Prisons are becoming the new motorway (highway) in the UK: more traffic? Build more!!!

Prisons are a very necessary deterrent in human society. To think otherwise would be naive. Unfortunately, but true.

When you look at some aspects of human behaviour and disposition, whether it is a mental illness or just evil as some would say, there is just no means of deterring some dispensation to commit crimes and we see the callousness with which stabbings occur daily..

But to continue to build more and more prisons, struggling to staff them adequately, leading to overcrowding, slim chance of rehabilitation, increase in reoffending etc., is sheer madness! We need to rethink the entire system. Non-violent crime should seek alternative deterrence e.g. lengthy unpaid public service (properly supervised to ensure such sentence is carried out) to free up prison space for violent crimes and allow for increase in prison staff to inmates ratio so that some rehabilitation can occur, to reduce chances of reoffending when released.

There has to be a different approach. Delaying sentencing as we now have it, potentially leaving violent criminals loose due to prisons being full, is likely risky