Criminals are now the luckiest group in Britain

When the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced she was releasing thousands of criminals from prison early, she assured the country that every precaution would be taken to prevent innocent people getting hurt.

Instead, we’ve seen a botch job, with criminals released without proper tagging, and now a new admission that dozens of inmates were incorrectly freed due to a “mistake”.

Most have been returned to custody, but at the time of writing, five are still at large. That’s five convicted criminals on our streets evading justice, and perfectly capable of committing more illegal acts.

The risks to public safety from the last government’s failure to build more prisons are obvious. But there is another fundamental issue at stake.

We pay our taxes with the expectation of reciprocal service. But despite an ever-growing proportion of our stagnating incomes being seized for such a purpose, the social contract between citizen and state now resembles a one-sided relationship.

The failings of the system are rarely owned by the well-paid leaders of it. It is highly unlikely that anyone at the Ministry of Justice or HM Prisons and Probation Service will be held accountable for these errors, regardless of the consequences for ordinary people.

No, if anyone is to get it in the neck for the release, it will be the humble prison officer who was the last person in the chain of command – likely someone early in their career, trying to get their job done while operating under some of the most dreadful working conditions imaginable.

The same is true in other areas of policy. Despite repeated promises by politicians to secure borders, the flow of migrants entering the country continues apace. The huge costs of this failure don’t accrue to the elites – but to ordinary members of the public.

Take the example of a couple in Suffolk, who called police when they discovered a migrant in the back of their van while travelling from France – and got stung with a £3,000 fine.

We treat criminals with more care and compassion than we do the law-abiding public, or the police and prison officers charged with keeping us safe. Are the officers who get stabbed, slashed, or otherwise savagely assaulted while upholding the law on our behalf compensated generously?

No, but a burglar stabbed by a fellow prisoner can receive £5 million from the taxpayer because their attacker, a convicted murderer, had access to knives in the prison kitchen.

If a recidivist who really ought to be in prison stabs an innocent member of the public, would their victim have any hope of such an award? Hardly.

Has any survivor of the grooming gangs scandal received a multi-million pound award from the state for the failure of the authorities to stop these violent rape gangs because they didn’t want to risk being called racist or Islamophobic?

No, in modern Britain it is not the law-abiding, crime-fighter or victim of crime with the privilege or the rights – it’s the criminals themselves.

If a police officer dares to be proactive and actually perform the job they signed up for, they aren’t rewarded. Quite the contrary: they run the risk of losing their career, their sanity and even their freedom.

Our institutions treat even the most prolific, dangerous and dishonest offenders with more respect than they do even the most diligent and committed police officer.

The failure to secure our borders, to back our police when they confront criminals, and to build more prisons all compound each other. They create conditions for criminals – at home and abroad – to sense and exploit the fundamental weakness in our system.

That means our towns and cities become zones of danger and misery. People become accustomed to a life of constantly looking over their shoulders, fearing that any potential victimisation at the hands of a criminal will be compounded by a distant and uncaring state.

Shops need more security. Goods need to be locked away. Staff begin to wear cameras. Businesses adapt, reluctantly, to the conditions of the new post-punishment Britain.

The greatest losers of all are women and girls, who find themselves leered at, followed, touched, and preyed upon by unstable career criminals who manage to escape justice time and time again.

Few in politics or power deliver results or even dare state the blindingly obvious. Combining a weak political class, a denuded criminal justice system and mass uncontrolled immigration was never going to end well. Our society is too fragile to cope.

The continued entry of large numbers of men with attitudes and values antithetical to Britain – to say nothing of any criminal histories or conduct – is, like prison releases, a scandal in plain sight.

If Labour is to have any hope of winning a second term, it can’t afford to neglect our public security – and if anyone else is to break through, then it will need to have a serious and detailed plan for making Britain safe again.