It Is A Tie Between Britain And Canada In The Nanny State Race

The high cost of being soft on crime

Posted: October 07, 2009, 2:30 PM by Araminta Wordsworth

Full Comment's Araminta Wordsworth brings you a regular dose of international punditry at its finest. Today: In the nanny state that is contemporary Britain, no one should be punished for committing a minor crime, such as mugging an old lady for her pension or shoplifting or driving while drunk.

Sounds risible, doesn’t it? But this call comes from the people in charge of keeping criminals behind bars, the Prison Governors Association. Short sentences don’t work, says its head. Instead offenders should be given a slap on the wrist, and obliged to do community service instead of prison time.

“It is in nobody’s interests for these people to be wrenched away from home and then spat out from prison with much the same problems weeks or a few months later,” argued Paul Tidball, the PGA president, before admitting the real reason: “It is even more compelling now we really can’t afford, literally, to be locking people up unnecessarily.”

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