…. Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of State for Justice between 2012 and 2015, announced his populist plans to make prisons, already hideous tombs of violence, death and terror, ‘less lax’ and more ‘spartan’, introducing severe restrictions on prisoners’ ‘privileges’ – which famously included an unlawful ban on prisoners being sent books* – and displaying a bizarrely prurient obsession with stopping inmates having sex. It was not enough to deprive people of their liberty; their lives had to be made extra intolerable to satisfy the public’s perceived lust for blood.

The human cost has been horrific.

Barrister, The Secret. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken (Kindle Locations 4239-4240)

*For a news item on this horrific piece of ideological dogma put in place by Grayling see

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/08/ban-books-prisoners-ministry-of-justice-mark-haddon

Chris