If Keir Starmer wants to be braver than Tony Blair, this is how: ignore the neanderthal right on crime

A prisoner walks away with his belongings outside HMP Pentonville in London, last week. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

Of all the landmines planted by the last government, bursting prisons were the most dangerous. This left Keir Starmer with no choice but to release some offenders to stop the dam from breaking. Within hours of “The great escape!”, as the Daily Mail called it, some of those 1,700 early-released prisoners reoffended – as 42% of released prisoners do. Expect this story to carry on peppering rightwing front pages, as more released prisoners reoffend. But even angry victims may agree that a few more weeks inside is unlikely to have prevented them doing so.

This country’s “addiction to prison” – out of all proportion to rates of crime – sees England and Wales lock up more people than any other western European country, as unscrupulous politicians hue and cry for ever harsher sentences. Anecdotes of particularly horrific cases trump the actual statistics on crime (which is declining), and a thirst for revenge often outweighs the evidence on how to reduce reoffending.