Which method is the most effective?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...er-crime-junior-smart

/// Eventually he was arrested for serious drug-related offences and was sent to prison for 12 years. Instantly, he says, his sense of invincibility was shattered. "The first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life," he says. "I had been living a dual life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers' enemies. I spent a long time ironing myself out. I think of it like taking a shirt out of the tumble dryer and you have to iron every single one of those creases out." ///

Then it seems that a long sentence in jail really does do the trick then?

Yet others seem to think that throwing more money at the problem of Gang Culture may work.

/// That's why a £10 million fund is helping to stop the next generation of gang members as well as targeting those already involved in violence. ///

http://www.dailymail....r-street-culture.html

[sp1814]

AOG

What's your point here? Are you saying that we should wait until kids join gangs, commit crimes and then[i jail them?

Would you say that to people living on these rough estates where gangs roam free?

Isn't it better spending on deterrents rather than punishment?

By all means, stuff jail sentences are part of the answer, but they simply cannot be [i]all] of the answer.

[jake-the-peg]

I think AOG's point is that you can cherry pick one specific example and draw a conclusion from that alone.

No need for expensive studies by professional criminologists, no need for careful examination of data, you can draw conclusions from a single example

As long as they support your prejudices that is!


The fact of the matter is that prison sentences work in a minority of cases

UK prison recidivism is something like 70%

http://www.guardian.c...ive-community-service

[Old_Geezer]

One needs to spend where the affect will be greatest. The prison sentence affected one person (he claims). That has a place perhaps, folk should know there are consequences to anti-social behavior. But it is costly on a per person basis. We need to balance views/budget on sentencing with trying to fix why folk start on that path in the first place. That sounds to be more cost effective if we can 'pull it off'. It is good to have multiple irons in the fire.

[Gromit]

It costs £30,000 to keep someone in prison, so the £10million will fund just 28 gang members on a the same programme. Seeing as there are thousands of gang members, are we prepared to spend money this way?

[KerrAvon]

999/1000 are bad people who will never reform. Occasionally you get one like this who is able to get out of that and even do some good, applause to the individual indeed. They are rare, it should not effect our treatment of criminal scum.

[New Judge]

Overall (ignoring local variations) there is very little difference in the rates of recidivism between those sent to prison and those sentenced to community orders. The reason that many offenders re-offend is simply that they have a propensity to commit crime. That propensity will not be calmed by community orders, nor will it be calmed by custodial sentences. The one big difference between the two is that whilst they are in prison the public enjoys a (usually) short period of relief from their odious activities.

Those who wail that the UK has one of the highest rate of imprisonment per head of the population in the developed world should look a bit further into the numbers. The headline is quite true - the proportion of people in the UK held in prison is indeed very high. However, this is not because we are trigger happy and lock people up on a whim. Quite the reverse, in fact. In the UK a person is unlikely to serve a prison sentence for minor acts of violence or domestic violence or unaggravated domestic burglary (unless he has a number of previous convictions). In France, Spain and Germany he is very likely to go to prison for similar offences first time up.

The UK has a large number of people in prison because it has an extremely large number of people committing either a serious crime or a string of more minor offences and have failed to respond to non-custodial sentences. In short, we have too many criminals.

I would draw no conclusions from the effect that a lengthy incarceration had upon Mr Smart. It is admirable that he can count himself among those who have managed to turn their lives round despite having a somewhat shakey start. But one thing is indsputable and that is that whilst he was banged up he could cause no harm to members of the public.

[ludwig]

^ yes, what NJ said.