Who Cares For or About Those in Gaol?

It is a pretty simple proposition - people in custody are owed a duty of care by the Government.

That has not stopped the AdelaideNow website from whipping up a story about compensation paid to prisoners injured in custody.

AdelaideNow... $230,000 paid to injured criminals

In fairness to Michael Owen, his article is quite balanced, but a different flavour is placed on it by the headline using the word "criminals" when the article is about "prisoners." Given the very high remand rates in South Australia, many of our "prisoners" have not been convicted of any charges they may face!

As can be seen in the readers' comments, this has planted the idea that somehow criminal offenders receive compensation for their crimes.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky said: "The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons." Winston Churchill said that a society's attitude to its prisoners, its "criminals", is the measure of "the stored up strength of a nation".

I wonder what those men would have thought of these comments?

The point of Gaol

We often read or see reports about Court cases where people are complaining that an offender should have received a longer gaol term, or should not have had the term suspended.

So often, what is not asked is the simple question: "Why?"

If the State is going to keep people in gaol, there needs to be a reason. It must be done to achieve a purpose for society.

It is often said that penalties need to be increased to reduce the incidence of crime. In fact, there is little evidence that increased penalties for crimes reduce their frequency. People in Britain still used to steal when the penalty was transportation to Australia - and that was long before this country was the destination of choice for British migrants!

Countries with much lower penalties for many crimes often have no greater crime rate than those with much higher penalties.

One often misquoted example is Singapore. Here in Australia there seems to be a view that penalties there are harsher, but that it not the case for many serious crimes. Assault for example has a maximum penalty of three months in Singapore, but in South Australia it is 2 years, or 3 years if aggravated, or 4 years if a weapon is used. And that is for assaults that cause no harm - if harm is caused, then the penalties go up even further.

Whether there is any benefit in putting someone in gaol has been the subject of some work in Britain:

Jail is no place for the average prisoner - Times Online

Louis Blom-Cooper, an icon in his own right at the Bar, has chosen to place his latest book. Launched last week, its central thesis is that 60 per cent of the prison population should not be there. The QC describes imprisonment as "an instrument of man's control over his fellow creatures" which has existed since historical records began. Its role as the "State's prime weapon of penal sanction for serious crime", is, he argues, more recent.

So why do we keep doing it? Increased penalties have done nothing to stop the so-called "Gang of 49."

All it seems to lead to is a higher crime rate, lack of rehabilitation, and an increasing cost to the Government of keeping people there.