Legal Questions and Answers by
Jonathan Stones of John Barkers
Question :-
I was amazed to read that the Home Secretary is seriously looking at the idea of part time prison sentences. In some instances people would only be in jail at weekends! In some cases people could serve their sentences 9-5, Monday to Friday!
It is an extremely bad joke. Why should we be surprised that crime is on the increase when such daft ideas are even discussed?
I know we are short of prison places. There is a simple solution to the problem: Build more prisons. What a mad world we live in when the sentence a criminal gets is determined by the amount of available prison space, rather than the other way round.
Answer :-
Initially the idea of part time prison sentences does seem a pretty way out idea, although when you actually think round the subject, the concept is not without arguments in its favour.
The suggestion is that this might be an option in the sentencing armoury for 'low level' repeat offenders. This presumably means relatively petty offenders with whom the normal range of non-custodial penalties have not worked - and who would therefore be sent to prison as a last resort, taking up space that is required for serious offenders.
Weekend jail would mean that in some instances offenders would be able to keep their jobs, so that when they had completed their sentences they would be able to maintain themselves. The alternative is a short full-time prison sentence, at the end of which time they have lost their employment and therefore become a burden to everyone through having to live on state benefits.
Week-end jail might well hit very hard such people as soccer hooligans, who would of course be unable to attend matches, and those nuisances who find themselves before the courts after having too much to drink at the area's pubs and clubs on Friday and Saturday nights.
Such sentences mean they simply lose their leisure time.
It could be argued that 9-5 jail sentences will be the short-sharp shock treatment that may well bring some offenders to their senses and halt their anti-social behaviour before it takes them off to be a guest of Her Majesty on a more permanent basis.
I understand that part time prison sentences have been used with some success elsewhere in the world. No doubt the pros and cons will be well thrashed out in the coming months.
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