Bedders Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Excuse my ignorance but if crime is going down then how come:- 12 months ago there were:- 78,714 males & 4,251 females in prison giving a grand total of 82.965 prisoners As of 21/5/10 there were:- 80,889 males & 4,312 females in prison giving a grand total of 85,201 prisoners Explain how crime is on the decrease when prisons are getting fuller??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kthebean Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Excuse my ignorance but if crime is going down then how come:- 12 months ago there were:- 78,714 males & 4,251 females in prison giving a grand total of 82.965 prisoners As of 21/5/10 there were:- 80,889 males & 4,312 females in prison giving a grand total of 85,201 prisoners Explain how crime is on the decrease when prisons are getting fuller??? Logically if more criminals are being imprisioned crime levels will fall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bedders Posted June 28, 2010 Author Share Posted June 28, 2010 Logically if more criminals are being imprisioned crime levels will fall? If they lead to them being incarcerated surely more crime must have been committed. 2009 to 2010 saw an increase so less crime happened? I just don'y buy it at all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavegirl Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 In Michael Moore's latest film 'Capitalism: A Love Story' he brings to light the issue surrounding a rapid rise in US youth detention during the last 10 years. He interviews a teenager who was sent to prison for throwing a piece of meat at his father during a tantrum. Moore lays the blame for the rise in prison poulation with the increase in prison privatisation and made the claim that judges are being paid to fill up the spaces in these prisons. This web page (written in 2000) describes how prison privatisation is also happening in the UK: http://archive.corporatewatch.org/magazine/issue11/cw11f6.html "Private prison building is one of several projects being run under the Government’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The current prison system in the UK is imported from America, one of the few countries with a higher proportion of its population behind bars than the UK. Many of the same companies are involved. These companies are paid per inmate per day so the more people are locked up, the more money they make. Private prisons hold people for longer than state prisons, fund right-wing ‘law and order’ politicians and lobby the Government for harsher sentences. In the UK more people are being sent to prison and sentences are getting longer. The prison population has been rising since 1993, when it was 45,000,3 to its current figure of around 65,000. At the same time, a massive prison building programme has been underway involving three prisons currently under construction, three more planned, and extensions to existing prisons. The Government has estimated that the most recent draconian legislation, for example, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, will cause the prison population to rise to between 71 900 to 80 000 by 2007. In January 2000, Prison Privatisation Report International noted that "[the Crime and Disorder Act] could create the need for more prisons. Since all new prisons in England and Wales are to be privately financed, designed, built and run this could allay the private sector’s fears about future prison contracts." The Prison Service aims to have three sites with full planning permission available at all times. Expect more to be announced next year when the number of prison places needed for 2001/ 2002 is published in the next spending review. Five more prisons for young people are planned to cater for the 2 500 extra 10 to 19 year olds expected to be locked up at any one time as a result of the Crime and Disorder Act. From April 2000 the Youth Justice Board will deal with all places for 10 to 19 year olds." It's worrying to think that the prison population has in effect doubled since 1993. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Sleeps Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 If they lead to them being incarcerated surely more crime must have been committed. Or less crimes were commited but more people were sent to prison as punishment. Year 1: 100 crimes - 50% sent to prison = 50 people in prison. Year 2: 90 crimes commited - 60% sent to prison = 54 people in prison. Crime rates have always been a silly statistic anyway, and easily disfigured. People don't care what chances they have of being burgled, they just want to know if it does happen that the culprit won't be tapped on the wrist and sent on their way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozo Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Excuse my ignorance but if crime is going down then how come:- 12 months ago there were:- 78,714 males & 4,251 females in prison giving a grand total of 82.965 prisoners As of 21/5/10 there were:- 80,889 males & 4,312 females in prison giving a grand total of 85,201 prisoners Explain how crime is on the decrease when prisons are getting fuller??? You cannot tell from those figures alone - there are too many other variables- average duration of prison stay, seriousness of offenses and trends in sentencing policy to name a few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vague_Boy Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Reported crime is down. Whoopee! Of course, it doesn't help confidence in the figures when the police "reclassify" certain crimes. Police forces are using a series of tricks to manipulate crime figures to give a false picture of their performance, a former senior detective has revealed. The techniques – dubbed "gaming" – are used to create the illusion that fewer crimes are being committed and that a bigger proportion are being solved. The techniques identified by Dr Patrick include: "Cuffing" – in which officers make crimes disappear from official figures by either recording them as a "false report" or downgrading their seriousness. For example, a robbery in which a mobile phone is stolen with violence or threats of violence is recorded as "theft from the person", which is not classed as a violent crime. "Stitching" – from "stitching up", whereby offenders are charged with a crime when there is insufficient evidence. Police know that prosecutors will never proceed with the case but the crime appears in police records to have been "solved". "Skewing" – when police activity is directed at easier-to-solve crimes to boost detection rates, at the expense of more serious offences such as sex crimes or child abuse. "Nodding" – where clear-up rates are boosted by persuading convicted offenders to admit to crimes they have not committed, in exchange for inducements such as a lower sentence. LINK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonBennet Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 After 13 years of Labour fiddling the crime figures, I'm looking forward to the new government being more open and honest about what's really been happening. That said, why should there be a link between crime levels and prison population when most crimes don't lead to the perpetrator serving a custodial sentence? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alien Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 After 13 years of Labour fiddling the crime figures, I'm looking forward to the new government being more open and honest about what's really been happening. That said, why should there be a link between crime levels and prison population when most crimes don't lead to the perpetrator serving a custodial sentence? Advice. Do not hold your breath...you will die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Different sentences mean different inmates doing different stints. The number of people in prison doesn't have a direct relationship with the amount of crime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.