Keeping offenders out of jail

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The Commons' Justice Committee said the prison population, which will be the biggest in Western Europe by 2014, should be cut by a third with thousands of criminals given community punishments in an effort to stop them reoffending.

Courts should regard sending offenders to jail as a last resort, adding that “the underlying needs of many persistent offenders who cause most problems to local communities would be managed more coherently in the community”, the committee said.

Alan Beith, the committee’s chairman said: “Prisons are needed, and some very dangerous people need to be locked up for a very long time, but prison is no answer, for example, to persistent crimes driven by addiction.

“Long prison sentences do not make safer streets. Achieving the highest prison population in western Europe will not cut crime.”

Current Government prison building plans will cost £4.24 billion and were a “costly mistake”, the MPs said.

The report, "Cutting Crime: The case for reinvestment", called for millions of pounds to be diverted from prisons to programmes aimed at rehabilitating offenders and getting addicts off drugs and alcohol.

There are currently around 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales, more than double the level of the early 1990s. Without any action and at current rates, Britain would have “the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe” by 2014, they said.

Reducing the total by a third would leave 56,000 inmates in jail and put 28,000 offenders on the streets. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has committed to increasing the capacity to 96,000 by 2014.

[jamesjosh]

I would have thought that this committee should be more concerned with the criminal population, which according to a recent report numbered 1.9million.

I know, some will say that there are people in prison who should not be there but to me the priority should the safety of the law abiding citizen.

Unfortunately, what comes across from politicians is the view that more attention is paid to the wrong doer rather than the victim.

And if some people are committing crimes due to drug addiction or mental health problems, surely they should not be out in society as they are a danger to themselves, never mind anyone else.

[Jade]

Whilst applauding any act that helps criminals make a different life for themselves when they get out, I would turn a gimlet eye on anyone that suggests that punishment should not follow a crime. It always should.

I remember a long long time ago a prog on R4 asked about the Isle of Man's policy on birching. One of the callers was a scally from L'Pool who cheerfully admitted that he indulged in a spot of burglary, wasn't above a bit of mugging and would help himself ot any of our goods that caught his eye, willingly facing any punishment meted out because when released he could always find a warm bed, a provider of nice meals and a new fresh start to his criminal career

He was disarmingly honest about how the threat of a birching would send him scurrying to his local skills training centre for a new life.

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Jade, you have a point. There is more to sentencing than reforming offenders or protecting the public. There is the small matter of deterrence - even if prison doesn't pose a threat to a habitual petty offender, it sure does to the rest of us, I'll bet.

And then there is good old-fashioned retribution; nothing to do with vengeance (in the sense of malice), just a way of extracting payment for a wrong.

[Jade]

True enough

If I did something wrong (or god forbid was wrongly found guilty of something awful) and was sent to pokey

well

there goes my life. I will never ever get it back. I will not be considered a person to do the work I do, hold the conversations I hold, weild the influence I weild

Earn what I earn

I would be hurled into a different life, one of looking for opportunity to get money to live. Looking for new ways to achieve success and satisfaction.

I might turn into the next Ruth Coe or Mary Kay Ashe (thogh if I had that in me I think it would have emerged already)

or I could be looking at a life on benefits, slipping from one minwage job to another, sinking slowly into a suicidal spiral of lost hope, shattered dreams and rubbish food.

Its certainly enough to make me not want to risk it - but what of those who are already there? Where the life they would have on exiting prison is actually the same or maybe even better?

[jamesjosh]

But then life is about survival and we all try to survive in whatever we can - get a job, rob someone, sell your body etc

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A few days ago someone on the radio was saying that most women in jail "shouldn't be there" and went on to say that many see jail as a place of safety. It doesn't entirely surprise me.

[Jade]

Anyone who thinks jail is prefereable to being free but at home seriously needs to think about their life!

What on earth can be done to help such women see that they do not have to put up with the crap they are running away from?