How 5,000 career crooks always escape a jail sentence when they reoffend
James has started early on this one. A figure in the headline.
Quote:
Criminals who have already served more than ten jail sentences are being routinely let-off with community punishments when they offend again, it has emerged.
Righty oh.
Quote:
Figures obtained from the Ministry of Justice show the result is the equivalent of 5,000 burglars, thieves and other convicts a year escaping with a slap on the wrist.
"Community punishments" = "slap on the wrist". Gotcha.
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The total has more than doubled in five years as the courts - under pressure from the Government - struggle to cope with record prison over-crowding.
In black and white world, over-crowding could be the only possible reason.
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Rather than send some of the worst repeat offenders to jail, they are handing out community penalties instead.
The revelations came on a day when ministers were forced to admit 36,661 inmates have been released from jail early to ease overcrowding since last June.
Of these, 111 are on the run after breaching the terms of their release.
111 / 36,611 = 0.3% in 16 months.
Not exactly an epidemic is it now.
It doesn't really matter how many have been released early anyway, it's about whether they reoffend.
Quote:
The Conservatives promised to scrap both the early release scheme, and the automatic right of many inmates to walk free at the halfway point of their sentence.
Tory justice spokesman Nick Herbert said they would have to 'earn' their release by proving they no longer pose a threat to society.
1. How do you "prove" you're no longer a threat. Another genius idea by the Tories
2. Don't prisoners have to do that now, or are we led to believe that they just roll a dice when deciding who to release. The fact it's been 36,611 not 36,500 or 37,000 suggests there is some planning involved.
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The figures detailing the type of offender receiving community punishments will be a huge embarrassment to the Ministry of Justice, which is desperate to promote the penalty as a 'tough' alternative to prison.
How does that even make sense?
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They are intended to stop less serious offenders from falling into a life of crime. But the figures reveal they are now being routinely used for even the most determined, repeat convict.
What is "routinely". And what if they are, does it work? Oh wait, Slacky article, we're not gonna get fair and balanced. Notice how "community punishments" was never defined either.
Then some rent-a-quotes.
Quote:
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'We will always provide enough prison places for serious offenders, those who should be behind bars: the most dangerous, the seriously persistent, and the most violent.
'Prison is the right place for such people.
'However, prison is not always the right answer for less serious offenders.
'In some of these cases a tough community sentence can be more effective than a short prison sentence - more effective in terms of rehabilitating offenders, turning them away from crime and therefore giving greater protection to the public.'
Oh. so it's not
always as the headline demands then, since the worst prisoners will stay there.
Logic dictates that if someone has been to jail 10 times and is still re-offending, then it's not working. Of course in mail land the solution is just to shove them in forever (or more preferably, kill them to death).
An argument against jail might be that since 99.7% of offenders are complying with their release conditions, it's obviously working to an extent. The best way to measure the success is to sort out the reoffender rates.
But then the justice system will never win.
If we jail everyone it'll be "too much cost!!".
If we don't it'll be "no justice!!"
If we bring back the death penalty it'll be cost, and just wait until the first wrongful conviction comes in...
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