72 replies to this topic

[Radman]

Video Report

Life in an English prison was "like a spa" says a Polish man who served time for fare dodging and other crimes.

Krzsztoe, who now works for the charity Barka UK helping people from eastern Europe, said he would have thought again about crime if he had to be sent back to a jail in Poland.

The way foreign prison prisoners are dealt with could set the PM on a collision course with his own party. Sunday Politics London examined cases where the Metropolitan Police took action to find 75% were down to the British-born, followed by those from Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

Andrew Cryan also spoke to Open Europe research director Stephen Booking.

Do I really need to put my opinions on here?

Mr Krzsztoe may well have changed his life around BUT his very honest words are a tell telling sign of our overly soft and nannying society, for him to say that if the threat of deportation was still there he would have 'thought twice about his behaviour' before committing his offences.

Now the power to deport EU nationals is being handed over to the EU Court of justice and will no longer be in the hands of a British judge.

I think you all know my opinion on the EU and it aint a good one

[Mayday]

Sadly, I've heard this kind of thing for years about our prisons, and i seriously doubt anything will change.

[hopeless_place]

The main liberty a prisoner looses is freedom.

This is the same in any prison, the prisoner can not come and go when ever they like. They must obey instructions, follow a timetable. I think this is hard on any prisoner.

[Mayday]

The main liberty a prisoner looses is freedom.

This is the same in any prison, the prisoner can not come and go when ever they like. They must obey instructions, follow a timetable. I think this is hard on any prisoner.

Why is it hard when they get possibly a better living then outside? Cooked Meals, Warmth, A bed, no responsilibity. Some people don't care about liberty/freedom, I know i've spoken to a few people who wouldn't be too bothered if they got sent back.

Edit: Typo

Edited by Mayday, 20 February 2012 - 11:48 AM.

[Rocket]

Won't be long before our prisons can be rated on a site like Trivago. "Search, compare and go down"

[hopeless_place]

Why is it hard when they get possibly a better living then outside? Cooked Meals, Warmth, A bed, no responsilibity. Some people don't care about liberty/freedom, I know i've spoken to a few people who wouldn't be too bothered if they got sent back.

Edit: Typo

Yes, I know, these people get a lot of the media attention.

I think the prison/criminal correction system is very ineffective when it comes to serial offenders. But for first timers...

[NexivWho]

Human rights 'n tht' mate!...

[Radman]

The main liberty a prisoner looses is freedom.

This is the same in any prison, the prisoner can not come and go when ever they like. They must obey instructions, follow a timetable. I think this is hard on any prisoner.

Televisions & Playstations come as standard though no?

[Killicksparker]

The main liberty a prisoner looses is freedom.

This is the same in any prison, the prisoner can not come and go when ever they like. They must obey instructions, follow a timetable. I think this is hard on any prisoner.

Just like being in the armed forces then ...... only in prison you dont have to work !!

Prisoners VOLUNTEER to go into prison (by breaking the law) no one forces them to go there

[CmdKeen]

Now the power to deport EU nationals is being handed over to the EU Court of justice and will no longer be in the hands of a British judge.

I'm pretty anti-EU but you need to get your facts straight on this one, because it is comments like this that get used to attack such positions. The ECHR and associated court in Strasbourg that ruled on Qatada is nothing to do with the EU! Other than Europe being in the name. The UK was a pivotal member of the Council of Europe that came up with the ECHR and it is based on traditional British freedoms that weren't guaranteed on the continent. The UK does not, and would not, deport people to where they face the death penalty and torture, the problem with the court is they like legislating from the bench and want a greater burden of proof than the traditional "we won't do X to the people you extradite to us". Which given it is usually contained in the extradition treaty is a bit rich.

Anyway onto this topic. I thought there were provisions in place for EU nationals to serve their sentences in their home prisons. There are actually good reasons for this in terms of language barriers, access to family and friends, and each nation treating its prisoners in the way they want them to be treated. Language is especially important, not just for survival, but also in terms of rehabilitation, which is what we should all want.

Plus it has the added advantage of meaning citizens of countries from nasty prison systems don't commit crime in countries with nicer prison systems on the basis that the punishment isn't as bad. And given I've not met a non-drug addict professional shoplifter who was British (in my limited experience disclaimer) crime tourism does very much exist.

[Radman]

I'm pretty anti-EU but you need to get your facts straight on this one, because it is comments like this that get used to attack such positions. The ECHR and associated court in Strasbourg that ruled on Qatada is nothing to do with the EU! Other than Europe being in the name. The UK was a pivotal member of the Council of Europe that came up with the ECHR and it is based on traditional British freedoms that weren't guaranteed on the continent. The UK does not, and would not, deport people to where they face the death penalty and torture, the problem with the court is they like legislating from the bench and want a greater burden of proof than the traditional "we won't do X to the people you extradite to us". Which given it is usually contained in the extradition treaty is a bit rich.

Anyway onto this topic. I thought there were provisions in place for EU nationals to serve their sentences in their home prisons. There are actually good reasons for this in terms of language barriers, access to family and friends, and each nation treating its prisoners in the way they want them to be treated. Language is especially important, not just for survival, but also in terms of rehabilitation, which is what we should all want.

Which is what they are on about transfering over to the ECHR - I would rather those powers stay with British courts/judges.

ECHR hasnt exactly got the best track record with making good decisions has it?

Plus it has the added advantage of meaning citizens of countries from nasty prison systems don't commit crime in countries with nicer prison systems on the basis that the punishment isn't as bad. And given I've not met a non-drug addict professional shoplifter who was British (in my limited experience disclaimer) crime tourism does very much exist.

Exactly,

The stats at the begining of the BBC report are a little misleading - of course more British people are going to end up getting lifted for offences, this is the UK where British people tend to live, I would sure have liked to have known the breakdown/numbers of such folk though.

[Mayday]

Can't we just send them all off to Australia?

[Jonnybasildon]

Or the outer hebrides!

[Rocket]

Can't we just send them all off to Australia?

Unfortunately the Aussies have caught onto our ruse and are now sending our criminals back!

[hopeless_place]

Just like being in the armed forces then ...... only in prison you dont have to work !!

Prisoners VOLUNTEER to go into prison (by breaking the law) no one forces them to go there

GOOD POINT!

[Burnie]

Just like being in the armed forces then ...... only in prison you dont have to work !!

Prisoners VOLUNTEER to go into prison (by breaking the law) no one forces them to go there

You could say it'slike being in the Police sometimes.....




Wait.. And I volunteer for that!!

Edited by Burnie, 20 February 2012 - 02:01 PM.

[Onlyme2008]

Same he did not tell us something we did not know!!!

[ococircusboy]

Azkaban?

[David]

Prison needs to be something you don't want to go back to. They should be warm, clean (by the prisoners) and I do agree with en suite cells. But they should be run like the military Glass House. For the majority of prisoners this will be their first ever time they have come across authority, and they need to understand they must obey it. At the same time it's no good just dumping prisoners in there with no kind of rehabilitation which should take the form of some sort of education (but not degrees funded by the taxpayer).

Get rid of the sports and gym facilities (some of which exceed stuff schools are able to provide) and if there are to be computer games, base it on the radio that the Glass house has. The prisoner(s) have to meet and exceed behaviours to win the radio for a night or weekend or whatever it was. Apply the same here.

Bravado perhaps, but I have spoken to many youth I work with who have been terrified about their first time in YOI but have come out saying 'it wasn't that bad'. For some it's an easy life and all have said they'd go back again - offending was a risk worth taking. Nothing's going to change with attitudes like that.

[Kaonashi]

"English Prisons "Like a Spa" Says former Polish Fare Dodger"

Is he no longer Polish then?

[Radman]

"English Prisons "Like a Spa" Says former Polish Fare Dodger"

Is he no longer Polish then?

You know what im getting at...

[Doghandler2009]

The old saying is dont do the crime if you cant do the time but if the time is to easy whats the deterrent against doing the crime

Edited by Doghandler2009, 20 February 2012 - 08:30 PM.

[MacGregor]

Found some interesting material online when doing some background reading on this.

Chapter One of this document (it begins on page 11) may be of interest to a number of you. The chapter is entitled "Impact of court sentences on proven re-offending rates". The results are given later in the document (tabulated from page 20 onwards). A summary of them is available on page 16 which I will copy below.

Summary

This paper describes results comparing re-offending rates between adult offenders receiving different types of sentences with custodial sentences at courts in England and Wales for each year between 2005 and 2008. The results from the variable by variable method show:

• Offenders receiving Community Orders (COs) had lower re-offending rates than those given immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months for all four years. In 2008 the difference was 8.3 percentage points.

• Offenders on Suspended Sentence Orders (SSOs) had lower re-offending rates than those given immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months for all four years. In 2008 the difference was 8.8 percentage points.

• Offenders given immediate custodial sentences of 1 year or more but less than 2 years had lower re-offending rates than those who received immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months for all four years. Given the small numbers of matched pairs for this comparison the difference between these two sentences are highly variable, ranging between 2.5 percentage points in 206 and 10.3 percentage points in 2005. The latest figure for 2008 showed a difference of 4.4 percentage points.

• Offenders given immediate custodial sentences of 2 years or more but less than 4 years had lower re-offending rates than those who receive immediate custodial sentences of 1 year or more but less than 2 years for all four years compared. Given the small numbers of matched pairs for this comparison the difference between these two sentences are highly variable, ranging between 2.7 percentage points in 2005 and 7.2 percentage points in 2008.

The document is well worth a read if you have the time and inclination to do so, the results are quite surprising in places.

Edited by CharlieJulietMike, 20 February 2012 - 10:10 PM.

[Stratos]

Found some interesting material online when doing some background reading on this.

Chapter One of this document (it begins on page 11) may be of interest to a number of you. The chapter is entitled "Impact of court sentences on proven re-offending rates". The results are given later in the document (tabulated from page 20 onwards). A summary of them is available on page 16 which I will copy below.

[/list]The document is well worth a read if you have the time and inclination to do so, the results are quite surprising in places.

Sums up what I've always suspected. Short prison sentences don't work. People either need to be given significant sentences or dealt with through other means where appropriate.

There are some countries that go to significant effort in rehabilitating offenders, and others that will simply lock criminals away for a long while, both as a deterrent and to keep them away from the public. Both methods work to some extent but the UK seems unique in that we have neither. We don't rehabilitate criminals nor do we lock up serious offenders for any significant amounts of time.

We don't seem to do much to prevent first-time offenders from falling into becoming revolving door criminals.

Giving people short sentences resulting in people serving as little as several weeks in prison is a completely useless waste of time and money. If someone has done something that doesn't merit locking them up for more than a few months then they don't deserve to be locked up at all and should be dealt with through alternative methods.

That said there are plenty of prolific criminals out there who simply don't care about community orders, driving bans and the likes and will continue to do whatever they want until they either die or commit a crime serious enough to get them sent down for a long while. If we tried more to rehabilitate these people before they start their criminal careers proper then all that could be prevented. When rehabilitation fails they need to be given proper sentences to reflect that their behaviour won't be tolerated by society, and we can look at addressing their behaviour during their stay in prison. After spending a few years inside they might rethink their lives and give up. They may continue regardless, but unfortunately some people are beyond saving.

Edit: Someone seems to have "rated" this thread 1/5. It would be interesting if they elaborated as to why they think this is such a poor thread. Do they disagree that some people think English prisons are like a spa? Some criminals certainly think so. Or do they think the issue is something that shouldn't be brought up?

Edited by Stratos, 20 February 2012 - 11:47 PM.

[dredd1981]

[quote name='David' timestamp='1329763486' post='2203730']

Get rid of the sports and gym facilities (some of which exceed stuff schools are able to provide) and if there are to be computer games, base it on the radio that the Glass house has. The prisoner(s) have to meet and exceed behaviours to win the radio for a night or weekend or whatever it was. Apply the same here.
Some of the main offenders in my area go inside and a few months later when they're out they're built like brick (cough) houses....good idea...let the criminals work out for 3 months straight!