I hardly feel qualified to pontificate on this subject, but as I am at a bit of a loose end today, I will. I am encouraged by the majority of excellent posts on this subject and congratulate my fellow PF posters for their depth of concern and perspicacity. I don't want to dent my reputation as a paid up member of the Hang e'm & flog e'm brigade, but it does occur to me that as someone has pointed out, the range of offenders who are to be punished is huge and unfortunately the system seems to be based on a one size fits all penal policy. Not only is sentencing irrational with murderers getting less time than council tax avoiders, the government privatisation of the prison service has landed us with something as cheap as chips, but unfit for purpose.
First we need to divide up the seriousness of crime. Initially perhaps, decriminalise things like council tax avoidance (a start is being made by making TV license avoidance a civil issue), but at the same time adding some practical teeth to punishments than can be handed for this level of crime. Perhaps giving real teeth to community service. It does nobody any good to give a criminal record to those who have committed this level of crime. Loutish young should perhaps get some kind of boot camp treatment. Anything with actual bodily harm or the potential for such an outcome such as burglary, could then be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Current civil actions, such as divorce, or boundary issues should remain as a distinctly separate class of law. Prison should be reserved for the most serious level of crime.
The problem remains with what to do about prisons. Whilst it is a truism that nobody who commits a crime believes they will be caught, let alone punished, we have a serious level of recidivism amongst the criminal community and I can only assume it is because they are mentally unable to see beyond the next fix or high or whatever else we want to call it. This to me seems to be either an educational, or a medical (mental health issue). We live in a society where celebrity, chance, and easy come, easy go is the rule, so it is unsurprising that crime proliferates amongst the poor. Surely our efforts should be going into education and rehabilitation so that those who offended for this reason could be given some new incentive to avoid a criminal life style. Perhaps if they rubbed shoulders with a few incarcerated bankers and politicians we might get a better class of criminal! I believe that a child (youth) should not be allowed to graduate from school to the workplace until the achieve a certain standard in the 3 R's, but failing that uneducated prisoners should serve an indeterminate sentence until they achieve a certain level of education.
The problem there is that private companies who run prisons have no incentive to improve matters, indeed an ever increasing criminal class is in their interests as it brings in more prisons and more profit. The government just want a cheap way of taking criminals out of society, but until we return them as educated, wage earning capable citizens, the prison population will just continue to grow. The potential for criminal hierarchy in prisons must be stopped along with illegal drugs and any other form of behind bars criminality and only then will we get a system that has the potential to work.
Sorry for the slightly incoherent presentation here as I have typed it just as it came out of my head (chaotic), but lunch time looms and I don't have time to change it, so thanks in advance for your indulgence.
M.