Jailing more people and for longer risks creating an “underclass” in Britain, according to the Archbishop of York.
By Martin Beckford
Published: 7:00AM BST 29 Sep 2010
Dr John Sentamu claimed that keeping criminals locked up does not help them or society, and that the country should be “pained and troubled” by the record size of its prison population.
He said that crime damages offenders and communities as well as victims, and urged young people to be taught that they have responsibilities towards others.
His comments come as the Coalition grapples with how best to tackle crime. Under the last Conservative government, Michael Howard, then the Home Secretary, famously declared that “prison works”.
But although the crime rate has fallen since the 1990s while the number behind bars in England and Wales reached a record high of 85,368 last week, the new Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, believes that fewer short sentences should be handed down and that more attention should be paid to rehabilitation.
Dr Sentamu, the second-most senior cleric in the Church of England who was once a senior judge in Uganda, questioned the deterrent effect of imprisonment at a lecture for the Prisoners Education Trust on Tuesday evening.
He said: “We should be pained and troubled by the size of our prison population in Britain, the sheer number of individuals who have given up on community – and feel that community has given up on them.
“Putting more and more people away behind locked doors, for longer and longer sentences, does not help society. Neither does it help the individual. What we need is to educate people about how they can be better citizens – not encouraging people to turn their back on society, as some sort of perceived underclass.”
The Archbishop went on: “In modern culture, the rights of the individual are now paramount – but you cannot have these rights without obligations and responsibilities.
“We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours – and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed. A cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim and a cost to the community.”
1 comment:
“We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours – and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed. A cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim and a cost to the community.”
Well said. A shame that more people can't see that recognising there is a cost to the criminal, AND the victim and community, do not have to be mutually exclusive sentiments.
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