Prisons must be tougher, says survey

The Coalition's law and order policies have failed to win public backing, according to a major new survey which found widespread support for tougher punishments.

Survey conducted on behalf of Lord Ashcroft suggests public think the prison system should be tougher.

The research found a huge majority of the public do not back the community sentences which Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, wants to see used instead of short prison sentences.

The poll, the largest piece of independent research into public thinking on crime and punishment since the General Election last year, suggests little support for community punishments and demand for tougher prison conditions.

The poll of more than 2,000 adults, 1,000 victims of crime and 500 police officers found:

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Eight out of 10 people believe community sentences are a "soft punishment", while among police officers the figure was nine out of 10.

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Asked about high reoffending rates by criminals who have served short jail terms, two thirds of the public thought the best solution was to "make prison life harder, to make it more of a deterrent to committing further crimes".

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Six out of 10 interviewees agreed that rehabilitation was a "soft option that tries to make excuses for offenders", while only four out of 10 said it was a "hard-headed practical way of trying to reduce reoffending".

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Only 13 per cent of the public believed the Coalition was being tougher on crime than Labour, with 23 per cent saying it was less tough and the remainder said it was about the same.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8423453/Prisons-must-be-tougher-says-survey.html

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Reply 1

UnknwnEntity

How is this news?

Prison does not work, even if prison consisted of persistant torture and sensory deprivation - crime would still exist - else there would be no need for the prisons.

If you want a safer society, if you want ubiquitous, communal societal ideals to be shared, it begins in childhood. Such a variable is impossible to control unless you want to go down the dark route of making many people ineligable to raise children and insulating the country form external influences.

Whenever there are laws, they will be broken.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 2

DarkWhite

I agree. Why should prisoners have allowances to buy games consoles or expensive luxuries? WHether they can afford them is irrelevant - they're in prison for rehabilitation but also for punishment; it needs to be a deterrant.

Additionally, articles have noted that prison food has been better than say NHS food, with prisoners getting burgers, chips, hot dogs and such nonsense. Besides the fact that we should be encouraging healthy eating, prisoners should be given the basic food they need to maintain a relatively healthy lifestyle in prison.

It won't solve all of life's problems or bring crime down to zero, but it's a start.

Reply 3

Aj12

Original post by robinson999

most people when it comes to criminals want to lock the door and throw away the key, and forget about them, while is same cases maybe

its like locking away a mad dog in a small room all its going to do is get madder

rehabilitation and education

you need it to start at the home and you need it so people don't have to turn to crime, never helped when the sun or daily mail pick up a story on prison its a holiday camp

Any links to educational programs that have worked? I agree that the current prison system does not work but I can never find anything on other systems that are used.

Reply 4

Craig_D

Original post by UnknwnEntity

How is this news?

Prison does not work, even if prison consisted of persistant torture and sensory deprivation - crime would still exist.

If you want a safer society, if you want ubiquitous, communal societal ideals to be shared, it begins in childhood. Such a variable is impossible to control unless you want to go down the dark route of making many people ineligable to raise children.

Whenever there are laws, they will be broken.

I agree, but why not do both? In the mean time, what are you going to do with serial murderers, rapists, paedophiles, etc who are clearly going to offend again? They need to be incarcerated for the good of society. Even if a system was implemented to focus in preventing the development of children into adult criminals, we don't know that it will work every time as a preventative measure, so we'd still need to do something with them for the safety of everyone else.

Reply 5

Will Lucky

I agree completely, why on earth was Ken Clarke made Secretary of Justice. Why couldn't he have been Chancellor or Business Secretary. Thats where we need him right now. We need someone in the position who can make the tough measures that are needed.

Reply 6

Pindar

Another survey which means jack all.

Reply 7

Fusilero

So... the British Public manage to be wrong again with only 24/19% correctly feeling that the number of crimes have dropped? And I suspect most of that 24/19% didn't think it fell by such a large amount. There's a reason we're a representative democracy and not a direct democracy where everything is decided by a referendum and I feel this aptly demonstrates one of the reasons why.

Reply 8

Quady

Original post by Teaddict

Survey conducted on behalf of Lord Ashcroft suggests public think the prison system should be tougher. l

Love it

I wonder why police weren't asked if they thought crime had risen, fallen or stayed the same between 97 and 2010... surely they are the professions who actually know about the subject between that time period?

Perhaps they were asked...

Reply 9

UnknwnEntity

Original post by Craig_D

Prison is often where petty or insular criminals develop into hardened, more intelligent criminals given the intrinsic nature of the enviroment and the contacts they make in prison - and they don't stay locked up forever.

Reply 10

fire2burn

Even if prisoners were beaten with red hot irons there would still be crime in society. South America has some of the thoughest prisons in the world, conditions are over crowded, squalid, and disease is endemic. They are definitely not fun places to be especially considering your chances of having your life snuffed out by fellow violent inmates. Yet crime in South America is still a huge problem despite tough prisons and tough sentencing.

I don't for one minute believe that making prisons tougher would reduce crime.

What needs to happen in prisons is segregation to keep apart the hardened criminals from the petty and novice ones. Prisons are basically training academies for criminals, many make contacts, learn new skills, and develop a harsher and more violent viewpoints towards society whilst inside. Something needs to be done to stop the hardened criminals from passing on their skills to the younger generations. I remember a particularly chilling tale from a friends dad who serves as a prison officer, that the older criminals were teaching the younger ones about taking down opponents and how best to kill them with the limited means you have inside a prison. They were basically training them for murder. Teaching them how to conceal weapons, where the main arteries in the body run, for instance where to stab an opponent in the leg with a sharpened screwdriver thus pretty much guaranteeing that they'd bleed to death before help arrived. Horrific stuff.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 11

kaosu_souzousha

Survey is flawed. There could be 100,000 people in the general public section and 10 people in the victims of crime section, nobody knows. Very biased.

Reply 12

Craig_D

Original post by UnknwnEntity

At least the worst ones do stay locked up forever, or else what do we do with them? If we scrap prisons, would you be happy with Charles Bronson and Peter Sutcliffe walking the streets?

Reply 13

joe3469

I guess we should go back to the victorian times then.

Reply 14

Quady

Original post by joe3469

I guess we should go back to the victorian times then.

Well since all surveys like this since then have said crime has increased in the last 10 years and prison doesn't work then the Victorian times are something to aspire to.

A crime free civilisation!

Reply 15

UnknwnEntity

Original post by Craig_D

At least the worst ones do stay locked up forever, or else what do we do with them? If we scrap prisons, would you be happy with Charles Bronson and Peter Sutcliffe walking the streets?

They're probably atleast 10x more ****ed up than before now that they've been in prison, that's the point.

Reply 16

adam_zed

Thats because most people's idea about prison are shaped by ****ty exaggerated articles that push this idea that prison is some sort of holiday camp. I bet Edward Wollard is having a grand old time ey?

Reply 17

adam_zed

Original post by Quady

Well since all surveys like this since then have said crime has increased in the last 10 years and prison doesn't work then the Victorian times are something to aspire to.

A crime free civilisation!

This is sarcastic right?

Reply 18

Craig_D

Original post by UnknwnEntity

They're probably atleast 10x more ****ed up than before now that they've been in prison, that's the point.

There's no way of knowing though, and Sutcliffe killed 13 people having never before been to prison, so he clearly needed separating away from society. Even if a policy was introduced of focusing on children to prevent future crimes, you can't know that a Peter Sutcliffe won't slip through the net, so they'd still need to be somewhere to safely dispose of people like that.