Ministry of Justice Gross Financial Mismanagement
Jeffrey Watkins | 05.12.2013 15:53 | Analysis | Repression | London | South Coast
Ministry Of Justice Gross Financial Mismanagement
I am fed up with the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling's rank hypocrisy in bleating on about the need to make even greater savings to the justice budget while, in reality flouting his incumbent duty to prevent tax payers money being wasted by negligently overseeing the squandering of a fortune every year,
The Ministry of Justice allocates set costs per prisoner place dependent on that prisoner's security category. This, according to figures gleaned from the National Offender Management Service annual report and accounts 2010-11 (being the most recently available on line figures) are for a Category C place £21,895, Category B £28,673 and a dispersal placement is given as £47,314.
As a case in point, as a Category C prisoner I was held for two years in Category B conditions. Now, because of overcrowding I have been moved to a dispersal prison. Therefore the tax payer not only wasted £6,778 per year to hold me in Category B conditions but that was increased to a staggering £25,419 per year to hold me in dispersal conditions. To further emphasize the financial waste it is cheaper for the public to fund two category C places than to fund one dispersal place.
Bearing in mind that I am only one Category prisoner out of hundreds if not thousands held in higher security conditions than justified surely the sheer scale of the financial mismanagement is a national scandle. This is all the more the case as the reasons for my being unable to secure a move into the C category estate are that the Ministry of Justice is constantly closing such establishments down thus losing the cheaper C category places thus trapping more prisoners like me into substantially more expensive prison places.
J.S.Watkins (A0439AJ) HMP Belmarsh
I am fed up with the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling's rank hypocrisy in bleating on about the need to make even greater savings to the justice budget while, in reality flouting his incumbent duty to prevent tax payers money being wasted by negligently overseeing the squandering of a fortune every year,
The Ministry of Justice allocates set costs per prisoner place dependent on that prisoner's security category. This, according to figures gleaned from the National Offender Management Service annual report and accounts 2010-11 (being the most recently available on line figures) are for a Category C place £21,895, Category B £28,673 and a dispersal placement is given as £47,314.
As a case in point, as a Category C prisoner I was held for two years in Category B conditions. Now, because of overcrowding I have been moved to a dispersal prison. Therefore the tax payer not only wasted £6,778 per year to hold me in Category B conditions but that was increased to a staggering £25,419 per year to hold me in dispersal conditions. To further emphasize the financial waste it is cheaper for the public to fund two category C places than to fund one dispersal place.
Bearing in mind that I am only one Category prisoner out of hundreds if not thousands held in higher security conditions than justified surely the sheer scale of the financial mismanagement is a national scandle. This is all the more the case as the reasons for my being unable to secure a move into the C category estate are that the Ministry of Justice is constantly closing such establishments down thus losing the cheaper C category places thus trapping more prisoners like me into substantially more expensive prison places.
J.S.Watkins (A0439AJ) HMP Belmarsh
Jeffrey Watkins