Politicians love to proclaim that they’re “tough on crime” but they sure as hell don’t want to pay for it. Funding for police gets them headlines. Funding for prisons makes people grouse about TVs and recreational equipment. Few complain when prison budgets are slashed.
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Agree about the extreme cost.
Luckily in Britain, minimum standaeds can be demanded for prisoners under the law. Prisoners in Scotland are getting regular payments in thousands of pounds for the fact that they have no toilet facilities in cells. Other cases are on going about access to other rights. A campaign exists to harry the prison service into providing basic rights and comforts. So cutting back on funding is not an option.
What percentage of prisoners currently do you think should be dealt with outside the Prisone Service- the mad and the sad. Or are our current policies exactly right despite their comparison with Western Europe?
DO you agree that decisions on criminalization and incarceration are determined by culturally bound prejudice rather than by rational decisions.
There is limited chance of greatly increased prison funding. The public really wouldn’t stand for a quadrupling of the bill.
I would agree with the longer term incarceration of the seriously dangerous or difficult if this was accompanied by a decrease in inappropriate use of imprisonment.
Maybe you could suggest a non-custodial system of semtencing that would work, because given the current prison population have already done all the fines, the work in the commuty stuff.
Do we just keep on with the same ?
Is there some point that we say ‘enough is enough’ and say to ourselves, ‘alright you have fifteen seperate offences of driving without insurance, licence and unroadworthy vehicle’ ?
The problem is not the over use of prison, its that the altenatives have already been tried on the prisoners, and they have not worked >
If you have a non-custodial solution that works, the government is willing to pay you large sums of consultancy fees, they’ve already paid out plenty on other schemes that have not worked.
If you say its a social problem, I would not disagree with that, but addressing it is not so easy, the demand for lower skilled workers is less than it was, and for the money you can get East Europeans who are hungry for employment and willing to work hard.
Changing attitudes in a society is not a quick fix, it takes years, in the meantime, what do we do with those who, despite our efforts, persist in offending ?
This fellow, although seriously prolific, only got 4 years, probably for pleading guilty.
He will probably be one of the better behaved inmates actually, he’s been around the block loads of times, he knows the score and pretty much will accept his fate, he’ll behave in prison, and get out in two years, to commit another 100 offences.
Prison workers in Category C jails come across this kind of person all the time, I reckon of the 30 in my workshop, around one third will be this type, another third will be addicts funding their drug habit through dealing, and the rest will be all sorts, Section 18 wounding, theft, robbery - that kind of thing, not major criminals but persistant and capable of spreading pain and misery far and wide.
I honestly do not see why folk like this should be released, its not the severity of his crimes, its the sheer number, and yet the presiding judge saw fit only to give him 4 years.
Do you imagine that anything any prison in the country can do will reform him ? or his pals ?, do you imagine such a person takes community sentencing seriously ?
