My word, he\’s doing a Polly. At least he understand the concept that there\’s a difference between correlation and causality.
This doesn\’t demonstrate a causal relationship.
The only snag is that he doesn\’t apply it to his central argument.
And why, in the United Kingdom, is imprisonment still rising? It\’s not because of rising crime. Last year crimes recorded by the police fell by 2%, while the most serious violent offences fell by 9%.
No, I don\’t insist that this is true, I only put it forward as one of those ideas that does need to be discussed in this context.
Maybe prison works? Maybe banging up criminals reduces the number of people willing to become criminals and risk being banged up?
Of course prison works. Let us not forget that Saddam did his own scorched-earth policy a couple of months before the invasion by releasing all the crim’s. Which is half the reason why Iraq is such a mess now.
At the least, someone in Prison will struggle to commit crime.
If we locked up a significant proportion of the nation’s plumbers, would we not expect the amount of pipe work in the country to decrease?
Not that that would persuade one that it’s a bad idea to lock up a significant proportion of the nation’s plumbers.
Fuck me that was a stupid column. Is he going senile or something?
“At the least, someone in Prison will struggle to commit crime.”
You mean, someone like Mr Brook…?
@JuliaM: Eh? If he’d been in prison it wouldn’t have happened. Surely that’s Serf’s point!
Exactly!
Note how many convictions he had – 44…!
Was the system ever supposed to say ‘Enough is enough’..? Why let him rack up that many?
You’re surely due some kind of logical reasoning award for this.