What Lucy Connolly tweeted and deleted on July 29 2024 is indefensible. She called for migrants’ temporary accommodation to be set on fire with them inside. The next day, far-Right mobs went on to set fire to the hotels where asylum seekers lived. She pleaded guilty, and admitted she had intended to “incite serious violence”. But who is served by Connolly spending 31 months in prison?
As a prison abolitionist, obviously I am already on the side of not locking anyone up. Unless in the most serious cases, where the danger to the public is so great and rehabilitation so unlikely that an offender should be held in psychiatric care. How can anyone be expected to turn their life around locked in a cell for upwards of 23 hours a day? When they are often moved to a facility too far for their family to come visit, causing irreparable damage to their closest relationships? With a criminal record that will make employment harder when they return to society? Punishment like that doesn’t work, it just ruins people’s lives when they weren’t going so great to begin with.
