Reforming the Prison System

[Chil1234]

Some interesting proposals coming out this week from Ken Clarke's Dept of Justice including dispensing with many shorter sentences. Do we think 85,000 prison inmates is too many or too few? Are we in more or less danger of a crime-wave if we have fewer custodial sentences? Is it a reasonable objective of the justice system to turn criminals into law abiding citizens... and, if so, how best to go about it?

My view is that we need better adult education (a very high % of prisoners are illiterate) and we have to tackle the drug dependency that keeps people breaking the law to finance. I also think there's a problem in how we deal with mental health and I'm concerned at how many of our young people are in prison today.

But what does anyone else think?

Chil - Better education full stop - seems an obvious place to start. How is it so many people can spend 12 years in compulsory education and still be illiterate?

I raised the drugs issue on a, now deleted, Mrs G thread a couple of days ago. Would a controlled legalising of drugs result in a significant drop in crime? I've seen it argued that it would.

DH works in an open prison which has a good record on reducing reoffending rates but the trouble is, with the drastic budget cuts coming, the first things to go will be the drug rehab and education programmes which play such a big part in it

If we reduce the prison population by finding alternatives to the shorter sentences would that result in more available money for programmes for the longer-stay inmates.

It's a good idea but it has to be done right.

The first step is to really toughen up community punishment to make it a truly worthy alternative to custodial punishment. Public shame should be a much bigger part of community sentences.

I vaguely remember hearing Hilary Benn on radio 4. a few weeks ago, musing on the economic case for closing all prisons. Obviously, it's a political non-starter - but it's interesting to think about what the implications would be of not having prisons, and the alternative ways of dealing with various categories of offender.

There was also a case made a few years ago for closing all women's prisons, given relatively few women prisoners present a danger to society.

I don't think anyone needs to be in prison. Some people need to be in hospital as they are just so damaged they are a real danger to themselves and/or other people.

No one ends up in prison because the sentence wasn't harsh enough or the proposed punishment wasn't harsh enough - community or otherwise. Tehy end up there usually because their entire life has broken down, leadnig to them to have no investment in society and sending them to prison only serves to get them addicted to harder drugs, even less employable than when they went in, and usually with even less contact with their families. Prison absolutely most definitely does not work. And the short sentences are utter madness. They don't keep us safer, they put us at far greater risk - hardly anyone comes out of prison and doesn;t reoffend, and those who do reoffend usually commit a worse crime than the one they went to prison for.
down with prisons!
go ken clarke!

Recently was speaking to a male friend that had been in prison and he reckons 50% plus of male prisoners have some sought of ADHD,aspergers etc,made the point that years ago these werent recognized like they are now so was seen as the "naughty child" thus alot were left without help,intresting i thought made me think

I also heard (can't remember where) that a higher proportion of prisoners than in the general population have personality disorders.

One of the problems with a criminal record, particularly if someone has been inside, is that it severely limits their work options. Many employers will discriminate against a criminal record regardless of the severity or relevance of the crime committed. I have no idea how these sort of issues should be addressed but if the govt are serious about cutting reoffending rates they should look at this.

I am all for intelligent sentencing, community penalties and mediation but at the same time there really and truly are people who need to be in prison.

Give smack and crack to addicts on the NHS, would cut burglary, robbery and prostitution to shreds...

Stop the state abusing children in care by actually looking after them.

Sorry I'm dreaming, that the UK is a functioning society and not a post-fascist shithole...

The Tories are a bunch of hypocrites - this is purely a money saving exercise. They were the ones a few years ago preaching that we needed to lock people up. However the prison population is way too high.

Labour tried to introduce 'custody plus' a few years ago which was for those serving short sentences and which would give them access to education and employment services inside with a view to this continuing outside. They never went with it in the end.

The prison system has to exist to lock up dangerous people but at the same time there is a problem with offenders who are not especially dangerous but for whom nothing seems to stop them. pesistent offenders. The courts just run out of things to punish them with so they end up inside for a few months - doing very little. Apart from drugs probably.

If the govt are clear they want this to work they need to put the resources into it. They are talking about using the voluntary sector which is fair enough but they need to work with the Probation Service on this. Instead of making massive budget cuts to them they should be investing in their experience and expertise. However I suspect they won't and will want to do it on the cheap using organisations with unqualified and/or poorly trained staff.

I could go on. Sorry if I'm cynical it's just that I have worked in the criminal justice system for 20 years and the same arguments come up cyclically.

if you look at the history of the prison/punishment system in this country, esp in the last 100 years or so, it seemingly has gone full circle, with the various emphasises (emphasi? )being on retribution or rehabilitation in turn, not a lot seems to work

I think Prisons should become less 'friendly' it costs £38k per year for a single prisoner thats a lot.

They are just as many have said Universities of crime. People go to prison learn some new tricks and tips from other inmates and get released then they go and re offend. I think Prisons should be more tough i know that does not sound nice but prison can't be viewed as some friendly jaunt.

I also think that the job system needs to be reworked because what happens is a offender gets out and even if they are truly rehabilitated they can't get hired anywhere so they go back to crime.

I think that some things do work but have to be done well. There is evidence that cognitive behavioural based groupwork programmes for low to medium risk offenders can make an impact on offending rates. Also there is evidence that some of the more intense sex offender and violent offender programmes have sucess. However they needed to be done well and funded well - this isn't always the case.

The problem as I see it is what to do with resources - isn't it everywhere?

This govt-all govts need to listen to the people who actually know what the fuck they are talking about-in this case the Probation Service. Problem with this govt and the one which went before is they are fond of meddling around with things which they dont understand. They do exactly the same with education.

tosspots!

Find out what works. Do that.

This is realtivly simple to do. Applying different sentencing/Treatment to different groups of randomly selected offenders will pretty quickly give you good data.

The problem is agreeing what you are trying to do. I would like to see the risk of being a victim of crime reduced. Full stop. Too manny other people wish to see punishment as part of the criminal justice system REGARDLESS of it's efficacy for this to be done properly.

Drugs should obviously be legalised and moved out of the criminal justice system and into public health.