OK what's the answer?

[Loosehead]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6293225.stm
Build more jails, outsourcing? how about the paradoxical approach? My twopenneth later!

[MrBen5]

Hmmm, the answer is too stop making jails so 'welcoming'. Forget about human rights. The people who are sent should be made to lose some of theirs. Get the tv's, playstations, pool tables, etc out and make the jails a place of punishment. I know a lot of people who have been in jail and they all say the same things. they all say its like a free hotel. The only thing they miss is the sex...

[JudgeJ]

Whilst they have a great deal of discretion (because the cases they deal with vary in nature and seriousness so widely) judges and magistrates have guidelines which provide them with a framework when sentencing.

Whilst it may be true � certainly in the opinion of �Joe Public� � that some miscreants are spared jail who should be sent down, I do not believe there are many (elderly Council Tax rebels, perhaps, excepted) who are sent to jail that should not have been. Generally, those convicted are not sent to prison unless it is warranted.

For the Government to say that the judiciary should exercise restraint when sentencing because of the current �crisis� is breathtaking. The �crisis� has been building for years. It has not crept up unexpectedly. Yet it will be a further four years before substantial extra capacity is available.

Put yourself in the place of a judge or magistrate and ask yourself this. What if they were told �We have quite a few vacancies in our prisons at the moment. These places cost a lot to run and we don�t want them running below capacity. Could you please refrain from passing lesser forms of punishment for a while and send those convicted to prison instead. At least until the utilisation goes up a bit.�

The judiciary should take no more notice of the current request than they would of my ludicrous example. Sentencing should be undertaken judicially, fairly and in accordance with the guidelines. The Government has known of this potential �crisis� for many years. It will have to sort it out.

[brionon]

Make the Prisoners build the Jails. Or squeeze 'em in, if you can't do the time---.

[Lonnie]

The answer to this, and I know there are some who won't agree, is to bring back, and use capital punishment, bring back hard labour,

Of course, circumstances have to be taken into account, what the crime is etc, but when someone goes to prison, they are there to be punished for their crime, mostly against society.

Prison is not a remedial centre, also, while someone is in prison, they also forfeit all their rights until they get out.

[beryllium]

so strange that our prison ship was decommissioned, might have been a rust bucket but hey ho....

I did wonder about hard labour, but where would they do their hard labour? building roads and railway tracks are paid jobs.... community service is I suppose classed as free labour but hardly hard...... what would the chain gangs do?.....

Bring back the stocks lol and rotten eggs :-) give us shoppers something to do......

[IggyB]

never happy eh? usually its the wishy washy liberal elite not sending people to prison or not sending them for long enough... now when it turns out that the so called liberal elite have been sending more people to prison than any other country in europe who can we all blame now? bizarrely you still seem to be implying that its a liberal elite problem for making the prisons all cosy ... what will have to happen before its not the liberals fault and it actually turns out that it might be the pressure from the right wing media demanding jail for those that could be punished just as effectively in non custodial ways

[idalovett]

Lonnie, I agree with you. I do think it's time to make a prison a punishment and that means no perks, tv for an hour a day, sew mailbags etc., it's too cushy by far and I am an ex prison visitor and have seen what they are allowed. If someone is sent to prison then they should be well fed, looked after but PUNISHED by depriving them of the outside world perks. I dare say to so that (as was always the case years ago) that now they would cry that there was an infringement of their personal liberties or something and take their case to the court of human rights.

[youngmafbog]

Its simple. Build more jails and outsource long term prisoners to coutries who have decent Jails such as Turkey or Thailand. Along with making our own jails very uncomfortable this should also send a message that prisoners are there to be punished as well as rehabilited.
For the youth of today bring in tough boot camps not ASBO's make it unpleasant - very unpleasant and then we may actually see the prison population decline.

Of course until we put the HRA into touch we can't really do anything but pamper the poor darlings after all its not their fault its the victims fault for being there.

[Ctrak]

Let's not forget that under New Labour more people have been getting jailed....so they've only really gone and dug themselves into this hole.

And for God's/Allah's/Yahweh's/Brahman's sake, realise that harder punishment DOESN'T equal greater deterrent. Some quite intelligent people really do turn quite dense over this issue.

[youngmafbog]

No it wont deter all but I bet it will deter some.

[Ctrak]

Erm....you ever heard of a land west of here, think it's called the USA or somethin' weird like that?

[Loosehead]

I think, ctrack, for example,if they where to get 5 years in a proper prison with no remission for burglary that would make it less likely that the thieving scum would be doing it! Of course there's no such thing as a 100% deterent but harsh sentencing does deter, no one wants to spend 5 years in jail for nicking a TV! But hey we're all to bothered about the ooman rights of our criminals to the detriment of those of the victims. But hey Tony's never going to abolish his wife's cash cow is he.

[yummymummy]

How about the three strikes and you get life system that I heard the USA adopted? It might not stop people committing small crimes twice, but would hopefully put people off doing it a third time so may work out better in the long run?

[kwicky]

We could empty our prisons overnight if they deported the foreign criminals back to their own countries for sentence. ****** human rights!

[kwicky]

Or we could bring back the birch. The Isle of Man has one of the lowest crime rates in the world for juvenile offenders.

Or look at Singapore's methods which has a very strict policy. Crime is almost unheard of there.

[LATECOMER]

Everyone in prison who has a sentence longer than ten years should have a bullet put in their heads... That would
free up space, act as a deterrent and make an awful lot of law abiding people happy.
If only it could come true, what a joyous day that would be.