Bag's Rants

Desperate justification.

With all the talk of crime and punishment, or lack of, the government continually looks for ways to justify it's decisions. Take the current crisis over prison spaces. There isn't enough people can't be sent to prison because there is no space.

My cure is that we release all the non victim prisoners and stop putting them in jail and keep the spaces for those that commit crimes with victims. Redefine our justice system to make prison less palatable, not for the judges, but for the prisoners. We don't want them to reoffend.

But of course our government has a slightly different view. They want to let burglars and muggers and other criminals out. Is that vicar still in jail for his council tax I wonder?

Anyway, our wonderful government is starting to put out justification for it's decision. Which is really encapsulated in this article 'Tagging is good rehabilitation'. Sounds good until you read it. To be fair I hope this guy does turn his life around but IMO getting off early is not a good start. It makes it seem the system is giving in, which I think it is.

This example of why tagging is so good was released with a tag on the 25-Sep. It's now the 13-Oct so he has not even been out a month yet. However, he still managed to fail his curfew of 19:00 because he was stuck in traffic at least once in the two and a half weeks he has been out.

Apparently being under a curfew meant he has not been sucked back into crime. Was any sucking going on in prison? Maybe we shouldn't go there. He then goes on to say it has eased him back into a life without his mates and being unable to go out at night means he can't get back into his old life. What is going to happen when the tag comes off? I hope he does well but it sounds like he will drop back into his own life before he went away. Let's face it it's so easy to do so. He has a job interview next week so it will be interesting seeing where he is in a years time.

I like the apparent throwaway comment 'People who commit crime while tagged would have done it anyway after their full sentence.' Err. Sounds like it's been put there to justify tagging to me. Is this an interview or a advertisement?

Why is this not an article on someone who has been tagged and not reoffended from a few years ago? One of the first lot. Is there any of these out there? Just a question.

posted by Bag @ 12:33 pm