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October 15, 2005

Is there a connection perhaps?

The government is wrestling with an interesting conundrum at present. Crime rates are apparently dropping, but the population of our prisons has gone up sharply. And all our lovely civil servants and their Political Masters are agonising over the question; why, if crime is down, are there so many people in prison?

Could it be that we are locking up pensioners by the score for daring to refuse to pay unjustifiably large increases in property tax that is inflating the prison population? Or could it possibly be, that with all the criminals in jail, there are actually fewer crimes being committed? Perhaps the crime rate is down because the victims are all in jail and the criminals aren't reporting their activities? Or perhaps its all the pensioners who are criminals and their activities are now curtailed because they are in jail?

Or is there a simpler answer that Mr Blair and his Cronies refuse to admit - that crime is down because the criminals are where they belong; in jail! We will soon know for sure, because our cuddly bully-boy Home Secretary is going to let most of them out with the discredited electronic tags they can remove and go out to commit more crimes.

Part of the problem seems to be the debate between those who feel the criminal element in society are "victims" who need sympathy and "rehabilitation" versus those who feel that criminal activity needs to be punished. At present prison does neither, and the many attempts to "rehabilitate" young offenders shows that, while it might be a good idea, it doesn't seem to work. A look at re-offending rates confirms that very swiftly. Certainly the governments "soft" option of letting crimnals out early with tags that do not control or monitor their activities may well prove very effectively that they have this one wrong.

Any bets on the crime rate soaring again in a couple of months as a result of the new "serve your sentence at home" policy? Bet they make the OAP's with unpaid Council Tax serve their full sentence though - after all, we don't want them at home while Blair's burglars are round there robbing the place - they might interfere and resist the burglar!

Posted by The Gray Monk at October 15, 2005 12:10 PM

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