Useful figures on using prisons to fight crime:
"Anti-prison campaigners are, of course, fond of claiming that jail does not work, pointing to the high levels of re-offending among ex-convicts. But this is to ignore the crucial point that when a criminal is locked up, it is physically impossible for him to commit any offences.
"He may return to his life of crime once he is released, but at least when he is inside, the public is safe from him.
"There are sobering statistics to show just how many crimes he might have committed had he not been locked up. According to a Home Office survey in 2000, the average inmate committed 140 crimes in the 12 months before his admission into custody.
"On that basis, if we locked up 10,000 more offenders a year, we could prevent 1.4 million offences, saving the public purse a fortune as well as reducing aggravation for law-abiding citizens.
"The indisputable fact is that, according to police records and the authoritative British Crime Survey, crime levels have fallen when more offenders have been sent to prison.
"Yet the conjunction of a rising jail population and declining crime causes the anti-prison brigade to descend into tortuously illogical thinking and intellectual absurdities as they refuse to face up to the facts."
This is from an article by David Green in the Daily Mail
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Behaviour & Crime
Comments (2)
TrackBack (0)
Comments
Hm, I was (and still am) very sympathetic to most of the issues raised on this blog, but this is abhorrent. Regardless of whether it cuts petty crime or not, putting human beings in cages is barbarism. I would like to see a massive *decrease* in the prison population.
Prison does little if anything to rehabilitate and often makes offenders worse. What we need is more robust use of community sentencing based firstly on the principle of reparation. The offender should do what they can to compensate their victim(s).
Now the situation is clearly different with dangerously violent offenders. They do need segregation from wider society, but the prison regime needs to change and become more humanistic. Loss of liberty should be punishment enough.. prisoners should have better facilities and be given a real chance to prepare for a new start when they get released. All too often, prison is a brutal holding pen and little more.
Posted by: Rachel at September 15, 2006 08:49 AM
Warning: file(http://63.247.138.2/~bartholo/randomquotes.dump) [function.file]: failed to open stream: No route to host in /home/bartholo/public_html/archives/2006/06/if_we_locked_up.php on line 309
Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Bad arguments. in /home/bartholo/public_html/archives/2006/06/if_we_locked_up.php on line 309
I think more importantly lengthy jail sentences are a deterent! I was talking to a group of kids who have behaviourable problems and are heading for a life of crime trying to get them to understand what the consequences of their actions could be.
The message I got from them was 'so what I can do what I want and you can't do nothing'. The sad thing is their right. I can't do anything about them.
As a kid I used to be terified of getting on the wrong side of the police and authority figures.
It is a strange feeling to know that I could go out tomorrow and commit theft as well as a host of 'low level crimes' without virtually no come back.
My employers as well as perspective ones don't do background checks so really there is nothing to stop me....
I wonder how many people would not have become criminals in the first place if they knew that they would be jailed with a harsher sentence? It would certainly make an honest living the easier option. Right now crime pays and the kids know it watching the 'gangstas' in their fancy cars and bling.
Joke of the Day : July 9 is the best day to commit a murder. The world cup is over and you will be out in time to watch the next!!
Posted by: Windahl at June 21, 2006 02:56 PM