Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Do you have any actual proposals here or is this just going to be one of these tossing out meaningless platitudes things?
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Well at the most basic level I would suggest we send less people to jail. An increase in drug rehabilitation programs and the elimination of the practice of sending the mentally ill to prision are two steps which I would recommend.
Electonic tagging orders prevent the break-up of the family unit and allow people to keep their jobs.
Community Punishment Orders provide (at least some) practical benefit to communities.
Prisoners tend to have poor literacy and numeracy skills. An increase in funding for these areas in prison would help to increase the chances of finding employment. Possibly, mandatory lessons in a non-prison environment for repeat offenders may have an effect.
the gradual legalisation of certain (if not all) drugs would have a significant impact on the numbers of people going to jail. Whilst this is not a problem with prison it would certainly help to curb over-crowding.
I was planning on writing far more comprehensive but finding the necessary information seemed to be far more effort than I was willing to put in. I was hoping for data from the Home Office web-site and National Statistics Online but they both seem unwilling to comply with my demands.