Putting the sense into sentencing

originally published:
19th October 2009

If the public are losing confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with crime and antisocial behaviour, they are right to do so. The system is an arbitrary and illogical shambles.

As this newspaper reports today sentences are being slashed by prison governors, thanks to chronic overcrowding. To take one example, a criminal facing 42 days, sentenced on a Friday, could find himself heading home immediately.

His sentence would be automatically cut in half, he could lose another 18 days due to an early release scheme, and then lose the final three because prisons do not release inmates at weekends. Six weeks in jail would instead become a trip home, with a resettlement grant as an added bonus. Were this not so terribly unfunny, it would be very funny indeed.

Why are criminals not being sent to jail? The prime reason is that there are simply not enough jails. There are not enough jails because the Government has not stumped up enough cash to build them. The collapse of Britain’s economy is not the only way that Gordon Brown’s tenure as Chancellor has returned to haunt him since he moved next door.

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Posted by Kushi Amlak-Sakhu on 20/10/2009. Filed under Policy & Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry