The Institute for Public Policy Research (not another one!) is calling for jail sentences of less than six months to be replaced with community punishments.
They claim that short sentences are ‘expensive’ and ‘ineffective’.
Their director, Nick Pearce, is reported as saying that ‘low-level crime …… must be taken seriously’.
However, not it would seem, seriously enough to impose the type of sentence that society expects for those prolific, repeat offenders who have had more community ‘punishments’ than they’ve had hot dinners and which have consistently failed to bring about any change in their offending behaviour.
Spare me the liberal clap-trap which says that community ‘punishments’ are a magic wand which miraculously transforms hardened criminals into paragons of virtue, because they don’t! There is little, if any, difference in re-offending rates between those given them and those sent to prison, and at least prison is a real punishment, which is and should be the end result of criminal behaviour.
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