Woman commits insurance fraud. Involves (innocent) elderly driver. Has 59 previous convictions.

its not really a hundred grand per year per prisoner though. Its what it costs whether they are there or not, but i'd jail anybody with more than 5 convictions

Oh absolutely, and the more convictions you have the less free time and visits and general niceties you get. 5 convictions plus? You’ll be lucky to get an hour per day of natural light.

We’ve turned into a real “ mug country “.

The most incredible part of the article is her supposed age. 37? Really?

Can you imagine anyone hiring them?

Contraception should be compulsory.

More prison space - yes, yes, yes. 3 strikes laws (or any automatic/mandatory sentencing laws) - no, no, no.

Removing discretion from judges would be a step in the wrong direction.

But better/different sentencing guidelines would be a step in the right direction.

She looks like she's close to 50

Locking people up for long periods is not the sole preserve of the US. It happens in many countries all over the world.

It's just that the US gets far more publicity, and their high incarceration rates and lengthy sentences get reported on far more often.

There is also this erroneous claim made by many people, that their high incarceration rates actually do nothing to combat crime or even perhaps make it worse - despite there being scant legitimate evidence to prove this. You could just as easily claim that their crime rates would be 10 times higher if their sizable prison population were back out on the streets tomorrow. (In fact there would be considerably more evidence to back up the latter position)

Now, do I think throwing bad people in prison with lengthy sentences is necessarily the answer to the problem? No, not really.

But it's actually more about how we do this, rather than it being a poor method. If you think about these people, what has usually gone wrong in their lives for them to turn into criminal scum? And very often repeat offenders?

Well, I would say it usually starts from a very young age in their home/local environment. So putting someone like that into a prison among the very same people as themselves, is clearly not going to work.

Also, just giving them access to rehabilitative services is not necessarily going to work either. Why? Because even though many of these people involved in prison rehab services, are decent well meaning individuals and perhaps even well educated - they are very often completely the wrong type of characters to be whipping bad people back into shape. They're usually just too nice, and the approach to rehabilitative programs is just too soft to be truly effective in a real world setting.

These people lacked discipline and tough love when they were growing up as kids. So the only way to realistically right that ship, and have any chance of turning these people back onto the correct course towards being a decent member of society, is to give them that discipline and tough love approach now as adults.

I would take a much tougher approach to prison life in general. I would of course, stop short of committing any human rights abuses on prisoners. (that goes without saying) But I would go right to the very edge of what is possible in this regard, and basically take a military boot camp style approach. But this would involve relaxing the current attitude towards our victim-hood culture in society, where anyone can cry about the most innocuous things and find a soft deluded member of society who will fight their imagined battle for them.

You cannot allow that culture to creep into such a system. It simply doesn't work, as evidenced by our current soft approach to prison life - which clearly isn't working. It has to be 100% commitment to the tough love approach, or else it will fail.

Give prisoners two very clear paths. The rehabilitative path, and the non-engagement path. Both should be equally tough, but in slightly different ways. There should be no easy time in prison. No comfortable cozy lifestyles. Prison should be both a punishment and a path to redemption. One without the other is rather pointless.

If you choose not to engage, you get the toughest prison time imaginable. Basically, so miserable that your only option is to engage.

The rehabilitative path should be very tough, with a zero tolerance approach and high standards constantly pushed aggressively. Just like in the military. It should be both physically and mentally difficult to be effective. 

But with an understanding that people will slip up, and need to be given many chances to redeem themselves. If you show consistency and hard work in bettering yourself, you get rewarded and you get some perks - just like we all do out in the real world. These should be easily lost through bad behavior, and difficult to gain back. 

In terms of specifics with regard to rehabilitative work, there should be an emphasis on the practical skills and behaviors required to survive out in the real world. Not some of the current wishy washy life skills nonsense you normally get. That stuff looks good on a power-point slide, but doesn't translate very well when someone leaves prison.

Everything should be practical in nature, and be easily measured and applied against what is needed outside the prison walls. 

Whether someone needs psychological help, anger management, help with substance abuse, entrepreneurial skills to start their own business etc etc. Whatever it is, it needs to be tangible and pragmatic in nature. Not a bunch of random words on a page or lecture slide. You need to put people in situations that they are going face outside prison, and find out how they behave / react to those situations. And find practical solutions so you are setting people up to succeed. 

Rather than what we are doing currently, sending damaged people back out into society, many of whom have spent years in a cozy prison hotel room. Surrounded by like minded scum. Of course they're going to re-offend. You haven't altered the path they've been on.  

Does some of that sound a bit extreme? Yes, I will admit it probably does. But then the path many of these people have been on in their lives is very extreme too. The soft approach to sentences, prison life and rehabilitative services is clearly not working. I think you need to have the stomach to try a different more aggressive approach, if you want to see different end results.

/rant.

It's why I, as a ginger, have no feelings towards all the other -ism's until my own plight is recognised and supported by legislation! :pac:

This is just another example of the society we have created due to free everything. Wonder if she's renting or in her 4eva home.