Yes suzied I too can agree that we would all feel that way, and many criminal acts deserve severe sentences for punishment and protection purposes, I don't think any of us have a problem with that. But, the majority of criminals have poor mental health, addiction, dysfunctional family life, etc., and these are the problems which need to be addressed to prevent the people committing the crimes and ending up in 'the system'. I agree that there should be a more constructive way to deal with people's crimes, but the biggest problem is that action to prevent initial offences or re-offending cost money and that brings out the Pritti Patel rhetoric with talk of punishment, fear, revenge etc and then we get people describing prisons as holiday camps. Initiatives to improve adult literacy are proven to work as the illiteracy rate amongst prisoners are very high, but again, it is hard to undertake these programmes when the majority of prisoners are locked up for 23 hours a day due to funding shortages and subsequent staffing levels being reduced, not to mention when you have idiotic moves by people like Chris Grayling to stop prisoners from receiving books. ( subsequently cancelled).