What alternative is there for jail?
Well first we need to address why so many of todays youth are drawn to crime. Is it background, peer influence, poverty, boredom or a cry for attention. What ever it is jail doesn't seem to be the answer considering the number of re-offenders. Some will argue that we are too soft on prisoners, and old lag of my acquaintance once told me what it used to be like breaking stones at Portland and how prisoners today get it easy. I must admit having access to TV, education, 3 meals a day and access to gym doesn't look like a hard time.
So what do we do? Make prisons like Guantonimo Bay or like Joe Arpaio's Tent City in Arizona?
Do we take away 'privileges' like tv, music, gym sessions etc and revert back to a more austere Victorian prison system where they were seen and not heard?
We could bring back National Service to 'straighten out' the yob element but then you just get a second rate army.
We could invest more in education to stop children being put on the scrap-heap of life from an early age through exclusion.
We could be controversial and sterilize all prisoners, so they cannot propagate the next generation of villains.
We could become 'Islamic' and start chopping of hands or other extremities.
What ever we do we have to do it fast and plow as much money as possible into finding an answer. Otherwise there will come a day where places like the Isle of Wight will be fenced off and become one great big prison.
