This policy is criminal

January 16th, 2009

It used to be, if you wanted out of jail before you’d done your time, that you had to go to the bother of making rope ladder out of bed sheets, or tunnelling under the exercise yard with a tea spoon, or waiting for Harry the Van to turn up with a fast car and a long ladder.

Today, though, things have moved on and you don’t need to go to all that effort.  Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, will have you sprung before you can say “Human Rights Act”.

The Minister is on a drive to empty our jails.  They are, apparently, full of criminals and are no fit place to rehabilitate those who end up there.  Instead, if they ever get sent to jail, offenders will soon be serving their sentence while living in our community.

Now, no-one wants to live in a society where a sizeable chunk of the population is locked up.  But a large prison population is a symptom of a troubled society, not the cause.  And you’re not going to fix the problems which put so many people in jail by simply letting them out.

We need to stop people committing crimes in the first place.  And, to do that, potential criminals need to know, if they do commit an offence, they will be caught and will face a severe sentence.

That is called deterrence.  And that is where we should be starting from, not reheating right-on nonsense in a bid to save money.