Give prison officers bonuses to rehabilitate criminals, says Jonathan Aitken
I have got a better idea which is also cheaper. Those prison officers who do their job keep their job, and those who fail to do their job must be replaced with someone more able. The same applies for probation officers.
Aitken states: "With more direct knowledge than most people, I am well aware that many of the 83,000 inmates locked up in our jails need to be there in order to fulfil two important objectives of imprisonment – the protection of the public and the punishment of lawbreakers".
True, he did spend some time in prison. However, his ride would have been a lot smoother than experienced by prisoners not connected to the Establishment. Something like 60,000 of the 83,000 could safely be released back into mainstream society. What Aitken fails to clarify is that the punishment of lawbreakers is the sentence in court, and not what is inflicted by confinement. Furthermore, the public get protection by the imposition of the sentence to custody. The mistake made by the powers that be is that they have a hazy concept called public protection, and this is bandied about like the word security. When public protection is piled on top of public protection on top of public protection, we end up with repression and oppression and victimisation of prisoners.
Aitken fails to mention that the reason why there are so many in custody is because it is a business supported by lobby groups interested in making profits out of imprisonment.
1 comment:
Public protection should apply in the minority of cases and not the majority, it is a con we have been fed by politicians with vested interests.
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