75ZT Community

To be honest Jumper, in my view, prison is an expensive waste of time in almost all cases, based upon my observations over the years. It has a punitive effect and warehouses our troublemakers but that's all. Even long term sentences don't show very much evidence of rehabilitation.

Neither of these people are going to gain from any rehabilitative measures either in prison or on license. They don't need it.

In my view, the prison sentence was just right. A short, sharp reminder of the fact that you take a risk when you defy the will of the people no matter how exalted you consider yourself and in as far as that goes, one of the occasions when I'd say that prison works.

In my humble opinion prison doesn't work because it has no bite. Offenders who go to prison should be punished not given a "Go to your room" motherly approach. The room has TV, Computers, games, books and all the trappings of a good home. (Probably better than their real home). Many with no homes at all deliberately break the law to be sent there. IF... they were sent to a prison with just a bed and the very basic requirements in food, made to get up early and out to work clearing litter from roads, graffiti from walls, litter from railway lines, old peoples gardens, cleaning repairing and making habitable homes from dilapidated houses etc; with no TV or games just exercise yards to face every day. No football to watch, no smoking and no drugs or booze, by God they wouldn't want to go back in there would they? I know....I hear it now.... human rights and do gooders.....

You can’t rehabilitate those who refuse to comply or lack cognitive ability to recognise right from wrong or good from bad. No matter the sentence, nothing of good or noble intent will work - the adult mind (in terms of age rather than intellectual development) is mainly fixed and will only respond if a material gain is perceived. Hence recidivism.

In the case of the Huhnes the driving (no pun) factor in the behaviour is surely hubris and the assumption they were bound to get away with it because they were above the law due to their exalted public position. So it comes down to maintenance of social standing - when was it ever any different.

I have never believed that prison has any rehabilitative purpose - that’s the realm of the reformers, most of whom have never been an inmate but have the obsession that they know better than everyone else (usually pseudo intellectuals but not exclusively).

So you’re right, a long sentence would only have increased the cost to the public purse for no public benefit. Nothing rehabilitates more than the terror of being there. It’s not a question of ‘humanity’, just public safety from the violent ones who of course merit longer sentences.

Another feature of this case, so far unmentioned to any extent in the popular media, is the alleged involvement of Constance Briscoe. Wow, you’d have thought she would have given it rather a wide berth.

Of course, I'm just a lay unqualified observer with a natural disaffection for criminals and I admit I have no first-hand experience at all of prison. I also have a very limited experience of criminals. In fact I don't know any at all! So I suppose it's just gut feeling reaction really.

Raistlin you are in the position of being able to confirm how many ex-offenders re-offend? Do take my point here about rehab and prison as a deterrent working or not? It serves one inescapable fact and that is these crooks are off the streets and the public are protected until they are released. ...

Evidence please SIr!

When this former MP is released, there may well be a book and the morons who will buy it! Then there will be the public appearances, the speech circuit and other money making opportunities.

Given what he has said so far on TV, he portrays himself as sincere and apologetic - carefully coached! I see him as a selfish and narcissistic individual who derives pleasure from public humiliation at an intellectual and self serving level.

As you know, I have a forensic psychiatry background and it would have been interesting to have heard about his childhood, if he had any deviant tendencies from an early age, how he covered it up blah blah... I will leave it there.

Gate Keeper wrote:Raistlin you are in the position of being able to confirm how many ex-offenders re-offend? Do take my point here about rehab and prison as a deterrent working or not? It serves one inescapable fact and that is these crooks are off the streets and the public are protected until they are released. ...

Evidence please SIr!

http://www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/reoffending/proven-re-offending.

This might be a starting point Phil.

Can I ask, from what are the public protected by the incarceration of Huhne and Pryce?

Thanks Paul, I am coming back with this. I wrote a reply and it all went into oblivion. In the meantime, again thanks for the links to the evidence on re-offending statistics. Mmm disheartening to read. I will come back to answer your question after some more thoughts.

Paul thanks for the discussion. You will be familiar to the wide range of different views on the sentence. Okay this couple were not hardened criminals. He covered up a lie and corrupted his ex to do the same. On top of that she had the motive of revenge! A scorned woman! They both had well paid jobs and what happened became very public from the trial and media attention. By going to prison they raised the warning against bad driving and perjury. In doing so it has been argued that this acted as a deterrent by way of sending them down in the public interest. I withdraw my remark about the public being protected by their imprisonment.

One of my friends who helped me out in the past, wrote to the attorney general to ask him if the sentence could be extended by way of an appeal citing similar cases and one in particular was identical except for the sentence, 12 months inside. This is what this friend of mine was hankering for as the minimum sentence. I do have the case name and no but wont go into it as the AG rejected it. He said that a successful appeal to extend the sentence for the couple would fail for reasons 1,2,3,4 blah blah....

A high price to pay given that if Hulne admitted to the driving offence in the first place all that would have happened, would have been, that more points would have been added to his driving licence which was lost within 6 months to another offence.