Archive for category Crime

Report exposes hidden costs of community sentences over custody

The internationally respected former Home Office criminologist, Professor Ken Pease, has shown that it will not be feasible to save money by releasing convicted prisoners from jail. According to Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime, not only does the available evidence suggest that offending will not be reduced, the Government’s hope of cutting expenditure on prisons can only be achieved by ignoring the impact on victims of crime – costs that the Home Office itself has acknowledged and quantified.

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How bad are short custodial sentences?

It is an article of faith amongst some prison reformers that the use of short prison sentences increases the chance of re-offending, sometimes turning a one-time offender towards a life of crime. They are counter-productive in terms of fighting crime, they argue. According to the most recent systematic evidence, this is probably not the case.

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Less custody, or more intelligent use of custody?

The Coalition Government wants to use more rehabilitation in order to cut the costs of crime and imprisonment. However, effective rehabilitation (though a valuable aspiration) is unlikely to yield immediate cost savings and may well involve greater investment, writes Holly Terry.

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Latest International Comparison of Crime in OECD Countries

The UN affiliated European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control has recently published the most up-to-date international comparison of crime statistics.

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Pressing charges

The Coalition has dropped plans to grant anonymity to men accused of rape, following protest from female MPs and rape victim groups, writes Meike Beckford.

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MP wants to hobble a useful counter-measure to Identity theft

Geraint Davies MP wants to end the use of anonymous pre-paid credit cards on the grounds that they can be used to purchase child pornography. The problem with his suggestion is that it doesn’t take into account all the manifold legitimate uses of pre-paid credit cards. In fact, they might well be much more of a force for good, allowing vulnerable people, especially children, to protect their identity on the Internet.

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