Up to 43,000 criminals are set to avoid prison each year under Government plans to combat jail overcrowding, an analysis of official figures by The Telegraph reveals.
The criminals, including burglars, shoplifters and knife offenders, will instead face community sentences under the plans to scrap most jail terms of under 12 months.
The law change, recommended by an independent review headed by David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, will order courts to only jail offenders for less than a year in “exceptional circumstances”, including domestic abuse, stalking and breaching orders linked to violence against women and girls.
The analysis also reveals that up to 1,500 killers, rapists and other serious sexual and violent offenders will be eligible for early release each year under the shake-up, which is designed to free up nearly 10,000 prison spaces.
As a logical exercise yes, you can deal with restricted supply by reducing demand. As a logical exercise do note that it’s also possible to deal with excessive demand by increasing supply…..
Community service is a joke, bring back the stocks and let’s see if a bit of shame will act as a deterrent. Failing that, my grandfather said that he never heard of anyone who went beck for a second helping of the birch.
David Gauke. Just one of the more prominent examples why the Tory Party of recent vintage has been so shit.
Gauke was a failure at HMRC and he’s a failure now. Lucy Connolly is blocking a prison space, Gauke, what are you doing about that?
We have the results from El Salvador that increasing supply could be done very very cheaply. If we did have that increase in cheap “supply” longer sentences could be the norm which would undoubtedly reduce “demand”. Would this make prison sentences “Giffen Goods”?
Yes, don’t lock anyone up unless they annoy the Prime Minister’s very special friend, the gay Moslem, then it’s 2 years 7 months and because you’re a woman, no right of appeal.
“knife offenders”: fuck me, they will jail you now for giving offence to a knife?
It’s the odd implication that the level of serious criminal behaviour at any given time should somehow conform to the amount of prison space you have at that time. As if the moral gravity of a criminal act, and danger to the public, should be determined by whether or not you can be bothered to build another dungeon.
Is there a special brain removal operation that politicians undergo that qualifies them for the job? Let loose rapists and murderers into the community so as to be able to jail people who use so-called hurty words for years. Sigh.
As always I advocate non-prison punishments. For example flogging and hanging.
Though I have nothing against BiNDs stocks and birch.
I retell a favourite yarn: the museum in Dumfries where an unusually, and charmingly, enthusiastic supervisor was explaining some of the exhibits to us.
This painting, says I, of two mounds of sticks each surrounding a stake. What’s going on?
Him: they are about to burn a chap to death for buggery. Me: yes, but why two mounds? Him: the other one is for the pony.
Howzat, Bb?
Thank you dearieme!!!
Cancel the Royal Navy’s new Type 31 frigates (they can be gay on dry land), and build 20 new prison hulks as a starter for 10. (There’s an excellent harbour in South Georgia, but if that’s too far, declare Mingulay a military base closed to civvies and park them there)
AS – Let loose rapists and murderers into the community so as to be able to jail people who use so-called hurty words for years.
We get the politicians we don’t care enough to hang. NB tho, most of these people assume they’ll still be on the gravy train for life, and still able to walk the streets even though they’ve brought our country to ruin. They’re in for a rude shock, because every lie you tell incurs a debt to the truth that must be paid, the later it is the more expensive. All the bills are in the post, and there’s no escaping the coming Unpleasantness.
Lessons will most definitely be learned. But I don’t think paying pensions to the likes of David Gauke and Rory Stewart is going to be a priority for future governments. Net Zero alone is a very serious crime, every MP who voted for Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act should be put on trial for treason. If that sounds a bit far fetched, so does the current situation where white English people are in prison for thinking “It’s OK to be white”. We are hectored about “extremism” and “radicalisation” by the most radical and extreme government we have ever suffered in the history of these islands.
[ Looks for button to upvote Steve. ]
Fecking cruel bastards.
Burning a pony.
During WW2 the Germans took literally millions of POWs. Their incarceration was not planned for. A few rolls of barbed wire, a few bits of wood, a few goons with guns, and the problem was solved. OK, a number of prisoners of a soviet persuasion starved or were worked to death but they were under sentence of death from their own government anyway.
Similarly the UK looked after a lot of Italians, many of whom didn’t even want to go home.
The prison-building problem is only one of having the will to do so.
So, if I understand correctly, the UK will happily lock up knives, but not the people who stick knives into other people.
rhoda @ 1.45, as with so many other ‘problems we face’, our politicians have never, and still do not have, any ‘will’ whatsoever to solve them, because if there were no problems we would need no politicians.
More recently there is the Sheriff Joe Arpaio method. Prisoner, in tents, in Arizona, without air conditioning, fed baloney sandwiches, and pink prison garb. Seemed to work pretty well. I would suggest you investigate using some of your moors.
Ever notice how much “community service” resembles slavery?
‘under Government plans to combat jail overcrowding’
Way more fun than combating crime, their actual f****** job.
‘linked to violence against women and girls’
That’s right, violence against men is okay. In fact, violence against WHITE men won’t even be prosecuted.
In fact, violence against WHITE men won’t even be prosecuted.
You could substitute “underage girls” for men in that sentence. Maybe slip a reference to child rape in there as well.
DT – thank you David x
MG – can’t put people in tents in this climate, but it’s still within the capability of British engineering to build Nissen huts.
During the recent mild riots a chap was sentenced to 9 years mainly for piling chipboard onto a burning bin. Presumably a more minor offender such as a killer or rapist has been freed to make room for him.
“can’t put people in tents in this climate” ???
There are tents for every climate.
There’s more than one way to reduce demand. Release into the woodchippers for the rapists and murderers, for example.
Agammamon, I dare say a hundred years ago in the US, that’s the approach that would have been taken. Government’s job is to keep dangerous people away from the public. Overcrowding? More executions. They wouldn’t release them; they’d kill them. Makes way more sense, if the government understands why it exists.
Reduce demand by abolishing various offences. Make all recreational drugs as legal as bananas, coffee, and wine. Or more so in that they need not be tested for safety – the only regulations to be that they must be accurately labelled. That alone should make a huge diference.