[Livia]

Originally Posted by swinearefine

Good. I think society places too much importance on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Normally living in a good environment and acquiring skills to transition into a crime-free life on the outside produce the lowest recidivism rates. Where I live they once did a program that allowed prisoners to earn bachelor's degrees and the focus was on achieving that rather than punishing them for their crimes, and not one of the prisoners in the program returned to jail after they were released.

Surely what this teaches us is this: work hard and pay your way, take out a student loan it will take you years to pay off and study. Or... become a criminal, rob or beat someone, or break into their home or steal their car or maybe even rape or murder someone... and not only get it all paid for on the taxpayer,but also study in an environment where you're not going to have to work as well to be able to eat and buy books.

Spend the money that would be put into making prisoners' lives comfortable into schools and education, because if there's one thing the majority of prisoners have in common it's a lack of education and opportunity. Waiting until they've committed a crime to give them an education sounds ridiculous to me.

[swinearefine]

Originally Posted by Livia

Surely what this teaches us is this: work hard and pay your way, take out a student loan it will take you years to pay off and study. Or... become a criminal, rob or beat someone, or break into their home or steal their car or maybe even rape or murder someone... and not only get it all paid for on the taxpayer,but also study in an environment where you're not going to have to work as well to be able to eat and buy books.

Spend the money that would be put into making prisoners' lives comfortable into schools and education, because if there's one thing the majority of prisoners have in common it's a lack of education and opportunity. Waiting until they've committed a crime to give them an education sounds ridiculous to me.

That was why the government decided against passing a law to make it a state-wide program.

I completely agree with spending more money on childhood education to prevent people from committing crimes in the first place, but I think it is also important to educate prisoners. It's not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of society as a whole. I think they should be required to have to pay for their degree, whether through working while in prison to paying while on the outside, like a loan.

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by swinearefine

That was why the government decided against passing a law to make it a state-wide program.

I completely agree with spending more money on childhood education to prevent people from committing crimes in the first place, but I think it is also important to educate prisoners. It's not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of society as a whole. I think they should be required to have to pay for their degree, whether through working while in prison to paying while on the outside, like a loan.

Because it wasn't seen as a success then: for the very reasons I, and some others have stated : it was a cushy number with only the offenders and criminals benefitting: whilst the tax payers cough up the dough, and the victims get left to 'just get on with it' - with little, if any help at all.

[Kizzy]

The onus that was put on safeguarding the vulnerable before such as youth services have been crippled by cuts...
Wow pyra you read my mind was just about to mention that.
Getting to them before they enter the prison system would be much more cost effective....
In particular the work of the YJB, which I believe the government are trying to get rid off.

03 February 2012 318: Planning Act 2008 / Localism Act 2011 summary at 3 February 2012

The second day of debate on the Report stage of the Public Bodies Bill in the Lords yesterday saw the Government lose two divisions, firstly (by 225 votes to 162) on an amendment to remove the Youth Justice Board from Schedule 1 (bodies which can be abolished by order)

[waterhog]

dont believ all you read and hear ?