youngoffenders

The Working Class Party

YOUNG OFFENDERS

At present the cost of keeping the 3200 young offenders in prison is
£190million, per year (HANSARD), about £59,000 each; Inmates spend
only 6.5 hours per week in education, plus 3hrs PE. Such a horrible
waste of money and of young lives it is hard to imagine.
THE RE-OFFENDING RATE IS A STAGGERING 73% !

There is simply no point in continuing this situation as it does not work.

We need to take a far more active and intrusive role in the offenders
life, once convicted.

RE-EDUCATION NOT RE-OFFENDING

We would reorganise the punishment of young offenders along the
following lines:

There would be no parole
Only those convicted of offences involving violence would receive
custodial sentences
Custodial sentences would be in special institutions run by the State,
(not private companies). In these, inmates would receive full-time
re-education, using mainly one to one tuition.

ONE TO ONE TUITION

Offenders would be given each a personal tutor responsible for their
complete (re)education. It has to be understood in this context that 100%
of the offenders in question have learning and communication
difficulties compared with 1% of the general population (Hansard).The
expression RE-education can hardly be more appropriate than here. The
aim of this would be to completely change the lives of these individuals,
not to scratch at the surface, as other half hearted programmes do. One
to one tuition covering all areas of life as well as education in its
general sense, would take place in a secure environment; strict
discipline and obedience would be enforced. But the brutality of prison
would be missing. The ethos would be wholly unlike that of prison, as we
are looking from a completely different result. Remember , the point of
prison is to benefit society and to rid it of criminals. We believe this is
the best way.

The one to one tutorial system is that employed in Oxford and
Cambridge universities and is the mainstay of their successes, for the
simple reason that it is the most effective. We consider that the most
benefit that can be derived by society from spending £59,000 on young
offenders , is to address directly and uncompromisingly their offending
behaviour, and the root-causes of it; ignorance and stupidity, and lack of
personal achievement. These are some of the country's worst equipped
individuals, and they cause great harm to the community. They are a
problem which needs to be eradicated - society cannot afford the money
, nor the damage, suffering and injury caused by these people, and
their re-offending.

NO SOCIALISING
As these institutions are not intended to be prisons, inmates would be
kept separate from one another, and no socialising would be allowed
except during lessons, and all such interaction would be strictly
supervised.

SHORTER SENTENCES EXCEPT FOR THE MOST SERIOUS CRIMES
Sentences would be short, but there would be no parole. This is
because it is for the courts to decide on the length of sentence that
would best suit the purpose of re-education. Anything shorter would
merely obstruct that purpose, anything longer would be futile.

The sole purpose of these institutions would be the RE-EDUCATION of
offenders. This would be an intensive course,and would be
all-encompassing. It would aim to address the psychological and social
problems of the offender, their learning difficulties, and their
behavioural problems as well as health problems, including drug abuse.
These institutions would be unlike present prisons where cannabis
abuse is unofficially allowed. Inmates would be taken off any drugs.

Those convicted of non-violent crimes:

These offenders,would have to attend day centres where the same
system of reeducation would be employed, in a secure environment.
Again , no socialising with other offenders would be allowed. Though
living at home,these would be under a total curfew after 8.00pm. At
weekends they would have to report to a police station twice a day.
FAILURE TO REPORT WOULD MEAN IMMEDIATE ARREST AND DETENTION
IN A POLICE CELL FOR ONE NIGHT. The same re-education programme
would be followed.

In terms of sentencing it is to be noted that fines would no longer be
used. Instead, crime amongst the young would be treated as something
totally unacceptable, and the individual found guilty of it as someone
needing to reappraise their whole attitude. Fines in this context are
futile and send completely the wrong message.
Also, as juries and magistrates come to understand the benefits both to
the offenders and to society of the programme, that conviction rates
would rise significantly.

WE ARE STRONGLY AGAINST SOFT SENTENCING,AND LOW CONVICTION
RATES ,AND THE MESSAGE THESE SEND TO YOUNG OFFENDERS, who
know they can more or less shrug off the law whether they are
convicted or not. They know it will not impinge on their lives or their
way of living. THIS system will bring that to an end. Offenders and
potential offenders will know that society will indeed deal with them
swiftly and directly and intensely. The system and the courts will intrude
completely upon their lives until they are no longer offenders. Continual
offending, as is now common, would simply not be possible.

We cannot hope that a re-education system such as this can completely
undo the effects of poor upbringing and a bad environment, as well as
other psychological or health problems. However it is in society's best
interests that a very real and determined effort is made to do just that.
The alternative is the one we already live with; persistent re-offending,
a very high imprisonment rate , surpassed only by the enormous crime
rate and all the suffering and damage caused to society.

We believe that it is only by intense attention to the problem of the
individual that change can be effected.
The problem is a severe one. Each individual case is a human disaster.
It is self deceiving to pretend that vague or half hearted measures can
counteract the strong influences that have caused the individual to be
dysfunctional to the point of criminality at a young age.

It is time society took responsibility to take the firm but guiding hand
needed by the worst of our youth, and to give them back their futures.

This programme would cost approximately an extra £100 million per
year.In the long term it would begin to save on the £200 million we
spend on simply locking them up only to release them to re-offend. The
saving in wasted money and in misery to society, of significant reduction
in the number of re-offending young criminals is incalculable.

Young Offenders