Jack straw wants to waste OUR money. discuss and draw your own conclusions?

Question

Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced last December the government would spend 1.2 billion pounds to create an extra 10,500 jail places by 2014 to help tackle a crisis of overcrowding in prisons.

Accepting a review of prisons by life peer Lord Carter, Straw said the government would close some older jails and build up to three Titan jails.

In their letter, the criminal justice groups said the giant jail-building plans would "cement this country's position as the prison capital of western Europe."

for some reason this govt, and all preeceeding governments have sought to raise the jail population by legistlation year in year out. Now im an old con.. and ok, i havent committed any crimes in the last 30 years, i sure made up for in the precceding years! i was as they say bang at it and i did my time for it.

instead of wasting public money, why on earth dont they fix the probelm, instead of wasting time and effort maufacturing a cure...

primary causes of crime amongst young people is because they have no education, and no prospects..and of course very little choice in the matter. its fundamental. educate em, teach em right from wrong, teach them a trade...and make them realise freedom isnt free. it has a price, which the rest of us either pay, or face the end result...

criminalising 10yr old kids for throwing eggs... isnt it about time they fixed the cause, rather than just dealing with the problems...

Answer 1

Oh, yeah, why don't we just pat the thugs on their little bitty heads and tell them it is alright!!  You're a con and you seek to preach to us?You have no idea.  Round here, the thick police virtually refuse to accept reports of crime involving juveniles anyway.  Have you any experience fo what you are talking about?  Have you ever been a victim of crime, or been bullied and hrassed by thugs so you are scared to go out of your own front door?  Boy, do we need more bleeding heart liberals like you!!  And to blame Jack Straw and talk about 'our taxes' is to pursue a bizarrely Daily Mail type tone.  Primary cause of crime among young people is they have no morality and little fear of being caught.  Have you set foot in a school in the last 50 years!!  You think they constantly aren't taught the difference between right and wrong?  I favour the Chinese approach myself.  Why should a parasitic minority feed off hard working ordinary people?

Answer 2

I have to say you both have good points to make. Fivetoze, you’re right. Get the kids while they’re young and teach ‘em right from wrong. This has two problems, not insurmountable but there. First, what do we do with the 18-30 year old thugs who haven’t been taught this and for whom it is possibly too late? We then, in my humble opinion, have to put the fear of god into them and let them know they are going to be caught and that they will be severely punished. (By the way, I’ve done my share of ‘bird’ as well.)

As for teaching the kids right from wrong while they are young enough to learn I have to say I learnt right from wrong through my teachers and my parents. I was bloody scared of them and this developed into a respect sadly lacking today. I work in a school and the kids have no respect, no fear and the parents tend to back them, right or wrong. Why is this? The ultimate punishment is to be suspended. Teachers hardly dare raise their voice now.

When I was at school the principal was “in locum parentis”. In other words, while the responsibility of the school, the school were assumed to have the same rights as a parent. (Remembering, of course, that parents then were allowed to give you a thick ear if you deserved it!)

Exiled in the Midlands, while I agree there are too many bleeding hearts and we must have places in prison for criminals, we also have to give offenders a chance to rehabilitate. For less serious offences, we should encourage better behaviour before we lock them up. But they must understand that is what will happen if they continue on their destructive course. And going to prison should be an experience they don’t want to repeat. Then we might see a fall in the prison population.

The problem is that our system isn’t ‘joined up’ for want of a better term. Steal a few grand, with no danger or threat to anybody and you might expect to get five years. Kill somebody in your car and you might expect five points. The message? Kill or injure and you are naughty, but go anywhere near my money and you are the spawn of Satan!

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. If we egged someone’s house and were caught we’d get thumped by the householder, thumped by the local bobby and thumped by our dad.

Nowadays, and I know from experience, you daren’t do anything beyond call the police. The police around here are pretty good with this sort of behaviour, but when they take the kid home (there’s little point in arresting and/or charging them) and the parents have a go at the police. ‘Cause little Johnny don’t do that.

I don’t know what the answer is. We are unlikely to go back to the days where a thick ear was the order of the day. We shouldn’t criminalise kids unless they are persistent offenders. What do we do? If we were caught up to mischief, we were embarrassed to be identified as upsetting neighbours. Now it’s a badge of honour. But something has to change. I think a first step would be to give schools and teachers back some kind of real power to punish. Sending kids home is more of a reward. A few strokes of the cane lasts only a short while, but the memory stays with you. and it does make you think twice about your behaviour.

Answer 3

'Exiled in the Midlands'.

Son, that's the best and most realistic post I've read on this subject for some time. I agree entirely with what you've said. I've worked in the 'Justice' System for a considerable number of years, and in my view it's liberal influences within it and successive governments which see us in the position we are in today.  

Answer 4

I doubt you will get too much sympathy for this point of view. It's true that poor educational achievement, no trade, no job etc.etc. are characteristics of the prison population but not the cause(s) of crime.You can educate people all you want but what is critical is how much of it sinks in.

A 10 year old child who chucks eggs about is not a criminal and is not going to prison.He is a naughty child.How he ends up will depend more and more on the choices he makes as he grows up and how his character develops.