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BISHOP COMMENDS HIGH SHERIFF AT INAUGURATION SERVICE

28 May 2004

The Bishop of Southwark has commended Frances Cairncross, the new High Sheriff of Greater London, for choosing rehabilitation of prisoners as her cause for her year of office.

Preaching at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street at the High Sheriff’s inauguration service on 25 May, the Rt Rev Tom Butler said that she was already well known as a distinguished journalist (she is a senior editor at The Economist) and would now become equally well known in the world of justice.

The bishop commented on the recently-publicised abuses perpetrated on prisoners in Iraq. They point up the requirement for prisoners - in civilian or military life - to be treated with dignity, he said. “Prisons need to be secure, offenders must expect to be punished, but in a civilised state prisoners are to be treated with dignity, and rehabilitation must be the goal, even from the first day of the sentence. “

The bishop recalled speaking with a man who had served a life sentence and complained that now he was outside it was very difficult to get work. “There are a lot of people on the outside looking for work who haven’t got a prison record; and employers tend to prefer them.”

Frances Cairncross has espoused the cause of bring ex-offenders into training and paid employment, said the bishop, and he prayed that God would watch over her as she played her part in the criminal justice system, so that “what you say and do will be for the common good and will shine the light of hope into dark lives.”

Full text of sermon

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