Even the MoJ admits it: The prison system under Grayling is falling apart
You couldn't ask for a clearer sign of failure. The Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) own figures show a 30% rise in serious assaults in jail, a 69% rise in suicides and sky-rocketing numbers of failing prisons.
And yet Chris Grayling spent the day making a speech about how the trade unions were influencing Labour party policy.
Who, we might ask, is influencing his policy? Who asked him to privatise probation, despite the fact that every single one of the 35 probation trusts was today rated 'good' or 'exceptional'.
They were abolished last month, to be replaced by private firms whose staff – partially allocated by lottery – do not have full access to former convicts' records because they are under the jurisdiction of another company.
Who asked him to introduce punishing new treatments to prisons, to deprive prisoners of books and musical instruments which we know reduce reoffending, to put them in solitary confinement for maintaining their innocence, to prevent inquiries into rape behind bars?
Who asked him to reduce prison officer numbers to levels which were sure to cause unrest and poor management? To stuff private prisons beyond capacity and consequently have to pay extra for each new inmate he put in?
The number of suicides in jails in the 12 months leading up to March was 88 – some 36 more than the year before and the highest for nine years. There were 1,661 serious assaults, up from 1,277 the year before. Assaults against staff rose from 2,787 to 3,201. There were three murders.
Nearly one in four of England and Wales' prisons now have a poor rating. Twenty-eight are of official concern compared to 12 last year.
Perhaps most damagingly of all, there is a decline in offenders completing rehabilitation courses. The number of sex offenders to finish a treatment course, for instance, fell from 2,757 to 2,576, even though another 700 were imprisoned.
It wasn't as if he wasn't warned. Prison governors and officers said they could not deliver a service under 24% budget cuts, massive staff reduction and a non-stop flow of new inmates. Penal reform groups warned of what was happening, but Grayling shut them out. He refuses every interview request from groups like the Howard League, while popping up all over the TV and radio this morning to chunter on about trade unions.
He is presiding over a catastrophic period for criminal justice, dismantling what works and encouraging what doesn't. He has ignored evidence-based policy suggestions and driven through a Victorian era replacement based on his own broken sense of intuition.
But we can't ultimately blame Grayling for this. He is performing at the peak of his intellectual capacity. He's simply not smart enough for the job. The real blame must fall on the prime minister.
His recent reshuffle could have made a late attempt to correct some of these mistakes. Instead he dumped moderates across government and kept Grayling in place. He rewards failure.
Cameron and Grayling both claim to care about the victims of crime. But the dismissal of evidence-based policy from the secretary of state and the indifference towards his vandalism by the prime minister suggest otherwise. If they cared about the victims of crime they would do whatever it took to have less of them in future. Grayling's calamity at the MoJ ensures we will have more.
