1100 prisoners to be released today.

Grantanow

And the alternative is? 3 in a cell? 4 in a cell? Use disused army camps? If these were viable the Tories would undoubtedly have done so to get themselves out of a hole of their own making.

I think we have refugees in some Army camps.

Army camps are not prisons; as well as barracks for single personnel, they consist of houses, a church, a swimming pool, social centre etc and are also used by the public for social activities.

And why don't they deport the illegal immigrants who are in prison ... Other countries do

Why do we lock so many people up? It breaks up families, leads to homelessness and can ruin a life. More imaginative approaches could be tried. Some countries lock people up part time so they can maintain a job! Better use of community pay back schemes could be tried. For violent crimes prison may be the answer but locking someone up for years for postings on Facebook! really? There must be a better answer.

I agree we need to develop punishments that don’t include prison. So far as the Facebook posts go, inciting murder during riots does qualify for prison imo

A different perspective on the release of 1000 prisoners. I heard prisoners being interviewed by R4 this evening and they were say ing how they felt when told they were to be released with little notice. There was no time to prepare or arrange for their release which is something that needs time and many have nowhere to live. .

Cambsnan

Why do we lock so many people up? It breaks up families, leads to homelessness and can ruin a life. More imaginative approaches could be tried. Some countries lock people up part time so they can maintain a job! Better use of community pay back schemes could be tried. For violent crimes prison may be the answer but locking someone up for years for postings on Facebook! really? There must be a better answer.

100% Agree

silverlining48

A different perspective on the release of 1000 prisoners. I heard prisoners being interviewed by R4 this evening and they were say ing how they felt when told they were to be released with little notice. There was no time to prepare or arrange for their release which is something that needs time and many have nowhere to live. .

This is a valid point.

The consequences of years of cutbacks in probation officers and facilities like hostels for those released when there is no family. I don't know if the procedure of appointing caseworkers was followed, or not followed in enough cases. We'd need to do a comparison of those released at 50% of sentence to see if the problems were the same. (genuinely dont know).

Iams point about alternatives to prison is so very much to the point, but until they exist, what should judges do?

As regards prisoners linked to the riots, they were a mixture of people arrested actually committing violence in the community - all evidenced on video/policecams - and some extremely nasty violent SM threats including death threats and direct incitement to violence (details of where to go to riot): some arrests for SM activity were for those who gave out names and addresses of individuals in order to go and attack them.
To write this off as a few "postings on Facebook" needs challenging.

The amount of funding for the changes above will only come slowly: this is going to continue to be a problem for some time to come.