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Is Lynne Featherstone right – are these child killers a waste of taxpayers’ money?

By Mark Littlewood
August 11th, 2009 at 10:53 am | 16 Comments | Posted in UK Politics

connelly-barkerThe two people pictured on the left may look like highly respectable, upstanding members of the community, but don’t be fooled! They are in fact Tracey Connelly and Steven Barker, who are serving minimum sentences of five and twelve years for the death of Baby P. The delightful Mr. Barker is also serving a life sentence for the rape of a two year-old.

Lynne Featherstone pretty much caught the public mood today when she told the BBC, “There’s certainly a section of the public that think that they should be in jail for life and if they come out they should not receive any protection at taxpayers’ expense whatsoever.” 

Hurrah! It’s an air punching moment to hear a LibDem MP arguing for restraint in spending and exposing the nonsense of this country’s “tough on crime” b*llshit. The LibDem approach – established by Nick Clegg when he was Home Affairs spokesman – is essentially to lock up fewer people, but for longer.

But is Lynne right? Given that virtually all murderers are one day released from jail, do we have any obligation to protect them from possible vigilante attacks? I’m just not sure intellectually, but my guts tell me that Lynne’s hardline is spot on.

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