Prison is not working – so let's be brave and adopt alternatives
Published Date:
15 October 2008
By FIONA GARWOOD
Member of the Edinburgh Prison Visiting Committee
CRIME is expensive. It costs taxpayers about £40,000 a year to keep a prisoner locked up, and our prison population is over 8,000. There is a building programme for three new jails and extensive renovations for older prisons to make them "fit for purpose".
Also, due to the poor prisoner conditions, for example slopping out, there have been compensation payouts to prisoners amounting to over £9 million. All this comes from the public purse, and taxpayers' money is a touchy subject these days.
Most o...
The full article contains 650 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
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Last Updated:
14 October 2008 9:27 PM
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Source:
The Scotsman
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Location:
Edinburgh
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Related Topics:
Scottish prisons