I was reading James Graham’s post about ID cards and David Davis. The comments have focused on the reference to the size of the prison population in the original post.
Britain’s prison population is very high in European terms; when taken against total UK population, Britain has the second highest rate in Europe. This has been the case for some time.
Britain’s crime rate is very high in European terms. This too has been the case for some time.
Whilst it follows that with lots of crime there should be lots of people being punished, the current system is plainly not working.
What do we do differently as a society that means we are locking up all these people but still have a high crime rate? Are we too tough on crime – locking up people and locking them into a life of crime? Are we too busy hugging hoodies and not giving them the short sharp shock they need?
I don’t know the answer, but somewhere something must be wrong in the system or in society at large for us to find ourselves in this situation.
