Labour has created more than 3000 new criminal offences so it is not surprising that our prison population is the highest ever at over 80000. The re-offending rate amongst the young (18 -25yrs old) is in excess of 75% so we are spending some £35000 per year per prisoner of taxpayer money for abject failure. As usual David Cameron faces both ways on the one hand waxing eloquent in his conference speech about Amir Khan's initiative to keep youngsters out of crime and on the other saying he (Cameron) would build more prisons.
Meanwhile the Kids Company charity, which also wants to keep kids away from crime, has about 11000 children turning to it each year and the Metropolitan Police are so impressed with it that it wants it to do more. However it needs £5million before March 2008 or it goes under. It thus needs to keep 1.3% of the kids that turn to it out of prison to be cost effective. This, and the hundreds of other groups doing similar work, is where we need to put the money. Then we won't need more prisons.
Moreover we will not be needing to let out, to ease overcrowding, people who really are a threat to our well being and safety.
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