‘Tough’ Community Service – Another Ken Clark Option Doomed To Failure!

I know money is tight and the prisons are full, but I cannot for the life of me understand how our Justice Minister, Ken Clark, keeps rattling on about ‘Community Service’ being the answer to re-offending! This man is so out of touch with public opinion as to be laughable. Even his own government department statistics say he is totally wrong. Many Tory M.P’s were angry at his move away from tough sentencing.

Time To Go?

I am sorry Ken, you have given your country good service over the years, but you really should consider retirement.

He promises that instead of sitting at home watching TV or being down the pub having a beer when they are supposed to be doing community service, prisoners will be made to work a minimum of 28 hours a week paying back the community doing odd jobs like clearing up litter and painting! 

Stoke-on-Trent community service trial:

http://youtu.be/uO-PUMT5_6s

THIS Is Hard Work - 48 Hours A Week!

Considering that working people put in at least 48 hours a week I don’t call that ‘Hard Labour’ as he calls it. I also don’t think clearing up rubbish and painting is ‘hard labour’!

True, he is stuck with a problem in that the prisons are full and cost the country a fortune, but there are far better ways than this stupid idea. Criminals should be ‘banged up’ and anything less is just not good enough.

Even Women Prisoners Get To Improve Their Snooker Skills

If he really needs to cut expenses, take away all the TV’s, pool tables, gym machines and other luxuries that prisoners enjoy daily. Things which law-abiding people cannot afford! The cost of all these items comes from his Justice Department budget, and consequently the tax payer. That’s how you save money Ken!!!!

It is time all these superfluous things were taken away and the prisons turned back into places of punishment, not 5 Star hotels. Criminals in British prisons consider our penal system a joke, and that is why they turn to a life of crime, and why they re-offend as soon as they are released, sometimes within days for cryin’ out loud!

After A Hard Day Playing Snooker

Our Ken is so out of touch, he is even giving them a day off to look for a job; “Where convicts are unemployed, they will be forced to work a minimum of 28 hours over four days, with the fifth day spent looking for a job”. At least they will have time enough for a drink with their mates, or perhaps commit another crime!!!!

For the last thirty years, the public have been begging each successive government to ‘get tough on crime’, and sure enough, during each election all parties swear they will be.

Labour went the other way during their last term in office. Under them, less than half of all community orders were completed, and one in ten was cut short because the person doing it reoffended before completing  it. Criminals placed on community orders in 2008 committed almost a quarter of a million offences in the following 12 months. Of these, 1,500 were serious crimes such as murder and rape.

Although we have had promises (as usual) from the Conservatives and Liberals, what they are proposing still isn’t enough!

How Our Cells Are....

It is time Britain had its own Bill of Rights (even though we have the Magna Carta), and all these ‘Human Rights’ nutters should be told to go jump off the nearest cliff.

You cannot turn people away from a life of crime by being soft, and hoping they will change their ways. In our society, criminals, and especially young ones, see crime as the ‘way to go’. If caught they have little to fear, as is proven time and again by the fact many re-offend even while on bail for the first offence.

....And How They Should Be!

The youth of today are feared by much of the population, and they revel in it. It gives many a ‘buzz’ to see honest citizens cross the road rather than share a pavement with them. They are drunk with their own perceived ‘power’ and exercise it at will. They have no fear of going to prison, because it will at least give them chance to play a few rounds of snooker!

People have been complaining about the ‘harsh’ sentences handed out following the recent riots, but folks, that’s what you have been asking for all these years. Finally you get a government that is fulfilling your wishes, and you still complain!!!!!!

You Want To Give HIM A Slap-on-the -Wrist?

Stop whining and support those of our politicians who are willing to give out harsh sentences. Only by insisting the law return to complete impartiality can we hope for a return to any form of normalcy. Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how trivial the offence may seem!  

Campaign, or start a petition to get rid of all the luxuries prisoners enjoy on a daily basis, and insist our prisons return to what they once were; A place of punishment. Only by putting the fear of God into criminals will we ever persuade them to change their ways!

Roy.