bewilderment fatigue

In a recent post I mentioned (tongue in cheek) the Blessed John Reid, who has given us such bon mots as ‘Not fit for purpose’ and ‘Get it! Recent mismanagement of Home Office remits has put one of the most durable and varied political careers of recent years in serious jeopardy. Now I can’t begin to make sense of how and why so much has gone wrong – and like most others I am suffering from bewilderment fatigue, that rare but serious condition when the mind has been exposed to so much incredible nonsense and self-contradictory claims, that it resigns itself to accepting nonsense as the norm.

I suppose what I’m trying to do is make sense of something like this –

• prisons are in short supply, overcrowded, and in crisis (all agree)
• too many people are being imprisoned for offences better dealt with by alternative sanctions such as community service, tagging or fines ( some, perhaps most agree)
• the Home Secretary is obliged and expected to keep the judiciary up to date with the current position, and to remind of guidelines about appropriate sentencing (some agree, but it seems some judges don’t)
• the judiciary is independent of government, and due legal process is expected to operate beyond political interference ( all, or at least most, agree)
• so why have some judges acted on the Home Secretary’s reminder as if it were an order they had to obey – and in doing so have used the independence of the legal process to make a political point by acting as if they were not independent, which they are free to do because they are independent.

See what I mean, bewilderment fatigue!

That a judge who could have detained a man convicted of serious offences involving child pornography, chooses not to in response to the Home Secretary’s memo, is, it seems to my less complex mind, an abuse of the independence of the judiciary. If the appropriate sentence is custodial, and that is what the law requires, surely the availability of a place is a secondary and practical problem – the primary obligation is that a law intended to safeguard the public (in this case children) should be upheld. Had the judge in question imposed a custodial sentence, that would have upheld the independence of the judiciary. Instead, the judge chose to make a statement – by acting as if he were not independent of political pressure.

Or have I missed something?