i saw the title of this thread and was going to chuck a flippant comment in, something like-
yea, short sentences work, about 3 months is long enough for an apprentice scumbag to learn how to hot wire cars and manufacturer crack cocaine in the comfort of your rented accomodation.
However, through course of my work, i have met a few ex-cons (even worked inside HMP Ranby a couple of times, that was interesting, amongst other bits, had to give the warders a complete inventory of what was in my tool case).
A previous poster mention Sudbury open. One of the folk i am acquainted with spent a 4 month holiday there. Having listened to his story of what happened and why he did what he did, it may seem strange to some folk, but i felt really sorry for him. (it wasn't an act of dis-honesty or violence, rather an illegal, small scale way of manufacturing a, erm, 'natural product') He is now ( i would say) repentant and rehabilitated and earns a meagre but honest living as a driver/labourer.
I think if he had been tarred with the same brush as a murder/rapist etc. we would now have one less driver and one more scumbag. Who knows what downward spiral he may have taken?
I think the punishment should fit the crime, although there is a saying that goes something like -an eye for an eye makes the world blind (don't know who gets credit for that) i think there should be more scope within the justice system to give fitting punishment. Light sentences for minor crime, big 'lock'em up and chuck the key' sentences for real evil hearted scum. Life should mean life, not just ten to twenty years. The likes of shipman, the wests that nutter who killed those two girls in soham ( don't recall his name?) and proper mentalists like that should be incarcerated until the day they die of a natural cause. (yea i know some of the evil worms managed to top themselves, how unfair)
(edit for spelling and to remove capital letters from shipman and west.)
