There was a great deal of furore this week about prisoners – released early from jail as part of the government’s bid to free up space – looking happy as they emerged.
As TV crews gathered outside – among others – HMP Swaleside on Sheppey, they caught scenes of ex-lags smiling, punching the air and generally larking about.
Yes, it’s galling to see, but can we really blame them?
What do we expect them to do? Come out holding their heads low and grizzling, cursing the fact they weren’t able to see out their sentence in a tiny cell, surrounded by vicious criminals and with the threat of violence lurking around every corner?
No, it only stands to reason they’re going to take those first gulps of free air with a ruddy great big smile on their faces. Who wouldn’t?
Now, before you all jump on your high horses and suggest the scenes were in any way edifying, quite clearly, they were not.
None of us want to see criminals not serving the time for their crime. But we are where we are. It’s not like they all decided en masse to leave early. They were booted out to free up space.
Of course, in an ideal world, prison should focus on rehabilitation rather than simply punishment. Many would argue the complete opposite and say it is all about making them pay – but what’s the long-term benefit of that to society?
These people need educating on how to behave in a lawful society and that needs the reversal of behaviour traits they have fallen into for myriad reasons that are both complex and not simple to untangle. But it cannot, surely, be beyond the wit of man. Denying them their freedom alone clearly doesn’t work and making them resent authority even more is, clearly, not proving the answer.
It’s all very well pointing to the fact prisoners sometimes have access to video games and a TV but, would you be happy with that if it meant living in a box (often with a cellmate whose choice you have no control over) with bars on the window and a toilet in the corner? Where you couldn’t pop to the shops or the pub? Or see your children grow up? Hug your parents? Where even breathing in fresh air was controlled and limited?
Cut re-offending rates – which have remained stubbornly high – and you ease that pressure on the prisons and make our streets safer in the long term.
Although, we often seem to forget that most – sentenced to less than four years in jail – only serve 50% of what the judge handed down to them in the first place. For those released early this week, it was just 40%.
Which, one could argue, makes a mockery of the whole sentencing issue in the first place.
But if you’re in for three years and you’re out before 18 months has ticked around then you’re hardly going to turn down the option to return home.
And you’re most certainly going to emerge, back into freedom, with a great big smile on your face.
