Really pleased with Chris Grayling's speech today on prison reform. I would like to think that he has read the copy of "Doing Time", that I gave him 2 weeks ago. His speech, and tonights article in the evening standard, did repeat the first line of my book, which is a quote from Einstein:
"the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
This applies to prison reform. Successive governments have passed tougher and tougher sentences yet reoffending has gone up not down. Reoffending is roughly 70percent. The present system is not working and needs changing. Chris is doing that. His ideas deserve all of our support.
The BBC report of the speech is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20399401
I have agreed to be on BBC Radio Newcastle with Jonathan Miles at 10 am tomorrow, live by phone from the BBC studio in Millbank. We will be discussing the ideas in my book Doing Time.
