Bag's Rants

Widening the scope on crime. Because everything is sorted on what we have now.

Cool. We must be really clamping down on crime. We are so good at resolving crime we are now targeting under 10s in our new laws. But, hold on, our prisons are so full we will need to release people on tags according to this. Now, we can't build our way out of this. Where have I heard that before? Of course we can, the Americans have done it. We must be close to them on percentage points now. Let's build more prisons.

Before we do that though. Let's look at who is in prison. Is it the guy who broke into and entered a group of houses late last year, Nope, he got tagged anyway. What about the guy who was drunk and disorderly and smashed up the car earlier this year. Nope, he got a pitiful fine instead. Wait, it's the guy who protested about his poll tax, the guy who got caught with a little bit of dancing powder, the guy who defended his house against burglars, the latest guys who got snatched under the terrorism bill and held incommunicado for fourteen days soon to be three months.

If they actually put in prison those that should be in prison then there would an immediate fall and plenty of room to ensure that those that broke the laws went to jail. Now when I talk about laws I'm talking about real laws, not the latest PR gambit from Bliar and co. Put the burglars in jail, evaluate the druggies, ones who do no harm but have a smoke should not be in jail, those that have a smoke and then rob houses to feed the habit should be but only for robbery. The Lotto rapists should not be a problem due to his winnings because he should still be inside.

Plus, if I remember correctly, was it not worked out that tagging didn't work. Jail them and keep them in. Build more jails to house them. Take crime off the streets.

I think the only people who are in jail and should be in jail are the murderers, rapists, and really violent offenders. The rest seem to be borderline. Plus, those that go to jail seem to have no fear of going back in general. They don't want to, of course, but the thought of it doesn't make them stop. Maybe a year in an Iraqi type prison would make them think about it.

posted by Bag @ 11:04 am