To think that prisoners should have to pay towards their keep?

[girlfriend44]

So you commit a crime and go to prison and your kept also for free, no money worries etc.
If you can afford it shouldnt you pay something towards it? it costs country alot of money to keep you locked up why not contribute?
Your not exactly spending your money while your locked up anyway.

Oh dear…

But they’re not making any money so no one can afford to pay can they ? Or are you suggesting that we make them pay out of savings or assets ? That’s a good idea isn’t it ? Their families who are already disadvantaged by the fact that possibly the main wage earner is incarcerated and not earning, are further penalised by the state coming after their assets to pay for the privilege of them being locked up !! Don’t talk shit.

Yep. The same House of Lords who get in excess of £300 a day just for turning up.

No but it gives you a bloody sight more insight than some of the idiotic posters on here !!

Do you still get benefits when in prison or job seekers? Sometimes prisoners do 'jobs' in prison- do they get paid? I don't know enough about it, but I do think that yes there should be some basic 'rent'

Methinks some on this thread would like to return to the days when felons were dispatched to the colonies, many dying en-route, others used as slave labour on arrival.

No of course you don't still get benefits - what part of being in prison do you not understand?

Paying rent? - with what money? And for accommodation that would not meet the basic spec for landlords.

You are a prisoner. In prison. With no income. In shitty accommodation. You can have a prison job paying £4 a day if you behave well. There is no minimum wage for prisoners.

Loss of freedom is the punishment

it’s enough

it’s traumatising for many prisoners

We care too much the welfare of criminals in this country. If we cared more about the welfare of law-abiders, there would be fewer criminals.

I agree. I once joked that prisoners should do tasks like house maintenance (sanding wood, painting fences, digging up lawns etc) as it would put them off re-offending 😂 they're all jobs I've been doing whilst renovating and they're just the worst! If someone said I'd have to do those a few days a week, every week, in prison then I'd definitely make sure I didn't break the law 😂😂 I'm not saying turn prisons in to labour camps (before someone suggests it!) and I think rehabilitation is very important, as is education or qualifications so they can leave with better prospects.

The OP won't be back by the way. They have some kind of fixation on prison/prisoners and like to start inflammatory misinformed threads about it, post 2-3 times then bugger off and leave everyone else to argue about it.

Why not go further, and charge hospital inpatients for bed and board?

Ps I'm not serious with that suggestion.

How would that work? Take me through the steps of your logic in your second sentence.

@Florenz is absolutely correct. If we hadn't scrapped Sure Start, cut family support by 80%, and defunded children's services, cut the Police etc we would have fewer criminals in prison.

Your first sentence is utter tosh. Your second sentence is 100% correct.

Take time, money and effort we spend on caring for criminals and apply it to law-abiders, it's quite simple.

Sometimes I feel like MUMSNET is a Conservative party broadcast- should water meters be compulsory?
should prisoners pay for keep? Multiple leadership threads….

If you want to do market research, please pay a professional company to do the job properly. 😵‍💫

"Take time, money and effort we spend on caring for criminals and apply it to law-abiders, it's quite simple."

So what happens to the criminals? How would you treat them differently.

If actually spent money caring for criminals there would be less criminals.

Do some people think that prisons in the past being hell holes meant that there was no crime.

Thanks @KettrickenSmiled

I've been reading the articles. In this day and age it's shocking really.

, ‘Most women are imprisoned for survival-related offences: non-payment of fines, council tax, benefit fraud, fraud, and shoplifting.

This happens in Egypt. The families end up paying for them, so the punishment extends to them too.

That kind of happens already to some people. DLA is suspended for hospital admissions and an awful lot of people don’t receive anything bar SSP if they can’t work.

@Underhisi you don’t even need to look to history, there’s clear evidence in countries with much harsher punishments than the UK that they don’t deter crime, especially not when there’s abundant poverty and inequality. If anyone is offended by having to pay for housing criminals they need to look at what they can do to reduce those two things.

None of those things should be imprisonable offences. We really should be able to find more creative ways of punishing non-violent crimes.

I think prison should be a way to get violent criminals off our streets. Other offences should be punished differently.

There are a few exceptions like contempt of court, where a short sharp shock of a couple of weeks in prison might be needed, but other than that, I really do think we lock up far too many people, both male and female.

If people in prison can work, they should. It is probably better for their prospects once they get out of jail. However, if you massively reduced the numbers going to jail, the ones left going to jail would probably the sort where you would want to throw away the key anyway so there wouldn't be much point making them work except to give them something useful to do.

How so? The criminals would still be criminals. And there would still be more law-abiders becoming criminals. The trick is to stop law-abiders becoming criminals. Once they cross that line it's too late.