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Are they a deterrent? Punishment? Protecting Society? Rehabilitation? I'm wondering what releasing prisoners early tells offenders? "We were just kidding when we gave you your sentence. You do know you only have to serve a bit of it, don't you?"
bbc.co.uk/news/live/c62rygz20gā€¦
in reply to dick_turpin

"Only serve a bit of it" is standard anyway right? Usually a well behaved lucky prisoner would serve about half the max-term allotted at the trial.

Time off for good behavior.

The knob that controls how-early-is-max-early has been turned slightly lower. Instead of 50% to 100% of the max-time it's 40% to 100% of the max-time.

This government being about 10% more lenient than the last one but just as stupid would be about what I'd expect really. But in fact this plan is exactly the last government's plan, which they had planned for when the prisons are full. So. Meh.

I'd probably aim for mostly rehabilitation but probably you need different types if prison for different prisoners? I doubt I'd like the current system if I understood it enough to have much of an opinion.

in reply to Adam Dalliance

So, how long of a given sentence do you think someone should serve? A day? A week? A month? What is the point of giving someone twelve months custodial if they know there's a chance they could be released within two or three months? And given how tariffs work, they could be out within a month once "Time served on remand" has been taken into account.

I blame ALL governments for not investing in 'capacity' within the UK, including the NHS and education. The population has exploded since the '60s to 80 Million, and we're still stumbling along with a capacity of 53 Million; there are only so many eggs you can squeeze in a box before they start cracking.

in reply to dick_turpin

Length of sentence depends on circumstances of course, and then on behavior inside.

I get the impression that sentence-inflation is much of the cause of the overcrowding. Keep making sentences longer without building more capacity with no indication that doing so has any good effect on actual crime levels.

Not investing in the country and all the austerity since the banking crisis in 2008 does seem to have broken just about everything.

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