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.

Like the old debtors prisons? Where people ended up being released from prison straight into debtors (then running up further debt in debtors prison). I understand the sentiment but it doesn't work practically.

I could see the logic from any income gained whilst incarcerated going towards keep however - for eg Rolf Harris' royalties

It currently costs £67,000 a year to keep a person in a UK prison. If they had to lose any of their personal funds, I'd rather it went directly to their victims, who will mostly get no compensation whatsoever.

It would appear so.

Huntley is on a life sentence with a minimum of 40 years; beforehand he had a succession of very low level jobs before taking the school caretaker job. Couzens is serving a whole life order and was previously a police constable. How much do you imagine they realistically have by way of savings, and how much use would those hypothetical savings be to them?

couzens had a wife. Ian Huntely could come out at sometime?

So much moaning is done about people on benefits what about people in prison costing the tax payers a fortune!

Well, if you are moaning about people on benefits, perhaps your post makes sense. But I don't really know anyone who moans about people on benefits unless it is to be concerned about how the hell they live on them.

You have clearly never been in prison if you think it compares to bed and full board. So it would be pointless telling you about. When you've had a week in prison, come back and tell us how easy it is then.

Sorry OP, but not a well thought out idea.
Didn't RTFT but for starters, how would that work? If you're paying for your stay in prison, would it fall under the sale of goods and services act and a contract would exist between seller and buyer for a commercial transaction?
If you can afford to pay more, would you get better food and accommodation?
Losing your freedom is the punishment and prison can be a dangerous place for the vulnerable. Getting bullied, beaten up and even shanked in prison, comes to mind.

So how much money do you reckon he had?

I forgot to add, that prisoners DO contribute financially in a way. My family member who is in prison has had their state pension stopped for the duration.

couzens had a wife.

So why should she lose her life's savings because her husband became a murderer?

What a horribly dystopian idea. Make people who are often the most vulnerable in society even poorer and more vulnerable.

Prison should serve two purposes. As a punishment for the crime committed and as a opportunity for rehabilitation. That opportunity to stop future offending should not be squandered. It is a valuable one, after all investigating, solving and prosecuting crimes does cost money and that's before incarceration even starts.

Not to mention that if we are an ethical, moral society what do we want for our convicted criminals? Do we want them to be brutalized by the existing system, their mental health in tatters, their chances of a normal life when they leave prison even more slender than when they went in? Do we want the chance to righteously froth about lowlife criminals and like OP make their lives and unending cycle of criminality, incarceration and poverty whilst complaining they currently have it too soft when they are inside. Or do we want those who have committed crimes to learn from their mistakes, to grow as people, to understand the impact of their crimes on their victims and to be educated and trained and have an actual chance of employment and a fulfilling life.

Norway is well know to have very low rates of re-offending because they treat their prisoners like human beings.

I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but if it were me I'd rather spend more money on the penal system doing my utmost to ensure those who are there are only ever there once.

If someone has benefited from their crim eg fraud or drug smuggling, money laundering etc they can already be made subject to a confiscation order, for the proceeds of crime to be seized.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/confiscation-and-ancillary-orders-pre-poca-proceeds-crime-guidance

lots of people slag ppl off on benefits and call them scroungers etc, dont pretend they dont.
No ive not been in prison. I hope never too.
Dosent mean I cant start a discussion though.

Currently housing benefit and all associated benefits cease when someone enters custody, what type asking for, for the majority is for that to go to the prison instead. It didn't make any sense, benefits are publicly funded as are prisons.

I have been in prisons. Numerous times, because of my job. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Lay off the daily fail for a bit.

no i dont agree she should.
He didnt give a toss about her anyway.

How are you going to charge someone who is in prison for their ‘keep’ when they’re in prison, and consequently not earning anything ? Prisoners are not entitled to benefits while inside for the very reasoning in your post - they are being kept by the state. There was a similar thread earlier this week suggesting charging hospital inpatients for bed and board. It’s called kicking people while they’re down and it’s nonsense.

These used to exist. They were called Debtors Prisons. While they existed for people who could not pay their debts (not other criminal offences) the prisoner would also have the cost of their stay added to their debt. The ideas was that the work they would do would pay off both debts. In reality, what they learnt was often less than their accruing debt. They ended up in a vicious circle of not being able to leave because they owed money, which they couldn't pay back because they were incarcerated so their earning power was limited. Charles Dickens wrote about debtors prisons in Little Dorrit. It is meant to be based on his experience of his father being sent to a debtors prison when he was 12 years old.

@girlfriend44 so why did you mention her?

Any money he had should go to her. Not to the system.

What an utterly stupid point of view. Go back to frothing over the daily mail

i know it’s a very small proportion of criminals, but I looked up if you were allowed to profit from your crime(s) , eg books. Apparently a ban was first mooted when Gordon Brown was PM. In the US there is Son of Sam’s Law, as the serial killer David Berkowitz stood to make millions from book/film/tv deals. The publishing industry is against legislation as it compromises “free speech”.

Actually I do remember my father storming down to the newsagent’s to cancel his order when it transpired that the Daily Mail had paid Sonia Sutcliffe. Sadly dc’s grand gesture seemed to have little effect!

They’re also often sexual abuse victims

this past is sick

op should move to North Korea

df’s, that is.

Exactly!
Woolly liberals-
All hug a mugger until something happens to them or their family.

No one goes to jail for trivial first offences.
Violence, sex crimes, robbery, drug dealing at high level..

UK is very lenient with sentencing anyway.

Much less lenient in U.S and Malaysia and Singapore are really brutal.
At least UK has no death penalty or lashing.

I watched a few seconds of a video of “lashing “ with Rattan at a Singapore jail, attached to a newspaper story about western kids being lashed, and felt faint
I was imagining something like the cane as was done in English schools in the past, but no way.

The skin literally splits open and the lash wielder hits the same place over and over.

It’s barbaric.

As stated here, prisoners do pay.

Stop believing everything the Daily Mail prints.