Should he be kept in solitary?

Just read the sentencing notes of Stephen Williams for his attempted murder of another prisoner. He has been given preventive detention, so will never be released which is good. But what about the safety of other prisoners and guards?

On 11 December 2016, Mr Roper came to your cell to get some tattoos on his back. You did the tattooing while he sat in a chair with his back to you. At some point, you put down the tattoo gun and picked up a piece of a long florescent light tube that you had broken and hidden in your cell. You stabbed it into Mr Roper’s neck so that shards of glass became lodged inside the wound.

You then put Mr Roper into a ‘choker hold’, pressuring the carotid artery in his neck with your arm. He struggled against you, just making it outside the cell, where the CCTV camera captured the ongoing assault.

Mr Roper lost consciousness but you continued to attack him by stomping on his head. You then picked up a broom and struck Mr Roper across the head so hard that the broom broke. At this point, you stabbed Mr Roper in the back of the neck with the sharp end of the broken broom handle. …

You were annoyed when you were told Mr Roper had survived. When you spoke candidly to the Police about your attack, you said you did not like Mr Roper because you believed he had “narked” on you. You admitted planning the assault for months, making it clear that you intended to kill Mr Roper, and you said you could not believe that he was still alive. Indeed, you expressed regret and disappointment that he did not die.

So he openly said he hoped to kill him. And not the first time he has done this:

In 2014, you were sentenced to five years and eight months’ imprisonment for wounding another fellow inmate with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm; you stabbed him in the neck with a sharpened toothbrush.9 In that case also, you expressed disappointment that your victim did not die.

So he has twice tried to kill other inmates.

I wonder if the appropriate response is to place him in permanent seclusion where he can’t be a threat to anyone. He is obviously beyond rehabilitation and other prisoners shouldn’t have their lives put at risk.