Should prisons be reformed

society would benefit from their departure *

100% of criminals executed never reoffend.

the crime community would soon change their tune once the tumbrils started to roll...

if my plan were implemented for crimes such as burglary & drug dealing the incidence would plummet. *

instead of giving them a few months or at most a couple of years in a comfy jail with their pals they would be executed. *

once my plan is implemented the drugs will be far less of a problem. *

it can help across the whole spectrum of scumminess *

I apologise if it sounded like I was blaming prison staff as a whole for the problems in the justice system, that wasn't my intention at all.
Certainly, I agree that each prisoner is different and longer sentences wouldn't be a solution for everybody. I just don't see the point in spending money on sending somebody to prison if it's unlikely to have an effect on their behaviour.

Do you think that they should let psychologists have more influence in the initial sentencing instead, and try to find alternatives that would suit the prisoner?

Yes I do. Not solely just the psychologists influence, however of course.


If you had a minor offence made by a young adult (without going into too much detail - offending usually start young, it is rarer to find offending starting at 50 years old for example), the justice system would do their bit and it would be classed as punishment. Now if we brought a psychologist into things, they would asses everything. They really do assess a lot. They should identify factors which have been known to cause offending , factors which support offending, factors which have know to dilute offending etc. They then can build a plan, which is very specific to each offender, and targets each of the factors. So maybe this young adult is committing crimes for financial purposes, if so, the psychologist may suggest (on top of other programmes) extra support (in the community or prison setting), for writing CVs, extra experience, job searching etc.

I wouldn't say alternatives to prison, but psychologists could plan out what they do whilst there.I just think that offending is a behaviour, and psychologists are supposedly the key individuals in understanding behaviour and therefore should have more of a role when we want to alter behaviour of offenders.

That would all make sense. I think that the problems that would arise with that are largely financial (not that that makes it a bad plan, at all).

The key would probably be finding a way to persuade the government that it was cheaper to get a psychologist to run all of these assessments and therefore reduce reoffending than it would be to run the legal system they way that they do at the moment.

Yep, all boils down to finance. But it would also provide more psychology-based jobs for the increasing number of psychology graduates.

100% of dead people never commit a crime in the first place...