Reply to post: Re: Radical Suggestion...

£60m, five years late... Tag criminal tagging as a 'catastrophic waste' of taxpayers' cash

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Radical Suggestion...

"I doubt that locking the bastards up would be cheaper. And since crims put little value on their own liberty, it's an ineffective punishment."

Do you have any evidence for that central assumption of value on liberty?

Looking at court reports in my local paper it seems that yet another suspended sentence has been handed out to someone who's already had several "chances", such as tagging, in previous cases. And yet another set of offences committed while on remand awaiting trial.

AFAICS this adds up to training offenders to expect no real curtailment of liberty, no effective deterrence. By the time they get a custodial sentence they've been thoroughly trained in recidivism. I wonder if a change of direction would be more effective: rapid escalation to a short sentence of imprisonment, maybe only a few days. Would it lead to a situation where there were fewer long term prisoners because they'd been deterred early on?

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