 12,000 by 2012.

Mr Reid said the increase in inmate numbers due to indeterminate sentences reflected the desires of the country despite the pressure it put on the system.

"That is something that the public wants, that the public demands in terms of their own protection, something it is right to do, but something that puts considerable pressure on prison places," he said.

He said the recent fatal shootings of three teenage boys in south-east London in less than two weeks emphasised the need for robust law and order policies.

"When we look at the recent awful, violent, tragic deaths in London and elsewhere, of course we all realise that police action and prison places on their own will not necessarily solve this problem," he said.

"But the problem will not be solved ... without firm police action, firm powers and sufficient prison places. They are a necessary, though not sufficient part of the solution to some of these awful crimes."

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, condemned the plans as "far too little, way too late", complaining that overcrowding meant prisoners were not receiving proper rehabilitation while in jail. For the Liberal Democrats, home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said the entire policy needed to be re-thought as "Labour's policy of mass incarceration isn't working".

After his speech, Mr Reid was due to inspect work on the new temporary facility at Maghull. Hospital wards and office buildings are being refurbished to house adult male offenders, and a secure perimeter fence will be constructed.

New prisons cost between £100,000 and £125,000 per place to build, meaning the 8,000 places pledged by 2012 will come with a £1bn price tag.

Prison overcrowding has become a serious worry for the Home Office, adding to a series of problems faced by Mr Reid since he took over at the department in May last year.

One of the biggest has been the revelation that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been freed without first being considered for deportation.

Last month, the chief prisons inspector, Anne Owers, said overcrowding and poor planning meant there was a "serious crisis" in the prisons system, which could not be addressed by extra cells alone.

Also in January, the Home Office was criticised for advising judges that jail terms should only be given to serious, violent or repeat offenders.

    Reid announces plans for new prisons, G, 16.2.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,2014719,00.html

2.15pm

I will see it through, says Reid

Monday January 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

John Reid declared "I am not a quitter" today as he sought to regain control of the headlines that are threatening to engulf the Home Office.

The home secretary dropped a broad hint that he expects Gordon Brown to keep him on as home secretary for at least two years if the chancellor becomes prime minister when Tony Blair steps down.

Mr Reid preceded an article he wrote in today's Guardian with a round of television and radio interviews in which he said problems uncovered at his troubled Whitehall department would take two-and-a-half years to fix - and he would "see it through".

However, he refused to deny outright that he might still challenge Mr Brown for the Labour leadership.

In an interview with GMTV, Mr Reid said: "I'm not a quitter. The reason I was put into the Home Office is because or the problems.

"It does not come as news to me; I am the person who told everyone that there were problems, when I used the phrase 'not fit for purpose'."

In a separate interview, with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the home secretary said: "I set down a timescale for what I thought was necessary - two-and-a-half years.

"I am not daunted. I will see it through. If it needs endurance, if it needs determination, it will be there."

In words which will be closely scrutinised, the interviewer, John Humphrys, asked: "Will Gordon Brown keep you in the job when he is prime minister?"

Mr Reid replied: "Gordon and I work very closely on this. We discuss penal policy..."

"And you expect to be working for him as prime minister, do you?" interrupted Humphrys.

Mr Reid said: "I never guess the future, John, but I can tell you as late as last night I was discussing these matters with Gordon, and we continually discuss them."

"So obviously you are not going to run for the leadership, then?" responded Humphrys, and Mr Reid replied: "John, I am going to be home secretary."

In his Guardian article, Mr Reid likened revamping the Home Office to interior decorating, saying peeling off the wallpaper revealed new cracks and problems.

But the Conservatives claimed Mr Reid was "papering over the cracks because he cannot solve them" , while the Liberal Democrats claimed that the collapse of confidence in the department was due to 10 years of Labour mismanagement.

The Tories also moved to try to blame the chancellor, Gordon Brown, for some of the Home Office's problems.

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, claimed the chancellor had "prematurely frozen" the department's budget, supported the £20bn ID card scheme instead of building new prisons, set up too many performance targets and blocked new private finance initiative jail projects because they would add to the government borrowing figures.

"Gordon Brown likes to claim he has been the one running the government for the past 10 years, but when trouble arrives he quickly vanishes," Mr Osborne said.

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said of Mr Reid: "First he blamed his predecessor, then the judges, then the civil servants and now we are asked to believe that the problems in the Home Office are because of dodgy wallpaper in a fictional house in Whitehall."

The Home Office was hit by a weekend full of damaging allegations about police failures to monitor 322 sex offenders, and a failure to enact travel bans on 147 convicted drug offenders.

Mr Reid appeared today to suggest in his Guardian article that there will be further failings to come.

He also said that his proposal to split the Home Office into security and justice departments had been put to the cabinet, without a decision yet.

"I have put my views to the prime minister on that. I have also discussed it with cabinet colleagues," he said.

The Daily Mirror reports today that Mr Reid hopes to create 2,500 more prison places by the end of the year by building cells on existing prison sites and reopening disused jail buildings.

In his GMTV interview, Mr Reid said the measures he had taken since being appointed home secretary included ordering 8,000 more prison places and a review of how to better control sex offenders.

    I will see it through, says Reid, G, 29.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2001420,00.html

This won't be the last of it

Problems at the Home Office are deep-seated. That's why it needs reform - not another minister

Monday January 29, 2007
The Guardian
John Reid

If you renovate a house you start by taking the wallpaper off. Only then do you discover more problems. That's what it is like in the Home Office. But the idea that you stop fixing things because you discover more problems is not my way. No one need tell me that there are problems at the Home Office. I know. That's why when I came in I instigated a root-and-branch overhaul and why I said parts of the Home Office were "not fit for purpose".

There are problems in each of the separate "silos" within the department, and with how they relate to each other. Many are problems I inherited - such as foreign national prisoners or overseas criminal convictions. Others have been discovered because of reform, such as the latest concerns about drug offenders' travel orders not being enforced.

These problems don't leave me beleaguered. If we weren't discovering more we wouldn't be reforming. Indeed I expect more problems. In each of the rooms of the Home Office are upcoming challenges like pay pressures, prison population pressures, counter-terror challenges and stubbornly high reoffending rates. There will also be problems I haven't discovered yet - and may well be unearthed by others. If we were not open about challenges as we discover them we would not be being serious about reform.

Yet even the ground on which the Home Office is built - the Britain of the 21st century - is shifting. Mass migration, the information age and environmental change have changed the world. If we just fix the old structures we will not be prepared for challenges such as identity crime, people smuggling, and illegal migration. I was sent to the Home Office to do a job. Being home secretary is my biggest challenge. But it isn't mission impossible. Judge me not on the challenges but on my response to them.

Look at the passport service. A few years ago there were long queues; now the agency has better customer satisfaction than Tesco or Amazon. It can be done when committed public servants change to deliver for the British public. The border and immigration agency is in uniform and a bill is before parliament to give them the powers they need. The first of the new prisons I asked for in July is under construction. And last week's crime figures confirmed a downward trend of the past decade. Policing is becoming visible, local and accountable with neighbourhood teams. On counter-terrorism, I know our capacity isn't up to scratch for future challenges. That's why my plans for enhancing our capability will go to cabinet soon.

Last week I was lambasted when the lord chancellor, the attorney general and I set out the big picture on prisons and sentencing to the National Criminal Justice Board. This was unfair - the lord chief justice made clear that I had "not sought to instruct judges to stop imposing sentences of imprisonment".

There is pressure on prison places because we are bringing 300,000 more offences to justice every year than five years ago; the most dangerous offenders serve significantly longer sentences; and we asked the probation service and police to enforce community sentences and bail conditions properly for the first time.

We have delivered almost 20,000 more prison places since 1997 and I put in place plans for another 8,000 last year. But projecting the prison population is never an exact science. Independent sentencing guidelines laid down that tougher post-release supervision of offenders should be balanced by a 15% reduction in sentence length. This has not materialised. Add to that 1,300 foreign national prisoners awaiting deportation and a much shallower "Christmas dip" than experts predicted.

Some people see their main task as changing the ministers at the Home Office. I see my main task as changing the Home Office. The British people need and deserve a Home Office that protects the public, a functioning 21st century public service. It is what I am going to do.

· John Reid is the home secretary.

    This won't be the last of it, G, 29.1.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2000944,00.html

Reid urged to free thousands as jail conditions worsen

January 29, 2007
The Times
Richard Ford and Frances Gibb

Overcrowding 'puts public at risk'

Foreign prisoners await deportation

Britain’s jail watchdog will heap further pressure on the Home Secretary this week by giving warning that prison overcrowding is putting the public at risk.

Anne Owers will say that the overcrowding in England and Wales is hitting rehabilitation programmes intended to make offenders less likely to return to a life of crime.

She will also highlight the position of foreign national prisoners who remain in prison awaiting deportation despite having served their sentences.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, today admits that problems at his department will continue to be undermined by new crises and embarrassments.

He writes in The Guardian: “If you renovate a house you start by taking the wallpaper off. It is only then that you discover more problems. Indeed I expect more problems. Being Home Secretary is my biggest challenge. But it isn’t mission impossible.”

Last night it emerged that he had suffered a further setback in his efforts to speed up the deportation of prisoners from EU states. Poland is blocking attempts to allow transfers without a prisoner’s consent. An EU-wide deal would free 1,500 places.

Ms Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, will also express concern at the number of prisoners being given indeterminate sentences — far more than the Government estimated.

Her intervention comes after an increase of 627 prisoners plunged the Home Office into another crisis and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, tried to calm the furore over Mr Reid’s statement on sentencing.

In her annual report, Ms Owers will say that overcrowding makes rehabilitation more difficult as resources are spread more thinly and offenders are moved from jail to jail. She will highlight the plight of those with mental illnesses or drug addictions, saying that staff are too overstretched to cope with them. And she will argue that the number of mentally ill people being jailed is making overcrowding worse.

Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, urges Mr Reid in The Times today to adopt the “nuclear option” of releasing thousands of non-dangerous prisoners to ease overcrowding. That is a measure that Mr Reid will take only as a last resort.

He also calls on Mr Reid to repeal or suspend laws that “force judges to use more and longer sentences than are necessary”. But he offers support for Mr Reid’s move last week to bring to the attention of the courts the state of the prisons and to restate guidelines that prison should be reserved for the dangerous, violent, sexual and prolific offenders.

Lord Woolf says that it would have been a “dereliction of duty” for the Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor not to issue their statement and dismisses as “muddled thinking” the suggestion that the move represented an encroachment on the independence of the judiciary.

Lord Phillips issued a statement saying it was proper for Mr Reid to remind judges of the state of prisons. He said Mr Reid’s statement about prison overcrowding had given a helpful summary and was consistent with sentencing legislation. “But [it] carries the implication that ministers hoped that judges would be particularly careful to consider, in each individual case, whether there was an appropriate means of disposal that did not involve immediate custody,” he said.

He added that in many cases custody was inevitable, but he said that where judges had a choice as to sentence there was the well-established authority of the Court of Appeal that it was appropriate to have regard to jail overcrowding.

Latest figures show that 51,800 of 90,000 offenders given an immediate custodial sentence in 2005 received six months or less. It is that huge number of offenders being jailed for very short periods that is causing concern as there is insufficient time for effective work to be done with them.

Many in the prison system believe that those who are not prolific offenders should be punished in the community.

The Home Office had hoped that its reform of sentencing, which has led to longer sentences for the dangerous and violent, would be matched by fewer non-violent offenders being jailed. John Denham, the Labour chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said that radical thinking about sentencing was “desperately” needed — including more effective non-custodial sentences.

Mr Denham, a former Home Office minister, added: “We have got to make community punishments a more demanding and onerous punishment so that if somebody doesn’t go to prison it is still seen by the public as an adequate response to a lower level of crime.”

    Reid urged to free thousands as jail conditions worsen, Ts, 29.1.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2572266,00.html

Reid to give sex offenders lie tests

January 28, 2007
The Sunday Times
Isabel Oakeshott, David Cracknell and David Leppard

JOHN REID is to introduce compulsory lie detector tests for the first time in Britain to assess whether paedophiles are at risk of reoffending.

The home secretary is backing a legal amendment that would allow compulsory polygraph tests to monitor sex offenders after their release from jail.

Probation officers would be able to subject paedophiles to tests measuring their breathing, heart rate and sweat to establish whether they were safe to remain in the community.

The move, to be included in a criminal justice bill now in the Commons, will be seen as an attempt by Reid to reassert his authority in the face of the crisis about prison overcrowding.

After a rebellion by judges over a directive to consider alternatives to jail for less serious offenders, prison bosses and chief constables this weekend openly attacked the government about its handling of overcrowding in jails.

Ian Johnston, a senior member of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), warned that Reid was in danger of letting people escape jail “simply because we have run out of space”.

Paul Tidball, the leader of Britain’s prison governors, criticised the government’s practice of locking up so many offenders and described its hardline “pro-imprisonment rhetoric” as “a disgrace”.

However, this weekend the lord chief justice attempted to calm the row by declaring it was “appropriate” for judges to consider the state of prison overcrowding when passing sentence.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the most senior judge in England and Wales, said Reid had not
sought to instruct judges to stop imposing prison sentences on offenders.

Two judges said last week that they had to spare two child sex offenders from jail because of prison
overcrowding. They said they were acting on government guidance sent out reminding them to take into account the pressures on the prison system.

Reid’s plans for lie detector tests will enable him to make clear his determination to protect the
public from paedophiles, regardless of the overcrowding problem in prisons.

Home Office sources confirmed that Reid would support a Labour backbench amendment enabling extensive pilot schemes to assess whether compulsory polygraphs can reduce reoffending.

When the tests were first mooted by David Blunkett, the former home secretary, two years ago the idea provoked a cabinet split. So far only volunteers have taken part in the trials, which are therefore less likely to include recidivists.

The new law, part of the National Offender Management Service bill, will give probation officers the power to make tests compulsory. Robert Flello, a Labour member of the Commons committee considering the bill, said: “The idea that John Reid wants paedophiles released onto our streets is ludicrous — if anyone wants them locked away it’s Reid.”

Polygraph tests are widely used in police investigations in America, despite doubts about their accuracy. Tests involve connecting tubes and wires to the body to monitor reactions to questions.

Reid faces the prospect of more offenders being spared prison this week. Tidball, who speaks on behalf of the prison governors and assistant governors in the 130 jails in England and Wales, told The Sunday Times “John Reid clearly is finding it extremely difficult to justify the position in which the government finds itself.”

He emphasised that he did not want to single out Reid for criticism, saying that a series of home secretaries had contributed to the problem. “Too many minor offenders are being sent to prison,” Tidball said. “I feel some shame that the UK has more of its population locked up than almost anywhere in the developed world.”

He said that ministers had been repeatedly warned about the growing number of inmates and had apparently ignored the warnings. Their reaction last week was “a bit late”, he added.

Privately, senior governors blame Gordon Brown for failing to fund the prisons system adequately to cope with the huge rise in inmates.

Johnston, chairman of Acpo’s crime committee and chief constable of the British transport police, said of Reid’s directive: “I think, in pragmatic terms, it’s pretty bad news to let people escape jail simply because we’ve run out of space.

“It does seem to me that you ought to make your decisions around sentencing on what’s right rather than on the space that’s available to do it.” In a pointed rebuke to Reid, he added: “We would like to see those who deserve prison sentences end up in jail.”

Despite saying the directive simply restated existing rules, Reid’s position was undermined by a confidential report by the Home Office and Downing Street — circulated in Whitehall a week before Reid’s new guidelines — calling for “a clear and sustained message” to judges that the prisons cannot cope with more and longer sentences.

The document, sent out on January 17, explains that unless the courts change their policy, there will not be enough places to cope. It says that the projected rise in the prison population by up to 22,000 within five years is due to “sentence inflation”.

“The current approach to sentencing has led to a significant increase in the severity of punishment for many offenders, with a high proportion of convicted offenders receiving custodial sentences and longer average sentence length,” it states. “If we are going to manage the gap between projections and capacity, significant action is needed to reduce sentence inflation for non-violent offenders.”

The document refers to the fact that the planned additional prison places — 8,000 by 2012
— will not be in the system soon enough.

“Sentence inflation refers to the increased severity and length of sentences resulting both from the intended impact of legislation and unintended impact of pressure on sentencers from the media and politicians. It needs to be addressed if we are to manage the system,” it reads.

“Achieving this will require a clear and sustained message that the government wants to see stability in sentence lengths to ensure that there is a greater understanding that prison and probation are not free goods and that capacity is limited and should be used cost effectively.”

Supporters of Reid say his decision to press ahead with legislation is consistent with his long standing tough stance on sex offenders.

One of his first moves as home secretary was to abolish the automatic 30 per cent discounts on sentences for paedophiles caught red handed videoing their own crimes.

Tomorrow, Reid will announce plans to ship 400 Category C prisoners to a disused mental hospital which is part of the complex at Ashworth near Liverpool. At the same time he is looking to buy at least two prison ships and re-open only military bases to address the short term crisis.

The government will also seek to bolster confidence in community sentencing this week by announcing moves to give the public more say in the unpaid work carried out by offenders.
Ministers want the public to nominate projects to be carried out by those sentenced to unpaid community work.

Harriet Harman , the constitutional affairs minister, said: "We must challenge the perceptiuon that community service is somehow ‘getting off with it.”

    Reid to give sex offenders lie tests, STs, 28.1.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2570066,00.html

Prisons furore threatens to engulf Reid

· Two more judges question cut in use of jail sentences
· Youth justice chief quits over many children in jail

Saturday January 27, 2007
Guardian
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent

The row over prison overcrowding threatened to engulf the home secretary, John Reid, last night after two more judges called into question his advice on sentencing and the chairman of the Youth Justice Board resigned in protest at the rising number of children in custody.

Rod Morgan, who quit the YJB, said the country was "on the brink of a prisons crisis", three days after Mr Reid told courts to issue custodial sentences more sparingly as jails reached capacity.

Yesterday the official prison population was 79,731, some 356 higher than the same time last week and close to the maximum 80,114 capacity, but slightly lower than unofficial figures for Monday and Tuesday. The Conservative leader, David Cameron, urged Mr Reid to ditch ambitious proposals to break-up the Home Office and concentrate on the job in hand.

Professor Morgan focused on the rise in the number of under 18s in custody, which last month was 2,841, up 224 on December 2005. That includes 331 offenders in custody for serious offences, 1,931 in custody for other offences and 579 on remand.

"We have tonight lots of people in police cells because there is no space for them in custody and that's true for children and young people also," Prof Morgan said in a pre-recorded interview for BBC2's Newsnight. "The Youth Justice Board has a target to reduce the number of children and young people in custody by approximately 10% by 2008. That target is written into our business plan, it has been agreed with the Home Office, it was incorporated in the Home Office five-year plan which was published early last year, and yet we're going backwards."

Prof Morgan also described a 26% rise in the number of children brought into the criminal justice system between 2002-03 and 2005-06 as "swamping".

Ministers had decided to advertise Prof Morgan's job after his three-year term rather than extend his contract. The board's future is also subject to the threat of reorganisation as part of a departmental review, but the new chairman will be offered a three-year term.

Speaking at the Guardian public services summit in St Albans, Mr Cameron condemned "another example of failure of policy, planning and political will at the Home Office".

Lady Scotland, the Home Offfice minister, offered praise for Prof Morgan's work. But a Home Office spokeswoman said: "We refute the claim that young people are being demonised and criminalised. Considerable emphasis has been placed on providing activities for young people. We remain unapolagetic about the need to tackle anti-social behaviour by anyone, regardless of their age."

Mr Reid, Lord Falconer, the lord chancellor, and the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, made an appeal to the courts on Tuesday that prison should be used only by serious, persistent and violent offenders. The move was endorsed by the lord chief justice on Wednesday.

But on Thursday a judge in Mold, north Wales, said a man convicted for downloading child pornography would receive a suspended sentence rather than jail because of the ministers' communication.

At Exeter crown court yesterday, Judge Graham Cottle released Keith Morris, a 46-year-old man convicted of four sex offences against a teenager, on bail ahead of sentencing. Morris has previous convictions for sex offences against boys. The judge curfewed Morris from 8am to 5pm and said he would receive a custodial sentence. But he told the court: "There are difficulties remanding people in custody at the moment and the only reason I am having any discussion about this is because of those difficulties."

Later, at Northampton crown court, Judge Richard Bray sentenced three men for their part in a pub brawl and criticised sentencing policy. "I am well aware that there is overcrowding in the prison and detention centres. The reason our prisons are full to overcrowding, and have been for years, is because judges can no longer pass deterrent sentences," he said.

Mr Reid said last night his appeal to judges had been a reminder, not a change, of the guidelines. "The guidelines under which they operate are exactly the same this week as they were the week before. They have been the same for several years. They are quite clear: violent, persistent, serious offenders should be given custodial sentences or sentences that protect the public. But if they are less serious or not dangerous to the public then they should be put to either paying fines or community service."

At a glance

Sunday Floats plans to split up Home Office into two separate ministries.

Tuesday He and two other ministers remind judges of sentencing guidelines as prison numbers hit a new high.

Thursday Sun reports "John Reid's brain is missing" and condemns "abysmal failure" on prisons.

Friday Chairman of Youth Justice Board quits. Two more judges comment on Reid guidance.

    Prisons furore threatens to engulf Reid, G, 27.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1999890,00.html

1.30pm update

Reid faces fresh pressure over prisons

· Judge defies jail directive
· Head of youth justice resigns
· Child pornography offender spared jail

Friday January 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

John Reid was today under increasing pressure in the prisons debate, with a judge savaging his plea to keep most offenders out of prison and the head of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) saying the juvenile justice system was being "swamped" with minor offenders.

The home secretary was already under fire after his directive this week that prison terms should be reserved for dangerous and persistent criminals resulted in a man who downloaded child pornography being spared a jail sentence.

A series of newspapers attacked Mr Reid's directive, which a judge in North Wales cited yesterday as the reason for not sending Derek Williams to prison. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, today called the situation an "outrage".

"What this is doing is clearly bringing a little more pressure on judges to use prison less and as a result, of course, to put the public more at risk," Mr Davis told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Reid's troubles deepened today when another judge publicly defied the prisons directive, jailing a man and a teenager for their role in a street brawl and complaining that maximum sentences were too lenient.

"I am well aware that there is overcrowding in the prison and detention centres," Judge Richard Bray told Northampton crown court.

"That is not going to prevent me from passing proper sentences in each case. The reason our prisons are full to overcrowding, and have been for years, is because judges can no longer pass deterrent sentences."

Meanwhile, Rod Morgan, who announced his resignation as chairman of the YJB, said youth custody services, like their adult equivalents, were "on the brink of a prisons crisis".

Minor offences that used to be dealt with informally or out of court were now being pushed into an overstretched criminal justice system, Professor Morgan said in an interview with BBC2's Newsnight, to be shown this evening.

This meant work to improve systems in young offender institutions was being "undermined", he said.

"We're standing on the brink of a prisons crisis. We have tonight lots of people in police cells because there is no space for them in custody, and that's true for children and young people also," he told the programme.

"I regard a 26% increase in the number of children and young people that are being drawn into the system in the past three years as swamping."

A statement on the YJB website announced that Prof Morgan, who joined the organisation in April 2004 on a three-year contract, would not be applying for an extension.

He said government targets for bringing offences to justice were having "perverse consequences" by swelling prisoner numbers unnecessarily.

He said the YJB had had a Home Office-agreed target to reduce the number of young people in custody by around 10% by 2008. Instead, he said, "we're going backwards".

He also argued that reoffending rates for those sent to youth custody were extremely high. This meant that "a custodial establishment, no matter how good we make them, is the worst conceivable environment within which to improve somebody's behaviour".

He added: "We've got to invest more in early prevention work with children who are starting to get into trouble rather than locking up more and more young people after the horse has bolted."

Newsnight said he told the programme he had been working behind the scenes in the Home Office to try to get a change of policy.

But when ministers decided to advertise his job rather than extend his contract for another three years, he chose to resign and tell his staff and the BBC about his concerns.

The various comments heap further pressure on Mr Reid, whose department was recently castigated for its failure to keep track of offences committed abroad by UK nationals.

At the start of the week it emerged that the Home Office could soon be split into two separate departments responsible for national security and justice, the biggest single reform since the ministry was created in 1782.

    Reid faces fresh pressure over prisons, G, 26.1.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,1999475,00.html

Leading article: Personal privacy and the power of the State

Published: 15 January 2007
The Independent

Not long before Christmas, the Home Secretary announced that the Government had abandoned plans for a giant database to support its scheme for national identity cards. At the time, this was seen as a concession to those who - quite reasonably - feared the "Big Brother" aspect of ID cards. It was also seen as realistic, given the likely cost and complexity of such an undertaking. John Reid said that the Government had decided to make do with the databases it already had.

It now appears that, while plans for this particular centralised database may have bitten the dust, the Government has not given up its intention to find out more about us. This time, though, ministers are taking care to present the project as being more for our benefit and convenience than theirs. The Prime Minister is expected to give details of the proposals today.

From what has emerged so far, the new database would allow different Whitehall departments to collate and cross-check the information they hold on individuals. The argument is that this would make public services more efficient, for them and for us, because the data on each person would only have to be collected and recorded once.

One example cited is that of a bereaved relative who may currently have to report a death to several different departments. With a central database, all the relevant files would automatically be updated. Similarly, applications for particular benefits might be speeded up if all the pertinent data were instantly available. What sometimes seems the arbitrary division between social services and NHS provision could be overcome.

Presented in this way, the plan for a new central database might look entirely benign. The way that the Government is planning to set about its task, however, should immediately raise some red flags. As a first stage, ministers apparently want to gauge public reaction to a relaxation of the Data Protection Act. In other words, what they would like to do is weaken some of the most important legislation on personal privacy of recent years.

This is our biggest objection. But we have plenty more. As the latest revelations about Home Office practice show, the Government's record on registering and keeping personal data leaves much to be desired, as does its record on computer projects - the NHS and the Child Support Agency come to mind. Fears of snooping may be justified, but the greater risk may derive from craven inefficiency. And while the new database would not record, at the start at least, the biometric data that was to have been a key feature of the central database for ID cards, this does not mean that this information could not be added later.

The way the Government has homed in on the Data Protection Act as a hindrance to efficiency should also raise a few questions. The Data Protection Act is rather like the Human Rights Act, in that it has become a whipping boy for the routine inefficiency of government departments. It was the main reason cited by the Humberside Police for not sharing information about Ian Huntley before he murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Yet the Bichard report found that the Act had nothing to do with the failure, and pronounced that there was no reason for it to be revised. The Human Rights Act was blamed for the difficulties the Government faces in removing foreign offenders in just the same way.

These two Acts are unpopular with government because they protect the interests of the individual against the power of the state. This is also why any attempt by ministers to soften them, on any pretext, needs to be fiercely resisted.

    Leading article: Personal privacy and the power of the State, I, 15.1.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2154789.ece

2pm update

Reid pledges

inquiry into criminal records blunder

Wednesday January 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

Around 280 criminals who committed serious offences in Europe have yet to be entered onto the police database, the home secretary John Reid admitted today - as the Tories hinted they would call for his resignation if any were subsequently have found to be working with children.

Mr Reid was forced to make a Commons statement after a morning of emergency meetings with senior police officers and the Criminal Records Bureau over the latest fiasco to hit the Home Office.

The home secretary promised that the 260 serious offenders that had been committed to the policy database already would be retrospectively checked by the Criminal Records Bureau with employers "hopefully by the end of this week" to check they had not been employed in sensitive positions.

But earlier, at prime minister's questions, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, warned that if any criminals whose details the Home Office had received but not registered had gone on to work with children, Mr Reid "will not be able to run away from responsibility for it" - a clear hint that the opposition sees this as a potential resigning issue.

Mr Reid blamed a mix of "patchy" information from abroad, information being sometimes of "extremely poor quality", plus "fragmented and piecemeal" collation of information by the UK authorities.

He pointed out that no single offence had been forwarded by Spain, for example, despite the likelihood that UK citizens had been convicted of crimes there, or that some countries sent information simply stating a "John Smith" had been convicted of an offence.

In a statement to MPs, he said police had identified the 540 "most serious" cases among a pool of more than 27,500 offenders.

So far, details of 260 have been entered on the PNC, he said.

But 280 cannot be put into the system until more details are obtained from the countries where the crimes took place, he added.

He put no specific timetable on how long that would take, saying such a deadline would be "artificial" and could damage the existing system.

He added that he hoped the entire 27,000 backlog would be cleared within three months, and that the 260 most serious already identified and entered on the police national computer would be checked with the CRB in "hopefully not months or weeks - I hope to have that [done] by the end of this week."

When details of the Home Office gaffe emerged yesterday, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) voiced concerns that some of the offenders may have escaped vetting measures designed to protect children and vulnerable adults.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said that under Labour, the Home Office had had "its worst three years in its 200-year history".

He demanded that Mr Reid, now eight months into the job, "start shouldering responsibility for his department".

Mr Reid added that an internal inquiry into the Home Office's handling of the criminal records notifications should be complete within six weeks - and he also appeared to threaten sackings within his department, saying he had demanded to know why he was not informed of such information system failures in his first week in the job.

The permanent secretary at the Home Office is now investigating why he was not told about such deficiencies, he said.

The home secretary began by telling MPs that the current system of voluntary exchange of information about foreign offences had begun in 1959, until a November 2005 EU decision was taken to make it mandatory.

In May 2006 his predecessor, Charles Clarke, made Acpo the UK coordinating agency for such information.

A pool of 27,529 documents were found to contain details of British nationals convicted abroad, including:
· 25 rapists and three people convicted of attempted rape;
· 29 paedophiles, plus another 17 other sex offenders;
· Five murderers;
· Nine convicted of attempted murder and 13 of manslaughter;
·· 29 robbers.

According to an Acpo document, the majority of the serious foreign convictions of UK nationals were not on the PNC and the police had no DNA, fingerprints or photographs of the offenders. None of the 25 UK nationals convicted of rape had been put on the sex offenders register, it said.

Mr Reid pointed out to MPs that only three countries in the EU - Britain, Ireland and Spain - had sex offenders registers in place.

    Reid pledges inquiry into criminal records blunder, G, 10.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1986954,00.html

11.15am

The Home Office: a year in crisis

Today's oversight - which appears to have led to hundreds of files on serious criminals convicted of offences in Europe not being entered onto police computer records - is the latest in a series of Home Office blunders since January 2006. The crises left the department reeling, and saw one cabinet minister - Charles Clarke - returning to the backbenches. This is how a year of fiascos unfolded...

Wednesday January 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent


January 9 2006

It emerges that the then-education secretary, Ruth Kelly, has cleared a registered sex offender to work as a PE teacher in a secondary school - sparking an investigation which reveals that the separate lists - supervised by the Home Office - of the sex offenders register and the list of people proscribed from working with children, do not tally.

It is eventually disclosed that 88 sex offenders have not been banned from working in schools. Ms Kelly then changes the system to stop anyone cautioned for or convicted of a child sex offence from being allowed to work in schools in the future.

April 25 2006

It is revealed that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners have been freed without being considered for deportation.

Of those offenders, five have been convicted of committing sex offences on children, seven have served time for other sex offences, 57 for violent offences and two for manslaughter. The National Audit Office says it had warned ministers in July 2005 of the problem, but 288 foreign offenders were still released from prison between August 2005 and March 2006.

By October it emerges that three of the most serious offenders are still at large and only 86 of the 1,013 total have been deported.

Charles Clarke - who refused to resign at the time - is sacked shortly afterwards in a cabinet reshuffle following the disastrous Labour performance in the May local elections.

He is replaced by the defence secretary, John Reid.

May 22 2006

In a mini-reshuffle of junior home office ministers interpreted as a demotion for Tony McNulty in the wake of the foreign prisoners fiasco, Mr McNulty is switched to be police minister, while Liam Byrne leaves that post to become minister for immigration, asylum and citizenship.

May 23 2006

Little more than two weeks into the job, the home secretary, John Reid, appears before the home affairs select committee to declare his department "not fit for the purpose, averse to a culture of personal responsibility, technologically ill-equipped for an era of mass migration and led by officials that are incapable of producing facts or figures that remain accurate for even a short period".

He also signals that he is willing to sack the senior civil servants responsible.

July 12 2006

In a major U-turn, Mr Reid abandons the plans of his predecessor, Mr Clarke, to merge police forces in England and Wales, creating around 23 forces instead of the existing 40.

December 19 2006

In another U-turn, Mr Reid reveals that instead of a new "from scratch" computer database to handle the National Identity Register - the network underpinning a future ID card scheme - the database will be compiled from existing records across three IT systems.

    The Home Office: a year in crisis, G, 10.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1987030,00.html

10.15am

Reid to face MPs

over latest Home Office blunder

Wednesday January 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

The Home Office has promised to provide "some answers" by the end of today as it scrambled to discover whether any serious criminals convicted of crimes abroad had been cleared to work with children.

John Reid, the home secretary, will update MPs with an emergency statement this afternoon, following the latest in a series of blunders to afflict the department.

The statement comes after Mr Reid met senior police officers and members of the Criminal Records Bureau this morning to investigate how the files of around 500 serious offenders who committed crimes abroad have apparently been left sitting at the Home Office without being entered on the police computer system.

Last night Mr Reid - who has already described his department as "not fit for purpose" - conceded it "was a very serious problem and I take it very seriously indeed".

With this latest blunder threatening another ministerial scalp - both David Blunkett and Charles Clarke had to resign as home secretaries - this morning Joan Ryan, the Home Office minister responsible for the Criminal Records Bureau, said she expected "some answers" by the end of today over whether dangerous offenders were working with children.

"What we hope to be able to do by the end of the day is to be sure that what is in place is a means of establishing exactly that information," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"I don't want to tell you I can do things in the space of a few hours, it is a little bit more complex than that.

"Protection of public safety is paramount and there are going to be some tough questions asked at this meeting this morning."

Ms Ryan said ministers had not been made aware of the problem "to the best of my knowledge", but was checking that claim.

She added that she had asked to see "every single piece of paper related to this issue since May 2006 so I can be absolutely, categorically sure that what I am telling you is the absolute, honest truth".

Asked if Mr Reid would have to resign if it emerged "something awful" had happened as a result of the failure, she said: "I don't want to pre-empt the outcome of either this morning's meeting or the inquiry.

"The whole department has now swung into action at the behest of John and we are ensuring that we deal with this problem.

A "full and immediate" inquiry was ordered by Mr Reid last night after the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) revealed yesterday that information on convictions had been left "sitting in desk files" in the Home Office rather than being properly examined.

Ministers were only told of the latest fiasco to hit the Home Office after Acpo presented the evidence to a House of Commons select committee.

More than 500 serious offenders are being checked by the Criminal Records Bureau - which vets people who want to work with children - to see if any have applied for jobs in Britain.

The cases included 25 Britons convicted of rape in other European countries whose details were not entered into the police national computer (PNC).

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, described the oversight as "disgraceful".

Acpo spokesman and Hampshire Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan told the Commons home affairs committee that the Home Office's processing system had been "totally unacceptable".

Until the Acpo created its own criminal records office last year, he said, it had been was possible for a British national to travel abroad, commit a sexual offence and serve a sentence without the knowledge of the police or courts in the UK.

"That is a totally unacceptable position professionally and in terms of public protection," he said.

"The information was sitting in desk files and not entered on the PNC."

The committee heard a new system was set up last May to rectify the situation, which involved more than 27,500 case files.

A pool of 27,529 documents were found to contain details of British nationals convicted abroad, including:

· 25 rapists and three people convicted of attempted rape;
· 29 paedophiles, plus another 17 other sex offenders;
· Five murderers;
· Nine convicted of attempted murder and 13 of manslaughter;
· 29 robbers.

According to an Acpo document, the majority of the serious foreign convictions of UK nationals were not on the PNC and the police had no DNA, fingerprints or photographs of the offenders.

None of the 25 UK nationals convicted of rape had been put on the sex offenders register, it said.

Reid to face MPs over latest Home Office blunder, G, 10.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1986954,00.html