Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
We hope you enjoy your visit!
You're currently viewing Catholic CyberForum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our online cyberparish, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.
Join our community!
Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of abuse, personal attacks, blasphemy, racism, threats, harrassment, and crude or sexually-explicit language.
If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Locked Topic
Is This Justice; Early Release of Prisoners
Topic Started: Wednesday, 20. June 2007, 01:26 (430 Views)
denis

Today we have been informed that thousands of prisoners are to have their sentences reduced by 18 days, those serving less than 4 yrs, burglars, con-men, (and women) muggers, druggies, etc. The question is why are they in prison in the first place, should they not serve the sentence handed down to them by the court of law. Are they going to come out reformed characters. Should we bring back the dungeon, the ball and chain to stop them reoffending or am I being too callous
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
denis
Jun 20 2007, 01:26 AM
Should we bring back the dungeon, the ball and chain to stop them reoffending or am I being too callous

Denis, you asked us a question. I now ask you a question:

Would such punishments reform a criminal, or would they make a person turn savage?
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
denis

Rose of York
Jun 20 2007, 12:42 AM
denis
Jun 20 2007, 01:26 AM
Should we bring back the dungeon, the ball and chain to stop them reoffending or am I being too callous

Denis, you asked us a question. I now ask you a question:

Would such punishments reform a criminal, or would they make a person turn savage?

Rose

I would like to think that eight times out of ten that the criminal would have second thoughts on his/her crimes so that the victims can breathe more easilyand prisons would not be over populated
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Derekap
Member Avatar

I think it is notable that parties aspiring for power usually promise to improve law and order and are therefore reluctant to build new prisons as it shows their failure. I think overcrowded prisons discourage any reform because the staff must find it difficult to cope.
Derekap
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
PJD

I think it is the same old story from e.g. the Wilson days. They just run out of money.

PJD
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
Building more prisons does not cure the cause.

Why are so many people comitting crimes that warrant a prison sentence?

Simple. The sense of shame has gone.
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
CARLO
Member Avatar

No easy answers here.

Voters without exception want tougher sentencing which means more prisons. We already imprison more people per head of population than any other country in Europe.
Our prisons are currently overcrowded and cannot take any more. A few more prisons are to be built and will be ready in 2-3 years time. Prisons cost a lot of money to build and run.

If the voters were prepared to pay for more prisons in their taxes there would be little difficulty in providing them and in implementing a policy of tougher sentencing.

However as ALL politicians know, the voters are NOT prepared to put their money where their mouths are. Come election time they swoon into the arms of any political party that promises low taxes i.e. no more prisons. They then adjourn to the nearest bar and moan about how soft we all are on criminals!

Until the voters 'get real' we are doomed to carry on as we are!


Veritas
Truth


CARLO
Judica me Deus
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
newminster
Unregistered

Too simple. But certainly part of the problem.
How about breakdown of tabus? Lack of self-discipline resulting from lack of imposed discipline?
How about a general lack of social morals? I always reckoned that one of most immoral advertising campaigns ever was Access' "Take the waiting out of wanting." Encouraged consumerism and meant that those who could borrowed; those who couldn't ended up stealing.
And other more complicated factors which combined to make "tough on the causes of crime" merely the meaningless soundbite it always was.
Goto Top
 
pete

A large proportion of serving prisoners are not even British. The soft punishment dealt out by our courts is laughable, any prisoner serving 4 years or less, knows that he will only serve half this time. Prison is no longer a deterrent, single and double cells with televisions, (no TV licence fee) are far better than some of the accommodation offered to our serviceman. The food they receive is far, far, better than what the National Health hospitals supply to the sick.
The reason our prisons are at bursting point, is generated by the vast number of foreigners who come to the U.K. for the sole purpose of criminality. I would suggest that we empty our jails of these criminals, deport them to their own countries and pay their governments to keep them under lock and key, this would save the taxpayers in the UK a vast amount. It would also free space so that our own criminals can serve their full sentences, rather than re-offend at the first opportunity when out on bail.
God bless
Pete
Online Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
pete
Jun 22 2007, 12:44 AM
Prison is no longer a deterrent, single and double cells with televisions, (no TV licence fee) are far better than some of the accommodation offered to our serviceman. The food they receive is far, far, better than what the National Health hospitals supply to the sick.

If prison is not a deterrent we would all be trying to get in.
Prison service website
Some prisons have dormitories. Who wants to submit to the indignity of being strip searched, including very intimate searching for drugs, then taken off to share a tiny room with a stranger, who may be the most ghastly company - could be a person using foul language, and sneering or even spitting if they see you with rosary beads or missal, could be an over enthusiastic hom osex ual, or a self righteous Holy Joe, saying "you deserve it, I don't".

I cannot comment on prison food, as I have neither seen nor tasted it. Service personnel are volunteers, nobody forces them to join. On UK bases they have good accommodation.

Prison would be a deterrent for me. There is no freedom to makes ones own decisions, what to do today, what kind of job to do, whether to move house, get a dog, get in the car and go off to visit friends, or go to the seaside. Whatever a prisoner gets, the fact remains it is by the decision and favour of the system.

Be naughty, and get banged up in solitary.

Get assaulted, no witnesses dare come forward.

Male rape is common in prison.

A child has big worries, about phychological bullying at schoo. A mother is worried sick because the teenage son is getting out of hand. The imprisoned father wants to go to the family, but cannot.

One of the nicest, most thoroughly decent men I knew fell to financial temptation, just once, and served a few months. He must have been in his late fifties at the time, and it was his first offence. During the course of his life he had done a lot for others, including work for charities. Many years later, he still feels rotten about the suffering and shame he brought on his wife, children and elderly parents. He is a nicer man than some of the apparently holy types. Frankly I have known "good servants of the community" who cause a lot of suffering by one means or another, but remain within the law. Some of them get medals, but given the choice I would lock them up and throw away the key.

Yes, prison is such a lovely life.

We cannot generalise, there are all sorts of "types" in prison. Some are very inadequate people. Some are just thugs.

And before you lot ask - no, I don't speak from experience. :angel:
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
denis
Jun 20 2007, 01:26 AM
should they not serve the sentence handed down to them by the court of law.

The opportunity for parole is the carrot on the stick, that encourages a person to behave themselves. Parole has to be earned, and at any time during parole a person is technically still a prisoner and can be made to return.

The Government needs to work harder at finding ways of putting people becoming "career criminals". My feeling is, the youngsters need dealing with as soon as they commit crimes. If they are not dealt with the first time they commit a minor crime, they get the message that they can get away with it, then they commit a more serious crime, then another more serious. By the time they are old enough for court appearances, the pattern is set. It needs to be nipped in the bud at an early stage.
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
pete
Jun 22 2007, 12:44 AM
The reason our prisons are at bursting point, is generated by the vast number of foreigners who come to the U.K. for the sole purpose of criminality. I would suggest that we empty our jails of these criminals, deport them to their own countries and pay their governments to keep them under lock and key, this would save the taxpayers in the UK a vast amount. It would also free space so that our own criminals can serve their full sentences, rather than re-offend at the first opportunity when out on bail.
God bless
Pete

Pete are you able to quote Government statistics to prove your point about the overcrowding being due to the "vast number of foreigners" so come here to the UK for the sole purpose of criminality?

Not all released criminals re-offend at the first opportunity. Prisoners are as eligible for the grace of repentance, as you or I.
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Quicunque vult

The long-term solution is of course a return to Christian teaching and values: the promotion of good, sound family life, the value of community and a move away from consumerism, materialism and “me-first” attitudes. Catholics of course know this, but we have the task either of evangelising or persuading our fellow-countrymen of their benefits even in a purely secular context. Neither easy, but we must try.

In the short-term, perhaps we should think more about what we do with people when they are in prison, and about giving them the necessary support when they come out. I am not necessarily arguing for a soft regime – prison should be seen as punishment – but equally we should help those who are themselves so damaged that all they want to do is to harm others, to find a way out.

Let us remember that we are dealing with people who are loved by God and made in His image; we cannot just leave them to rot in prison. The Lord said “I was…in prison, and you did not visit me.”

QV
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
tomais

All of the above a perfect example of the " dining room" chattering classes indilging in their own exemplory reasoning- well coan do we mostly do but here not a single example of - this is what I have done- I wrote to the Goverment oficial I carried out one of the corporal mercies-
no wind in the wine fuelled wind.
Try writing to the daily mail you might just get printed or some of you will
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
tomais
Jun 22 2007, 08:06 PM
this is what I have done- I wrote to the Goverment oficial I carried out one of the corporal mercies-
no wind in the wine fuelled wind.
Try writing to the daily mail you might just get printed or some of you will

tomais, you try telling me what Corporal Works of Mercy any of us carry out. You do not know.
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Archived Discussions · Next Topic »
Locked Topic