'let em out, and throw away the key' has a much cheaper ring to it. It's introduced me to a whole new sensation - feeling sorry for Charlie Falconer. This is the fault of the Home Orifice under Blunkett, Clarke and Reid, the last of whom hived off the prison scandals onto Falconer without telling him (he found out about the Ministry of Justice split in the Sunday papers, apparently).
Escapee - if the prison population has gone up 40,000 are we:
a) Sending *more* people to prison for longer, because morlocks clamoured for 'tougher' sentences and other morlocks implemented them but didn't build any prisons or, apparently, do any assessment of the results of their implementation.
b) Sending *fewer* people to prison for longer, because lefty sandal wearing liberals like John Reid and Michael Howard have been in charge for the last fifteen years.
Send your answer on a postcard to 'I Can Add Up, Mister', P. O. Box eight trillion, Dungeness.
Actually, since 16,000 or so are on remand, surely speeding up the courts process would help? This isn't happening, there's the standard 'IT-cockup-closing-sacking-people' thing going on, plus the CPS being useless and not having cases ready on time.
http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.bl...s-cps-sfa.html
Oh, and all the points about drugs and mental issues - spot on. Legalise drugs, spend money on secure mental hospitals and trained nurses - let prison deal with the bad guys. Stop listening to the bloody tabloids, too.