Criminal conspiracy

Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice announced the last 3 months reoffending rates for convicted criminals - national average just under 10% (Oxfordshire just above the national average, by the way).  Projection for reoffending rates are all upwards.

Later on the same day the MoJ announced that it was proposing to cut the legal aid payable to those representing defendants (ie, lawyers) because they think we get paid to much for pouring through copious amounts of documentation, researching complex areas of legislation (which is always being updated and changing), explaining this in words that people understand, spending sleepless nights wondering if you have forgotten anything, defending essential rights that have been with us since the 12th century - blah, blah, blah …

Connection?  Well, obviously, if you take lawyers out of the equation you get more convictions as there is no-one to defend them, but you reduce the legal aid spend leaving you with more money to build prisons to re-house all the criminals that are reoffending.  Clever.

I reckon I got this whole public policy thing sussed.

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