New prisons

[Flatypus]

The old merry-go-round has a lot to do with it. There's not much you'll ever do about professional criminals for whom it's a business, even though it seems a rather stupid business that accepts years inside as a sort of tax. Still, I suppose working with no family commitments and jail are much the same thing.

It's the violent opportunists who pose a real problem. They are likely on drugs and probably officially homeless even if they have some friends to crash with. If they're not addicted when they go in they probably are when they come out. Then where do they go? Back where they came from. Back to the same life they came from. If it worked for them before it might as well work again. It's about the only thing they have going for them anyway. So round and round they go.

[housesparrow]

Community sentences sound fine, but are often breached. The courts and probation service are coming under increasing pressure to take more offeners on them, often people whom everyone knows just can't or won't comply.
Then what? The sentence is increased, and breached again and finally - yes, prison.

[Flatypus]

No sentence is use if it's not enforced! You can't really blame Communiity service failure on a failure to do anything worthwhile about enforcing it. The way it works here is that one failure moves to a stricter discipline and if that's breached, to the nick.

[housesparrow]

May 5, 2009 21:27:10 GMT Flatypus said:

No sentence is use if it's not enforced! You can't really blame Communiity service failure on a failure to do anything worthwhile about enforcing it. The way it works here is that one failure moves to a stricter discipline and if that's breached, to the nick.

yes, that is how it works - and I'm not really blaming the service, just saying that there does seem to be pressure to give more offenders community punishments instead of prison, including those who might have been rejected when probation was allowed to be more fussy about who they took!

Courts are now allowed to give suspended prison sentences, even though many years ago they stopped them because so many of them were breached. History is repeating itself here too!