[Madhatter]

Well, that driving sentence, I got conned into pleading guilty of, the not stopping at the scene of an accident, the one I thought up untill recently, over a year after court, was just not giving my details, was a prisonable offence. Just as well Your tules don't apply or I'd be locked away for allegedly denting a door on a ten yr old rusty escort. Its already cost me us over 3000 pound, plus the court costs, plus police costs, insurance company costs, solicitor costs. then more costs if I went to prison.

If we sent everybody to prison, for every crime they commited, we'd never have the space or money to build anything else.

Prison should be for criminals. Yes build more prisons, but put the real ciminals in them. Your all under the impression that prison is the only real punishment, when in reality it isn't. Prison is meant to lock people away from society, and deprive them, as a punishment, but if you can punish them in other ways AND they're not a danger to society, why put them in prison at our cost. For each place took by a petty criminal, thats one less space for a serious criminal.

The tagging system works, so do fines, points on licences, paying back what was stolen, and this will work for the right crimes.

A burglar, for one house would never get a custodial sentence, and wouldn't even have to pay you back. He'd probably get a suspended sentence.
What should happen is that he should be tagged, have to pay you back, and compensation.
This takes some of his freedom away, without costing the taxpayer, also keeps him inside during the time he's most likely to re offend, you get your money or costs back, plus compensation.

Another daft thing in this country is the criminal injury compensation scheme. A criminal does an injury to someone, then either gets locked away or let free, and money out of the pot gets paid to the victim. Thats taxpayers money, notthe criminals earned money.

So in a way, you think your punishing them by sending them to prison, and they just get to shirk their responsibilities, sit their watching sky tv, playing pool, and playstation at our expense. Some punishment.

The friend, that was released on tag had already done 5 months in a high security and then open prison jambutty, and has had to pay all the money back. She's got at least six months on the tag.
The only reason she got this punishment for stealing money, is because the judge had found all the others that day not guilty or had given non custodial sentences. It's just luck it seems in the british justice system, not what crime you've commited.