Dr Rowan Williams makes some pointed remarks about prisons today:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised Britain’s “obsession” with prisons, at the same time as inmate numbers reach record levels.
Dr Rowan Williams hinted that many minor offences, including some kinds of theft, should not lead to jail.
When he’s not talking about religion, the good doctor makes remarkable common sense… He has a point here, our prison population is rising at a remarkable rate. Instead of demanding more prison spaces, should we not be asking ourselves why there are so many inmates in the first place? Are we really such a lawless society? Worse than our European neighbours? England and Wales have the highest per capita prison population in western Europe. Why?
Might it be something to do with this?
Tony Blair’s government has created more than 3,000 new criminal offences during its nine-year tenure, one for almost every day it has been in power.
Just a thought…
“Are we really such a lawless society? Worse than our European neighbours?”
Yes. We have lost the ability as individuals to police ourselves and our immediate neighbourhood.
The example given is the comparison with Edwardian prisons: if the current sentencing regime were in place in Edwardian times, the prisons would have been empty. If the Edwardian regime were in place today, there would be practically no-one between the ages of 16-25 at liberty.
Or hanged, presumably… 😐