Month: July 2018

A 21st century prison would recognise that the prevalence of offending is not truly reflected in the prison population. People only go to prison who are convicted, and the guilty get off sometimes and occasionally the innocent slip through filters in the justice system. It would recognise that offending doesn’t occur in a vacuum and that triggers for offending, and studies show that serious offenders have many common factors. These factors can be articulated and understood, and so prison conditions and policies should not be predicated on rhetoric and political idealism.