Jails: Overcrowding

Our jails are becoming increasingly overcrowded, to the point where it now difficult to find room for people as they get convicted. As the crime rates have continued to increase under Tony Blair’s leadership, so, accordingly, has the number of people needing to be sent to jail.

Couple this with the fact that between 1992 and 2004 the reconviction rate among former prisoners rose from 51% to 67%, meaning that the concept of penal reform is carrying less and less weight. We are now getting to the point where, as a recent situation with a paedophile exemplified (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6300565.stm), convicted criminals are being handed Get Out Of Jail free cards simply because there is nowhere to put them, while early parole to ease prison congestion is leaving criminals with the message that future transgression won’t necessarily be met with just punishment.

It used to be said that if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Now it’s “If you can’t do the time, don’t worry. You’ll be out soon anyway.”