I can't easily quote comparative stats for UK & Denmark, but I was watching a piece on Newsnight a few weeks ago, it was examining the Danish penal system - re-offending rates are much better (ie lower) in Denmark than in the UK. There's a proper system for treating drug addicts, and again, its success rate is much better than ours.
Then again, by just looking at prisons you're ignoring the much bigger picture - why is there crime in the first place? I'm not suggesting that there exists a panacea to prevent anything illegal occurring, of course not. However, you quote 80-85% reoffending rates for theft - could this be, perchance, to feed a drug habit? Or because someone lives below the poverty line and is trying to get that little extra to make ends meet? Or alternatively because there's no hope of progression in society, so no employment to get an income and therefore this is the best entertainment?
It's not so much that I view prison as adeterrant, I see it as a place where criminals go to learn that crime does indeed not pay... Oh whoop-de-wooo - 6 months at society's expense only to come out and pick up where you left off.
Simple fact - for a good couple of hundred years execution by death was a common punishment for quite a few offences (including basic theft); its impact on the criminal fraternity - effectively none - where one thief had gone, another took their place. Incarceration - well, the Victorians developed various prisons, some actually did dehumanise their charges - end result - null gain. Banging someone up for a few months/years merely removes them from general society and forces us to pay for their upkeep - so in effect it still costs us, just indirectly as opposed to being robbed. But if imprisoned, how are criminals going to learn that crime doesn't pay? A short while kept from liberty - well, that's just an occupational hazard isn't it? What then?
Prison needs to be more than a glorified holding cell - if you make it too inhumane then the impact will be felt with the initial crime. To quote a British saying - may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
I hate to quote the lying, scheming double-dealing scum-bag, but Bliar did have a good idea (before he caved in and u-turned on it) - Tough on Crime (meh, so-so as an idea), Tough on the Causes of Crime - now we're talking. Prevention is infinitely better than cure, and that's the path we need to follow.
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Then again, by just looking at prisons you're ignoring the much bigger picture - why is there crime in the first place?
I'm not suggesting that there exists a panacea to prevent anything illegal occurring, of course not. However, you quote 80-85% reoffending rates for theft - could this be, perchance, to feed a drug habit? Or because someone lives below the poverty line and is trying to get that little extra to make ends meet? Or alternatively because there's no hope of progression in society, so no employment to get an income and therefore this is the best entertainment?
It's not so much that I view prison as adeterrant, I see it as a place where criminals go to learn that crime does indeed not pay...
Oh whoop-de-wooo - 6 months at society's expense only to come out and pick up where you left off.
Simple fact - for a good couple of hundred years execution by death was a common punishment for quite a few offences (including basic theft); its impact on the criminal fraternity - effectively none - where one thief had gone, another took their place.
Incarceration - well, the Victorians developed various prisons, some actually did dehumanise their charges - end result - null gain.
Banging someone up for a few months/years merely removes them from general society and forces us to pay for their upkeep - so in effect it still costs us, just indirectly as opposed to being robbed.
But if imprisoned, how are criminals going to learn that crime doesn't pay? A short while kept from liberty - well, that's just an occupational hazard isn't it?
What then?
Prison needs to be more than a glorified holding cell - if you make it too inhumane then the impact will be felt with the initial crime. To quote a British saying - may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
I hate to quote the lying, scheming double-dealing scum-bag, but Bliar did have a good idea (before he caved in and u-turned on it) - Tough on Crime (meh, so-so as an idea), Tough on the Causes of Crime - now we're talking. Prevention is infinitely better than cure, and that's the path we need to follow.