To say that prisons should be abolished altogether?

Absurd idea. Prisons are not only about rehabilitation. They are also about protecting the public from dangerous, predatory and violent criminals. Quite frankly, murderers and paedophiles should be in prison for life, in which case I don't care if they repent or not.

If it was a deterrent prisons would be shutting due to a lack of people going to prison, where as they have the highest prisoner rate in the world.

Why would that be required though?
I don’t think that question is quite the gotcha people think. It’s an irrelevance

Rehabilitation on the community isn’t some adopt a criminal scheme. It’s a thoughtful, research backed scheme of support and rehabilitation devised and delivered by skilled experts. Not you having Peter sutcliffe in your spare room

We need to bring back the death penalty for those who murder with intent, and the evidence with dna is there, that will make some space.

lol no prisons.

If anything our prisons are too soft. Oh no humans rights for people that take lives and rape people.

Lock them up and throw away the key when it comes to those things. Certainly not Xbox’s and mobile phones.

Petty crime? Ok maybe not as harsh maybe more Scandinavian they can cook their own meals and stuff in more like hostel type prisons.

Some people should not be in prison I think most people recognise that, however there are some extremely dangerous people who in prison and should never be let out. Batshit idea.

Would you feel confident enough in this approach to house someone?

“No country has ever eradicated prisons and rehabilitated criminals in the community as you suggest OP”

”el Salvador has… by having prisons”

erm…
what? 😂

What’s the deterrent to committing crimes then? I’ll steal my next Tesco shop shall I?

Have you ever been the victim of a crime OP?

I can’t imagine how pleased I’d be if the person who murdered my relative was ‘rehabilitated’ rather than serving time

El Salvador seems to be managing

By using the most brutal and inhumane prison system

But it seems to be a deterrent

No, punishment for dangerous crime needs to be far more harsh. I would rather they build more prisons and have longer sentences with less home comforts inside.

Criminals in this country are not afraid of being locked up.

It's only going to get worse unless something changes.

We need mid point between somewhere like here and Dubai. Dubai is obviously the most extreme, but there is far less crime on the streets.

Have you seen what's happened in schools with this being the quasi policy?

Well…….no because where’s the deterrent not to commit heinous crimes?

What proportion of the current prison population are you proposing to accommodate in your home?

So what would you propose for people like the paedophile ring in Glasgow who last month were jailed for horrific offences against babies and children. The man who killed the children in Southport.

You think they shouldn't be in prison??

This has to be a wind up

What's the betting that after posting such a controversial (or stupid) thread the OP never comes back

God no, an awful idea.

Some people are put away for the safety of the general public and that's the way it ought to stay.

I don't disagree for most crimes but for sex offenders/rapists and paedophiles, I don't think you can rehabilitate. I don't agree with the death penalty but truly, I don't think they should be free in society.

The criminal justice system in the UK doesn’t work, we all know that, there needs to be a big re-think, particularly with both crime prevention and rehab.

Harsh prisons do not reduce re-offending, however we do know thay in countries where prisoners are treated well, have access to high quality education, healthcare, counselling and support to find work upon release re-offending is much lower.

In the UK adults who serve less than a year have a re-offending rate of over 50%, in the UK re-offending rates are increasing. Some countries where prisoners are supported to change re-offending is low, in some places as low as 16%.

If people actually want to reduce re-offending they would want support to both reduce crimes being commited, but to also support offenders to make better choices upon release. People who don’t want that don’t actually care about crime reduction, they just get a kick out of being unpleasant.

Yanbu - to an extent. That the Scandinavian countries which focus on rehabilitation not punishment (and have liberal prison systems) have significantly lower reopening rates. When I say "significantly", the statistics are incredible.

But we live in a country where politics is won by demonising entire groups of people, inciting us to fight each other, so it's not going to happen here anytime soon.

I'd love to see massive reform of our criminal & justice system. Regardless of my personal feelings about wanting to certain criminals punished, if you look at the evidence the way to achieve a safer society is to follow the Scandinavian examples.

There are people who end up in prison often repeatedly because they cannot fend for themselves outside of prison but there is no provision to support those people.

"Work better"? Who for?

Keeping dangerous people locked up so they can't hurt law abiding people works really well from my perspective.

The stupidity/naiveté of believing that all violent offenders can be rehabilitated nearly always results in more people being victims of crime.

I think prisons need massive reform, and far far fewer people should be sent to them, but we do still need them for the few dangerous individuals who cannot be reformed or who do not want to be.

Some prisoners, in my view, can never be rehabilitated. Paedophiles. Rapists. Serial killers. Domestic abusers. Those are just a few examples. So, no I don't think abolishing prisons would work. I'm really looking forward to you coming back and explaining how it would work OP. But I have a strange suspicion you won't be be back.

YANBU as long as we bring back capital punishment alongside.