Dear Mr Straw,I spent ten years on the Sheffield Bench in which time I dished out community penalties like confetti because guidelines prevented me jailing a great many persistent offenders who were not fit to remain alongside the non-offending majority. On more occasions than I can count, my colleagues and I were prevented from delivering a just and effective outcome by the constraints of guidelines. So why are you constantly implying that magistrates and judges are jailing people who need not be jailed?
Many offenders would have had two, four, six or even more community penalties before they ever spent a few short weeks in a reasonably pleasant gaol - typically Doncatraz.
Eventually, many of these offenders would reach a conclusion that the Law will not, indeed cannot, harm them. This does not address their offending other than to confirm them in the view that they are on the right track.
Minor inconvenience is NOT the same as punishment. So the recidivists will move up the scale until society is left no option but to lock them away for a substantial period in Crown Court. THAT is why your prisons are overflowing! You have TRAINED the criminal classes to this.
Mr Straw, the bar is far too high. Dishonesty must be punished and offenders sent down EARLY in the process.
The prisons are full because you and those of your ilk refuse to embrace reality.
PUNISH crime firmly from the outset - NOT years down the line when it is too late and the criminal lifestyle has become ingrained. Fear MUST be reintroduced into the system.
Yes. I know that the prison population would rocket under my scheme - but not for long. In well under two years results would be astonishing.
Show that you really mean business and our prison population will go down.
Spain jails four times the number of the convicted per 1,000 than we do and has a fraction of the prison population. LEARN!
