Jobs for the villains
I find very puzzling a statement such as that made by Mr Mark Carlisle, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, that the present "prison popula tion " on May 31 was 40,219, "but all the auguries are that further increases must be expected." The prison population has risen steadily from 14,500 in 1945. It is disturbing that the continuing increase should be regarded as inevitable. It may well be that the number of crimes being committed and detected is increasing and nothing much can be done to prevent that, but that need not mean that the number of prisoners must increase. Obviously hardened criminals, particularly those prone to violence, need to be locked up. But is prison the only, or the best, answer for petty thieves, habitual drunkards, embezzlers, conmen, debtors and the like? What is wanted is someone with a bit of imagination to think up salutary punishments which do not involve imprisonment. Some form of compulsory labour may be the answer; and if the unions object, then union rates could be paid by the employer and deductions made from the convict's earnings to be paid as compensation to his victim, or into some general compensation fund; alternatively, convicts could be made to do work which would otherwise not be done at all, such as gardening for those too infirm to do it themselves, or, on a vastly larger scale, cleaning the countryside of the waste of old industries.
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