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Prison works
says Simon Heffer, columnist on the Daily Mail
| | |  Is prison working?Do you agree? Join the discussion by calling 0870 010 0444, lines open at 1.30pm. | |
LISTEN - Hear Simon Heffer discuss prisons
In his 41 years of experience as a policeman, said Sir John Stevens - the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - this week, he's found that 'prison works' and that in certain cases, first-time burglars should be locked up.
I have absolutely no doubt that he is right and that, inevitably, more prisons will have to be built.
Stevens was obliquely criticizing both the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice.
Earlier this month, Lord Irvine, said that 'I don't accept that people are disturbed at first-time burglars or even second-time burglars, where there are no aggravated elements in the burglary, not going to prison. Prison is not good at preventing people from re-offending.'
He was speaking in defence of Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, who had been attacked in the press for suggesting that there should be more community sentences for burglars.
Perhaps Lord Irvine has a point when he says that prison does not succeed in limiting re-offending. However, the way to deal with this is to put better rehabilitative programmes into prison, not to stop sending people there.
Prison is not just supposed to be a deterrent. It is supposed to be a punishment. It is supposed to be the vehicle of the expression of society's disapproval of certain unpleasant crimes.
Most people regard the violation of their homes and the theft of their property from inside their homes as deeply unpleasant. They do not regard sentences served in the community, without the full force of the deprivation of liberty, as sufficient to punish this rape of their private space.
There is another, more obvious point too.
While someone is in prison he cannot commit burglary. Locking him up protects not least the most vulnerable members of our society - the poor, the elderly, and those living in flimsy houses who cannot afford burglar alarms, security patrols, gravel drives, automatic floodlights and other anti-burglar devices.
It is sophistry to say that 'first time' burglars shouldn't be jailed. It is highly unlikely that the first time they are caught is the first time they have committed a burglary.
It is also beside the point to say that only an element of 'aggravation' - such as a physical attack on a householder - should merit imprisonment. For many people with few possessions, a crime against their property is every bit as offensive as a crime against their person.
Society should repudiate these eminent judges who are so obviously dislocated from those innocent people they purport to be protecting.
It is vital that public confidence is maintained in the rule of law. Failure to punish adequately an offence as odious to its victims as burglary will further reduce that confidence.
People will follow the example of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin and take the law into their own hands. That would lead to anarchy.
The imprisonment of burglars is hardly an extreme, cruel or unnatural punishment. It is one the public supports, and one the police - whose job is hard enough as it is - support too. It should not be reduced just to appease the liberal whims of out-of-touch judges.
Do you agree?
Join the discussion by calling 0870 010 0444
lines open at 1.30pm.
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