Part time prison sentences for women

[Hulababy]

Here

"A trial scheme under which women serve jail terms part time is being extended to the rest of the country.
The programme allows women to spend weekends or weekdays in prison, and the rest of the time working or with their families.

Home Secretary David Blunkett made the announcement at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton on Wednesday.

The system has been tried at Morton Hall Women's Prison, Lincs, and Kirkham Prison, Lancs.

Deter re-offending

The aim of the scheme is to deter women from re-offending.

But the part-time sentences have come under criticism from the Howard League for Penal Reform, which described the idea as "ludicrous".

The league said there were better alternatives such as offenders apologising to their victims.

While in the community, the offenders will be under the supervision of probation officers, either working, looking for a job, or doing unpaid community work.

If behaviour is not up to scratch, they may be returned to jail full-time. "

Any thoughts?

I think whatever guides people towards not re-offending should be used, whether it's locking them up 24/7 or part-time incarceration. It seems from reading here that I agree more with MeanBean and coddy (I think). Locking people up because you feel they deserve it seems like revenge to me and I don't think the system is there for that. I do agree that people need to face consequences for their actions, but the overriding goal should be rehabilitation.

MTS's point is interesting, too. Is it/Will it be the case that judges are more likely to order people who would otherwise be given community service into parttime jail? Coddy, when you start, you should revisit this. It'd be interesting to hear if your perspective changes and what you think then.

And from what I gathered so far from being in a prison (teaching) is that on many education courses - I do Business from level 1 to OU level) - one of the first assignments done is to do with why they want their life to change; what caused them to be in prison; how it has affected their lifes, and why they want to change to avoid re-offending.

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