The cost of the courses to end users is generally free anyway (college level stuff) and would easily be recouped through the effects of lower rates of re-offending.
prisoners earning qualifications whilst serving their sentence
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The cost of the courses to end users is generally free anyway (college level stuff) and would easily be recouped through the effects of lower rates of re-offending.
Caporegime
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by not providing the activity we could save the tax payer money. i am against the tax payer footing the bill for the incarceration, rehabilitation and education. why the immediate recipient/beneficiary shouldnt contribute to the cost i cant comprehend.
dont think so. its not like they will just be enrolling at the local college and turning up like a normal student. there will be a high incremental cost to the prison service if not the education service (both of which are already stretched as it is). That the recipient should have to contribute towards this is a given imo.
No you can't, you will be spending far more in other ways. A very short sighted view.
You have taken away there ability to pay, they are incarcerated.
@wordy The prison I was in was a remand prison, it was literally like the prison from the comedy porridge. No tvs, no comfy beds, no playstations and with only bars on the windows nothing convering over them. Rain would often wake me in the night as I lay on the top bunk.
This to me was punishment I was so bored I ended up in the hospital wing for 3 days as I went nuts in my cell and started to try and rip it apart. This was the first couple of days trying to adjust to prison life. This is why they have education etc as without it the prison would be so volatile. I am used to reading writing and doing something with my day not staring at an empty cell. If that is your idea of punishment they would have turned me a normal guy into a hating monster lol. If you think for one minute the majority of the guys in prison give a hoot about punishment you can forget it.
These are not the normal day to day people you meet in the street these guys just do not care. This is what I mean by hard wired, they have no respect for law or any one else. They know the difference between right and wrong they just do not care.
In life there is nothing you will ever do about criminals like these unfortunately. Unless you hold their hand throughout life and steer them awayh from trouble they will just reoffend. Rehabilitation should be at its heaviest when released.
This to me was punishment I was so bored I ended up in the hospital wing for 3 days as I went nuts in my cell and started to try and rip it apart. This was the first couple of days trying to adjust to prison life. This is why they have education etc as without it the prison would be so volatile. I am used to reading writing and doing something with my day not staring at an empty cell. If that is your idea of punishment they would have turned me a normal guy into a hating monster lol. If you think for one minute the majority of the guys in prison give a hoot about punishment you can forget it.
These are not the normal day to day people you meet in the street these guys just do not care. This is what I mean by hard wired, they have no respect for law or any one else. They know the difference between right and wrong they just do not care.
In life there is nothing you will ever do about criminals like these unfortunately. Unless you hold their hand throughout life and steer them awayh from trouble they will just reoffend. Rehabilitation should be at its heaviest when released.
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I think some people turn to crime because the education system fails a minority of people regardless of background who have different styles of learning. They are disaffected and fall behind socially too because they might be seen as stupid not trying. So they are kind of assigned that role. Teachers should be able to question weather a person is benefiting from their educational environment and have a trial to see if they would be better off learning a trade or doing a apprenticeship rather then falling futher back behind and resorting to becong the class clown. some people learn better by doing things with their hands rather then textbooks and theory. I think a classroom can be a place where disaffected people learn how to be criminals when the style of teaching ignores that they have different strengths in learning. uni is not for everyone.
Caporegime
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i said like a student loan, i.e you pay it from your future earnings...
that way the inmate wins and the state can recoup some of its cost?
Soldato
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I disagree, there is a real strong need for hard labour with prisoners. They need to learn that going to prison is not gonna be a walk in the park and if we can have them breaking rocks all day, am sure that would be a great deterrant.
There in prison for a reason, lets make sure they get the message.
This is also why boys are behind girls in exams. The education system we have is set up for girls. Boys need much more hands on and visual cues. All to do with the differences in the way our brains work.
So they have spent 20 years in prison come out and have a 20-40k loan which will never be paid of and that will discourage people from working as a large % is used to pay of debts.
because locking someone away from society isn't a clue. You can't do anything, everyone knows they are in prison.
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Citation needed that harsh prisons reduce reoffending rates...
Some supporting evidence for the opposite.
http://ftp.iza.org/dp3395.pdf
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/1
http://www.pfi.org/cjr/human-rights...and-recidivism-drago-galbiati-vertova-2009-en
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Sorry, I should've made that clearer.
Prison should be about punishment, and keeping the public safe 1st and foremost.
If the criminals do genuinely want to better themselves then they should get every enouragement to do so. However, like everyone who is not in state run education they should have to pay for it, committing crime and the fear of them re-offending should not mean they get for free something that the law abiding have to pay for.
There is only so far we should be willing to go to stop criminals re-offending. They should not be given advantage over the law abiding, if they cannot keep on the straight and narrow when released and after re-habilitation then back inside they go-for a longer sentence.
Soldato
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Great, next time I am in Italy, I will feel much safer.
It's not free they are being incarcerated for long periods of time. Unable to earn money or gain work experience or promote themselves.
Jail should be about public protection 1st.
Then you can scrobble about punishment or rehabilitation. I would say rehabilitation again is far more important.
As punishment is being locked up unable to do anything normal and served with a minimum sentence.
Prisoners are already losing a large part of their life and are unable to make money, gain skills or get promotions. So asking them to pay is stupid. When they are released they should have the best chance of going straight and that means education without huge unworkable fees.
Caporegime
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so you are saying that inmates of serious crime should get preferential treatment over a student? i dont understand why your sympathies lie where they do.
why would the loan be 20-40k? i would have thought between 1-3k per course?
20-40k is a student loan for a degree. And they probably need gcses or even less basic. Or training in other areas which is just as expensive.
It is NOT preferential treatment over students. Can you see any students willing to go to jail for a few years to get free education. how you can think it is preferential is beyond me. They already have to deal with criminal record, years in jail, massive disadvantages in the work place and on top of that you want to charge them for being incarcerated. All it will achieve is lessening the results of rehabilitation. While recuperating pretty much nothing. Uni students struggle to ge t into 20K+ jobs let alone a convicted criminal who has been banged up for several years. Students loans are only repayed after you hit 15k a year and when you get around 25k a year have a massive affect on your pay packet. These debts would not be paid of and would be detrimental to rehabilitation.
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Caporegime
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thats because they have committed a serious crime.
re the 20k you just said they would be doing basic education/nvq's so like i said the cost would be much lower....
so whilst a student who tries to do well will struggle to pay off their debt, you think the criminal should not have to pay anything of it back? again i cant begin to understand your viewpoint.
if a criminal gets a £25k job after reciecving free higher education from the state, you dont think they should have to pay some back?
I did not sya they would only be doing lower level stuff. Just that a lot would need lower level stuff before doing higher level stuff. lower level stuff is free to everyone anyway.
Students do not struggle to pay it off, they do not have massive dis advatages for being locked up sometimes for several decades, a criminal record and such like.
It certainly isn't an advantage. it is making the system as effective as possible and realising although they do the crime, we incarcerate them and as such put even more obstacles and disadvantages in the way. Which for an effective system need to help remove such obstacles.
What criminal is going to come out and land a 25k job with their record and after being locked up for 10+ years assuming (gcse, a levels, degree as it's a comparison to student loans), what's the chances of them ever being promoted to a position of authority and trust where they can earn enough to pay such a sum of money off.
Why would you charge for diplomas, trades, gcses, a levels which most people get for free anyway.
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Surely treating prisoners like second-class morons and have them cracking rocks all day, is just going to contribute to their hated for "the system", increase their resentment of who they are and where they are in society and increase their chances of re-offending?
No child without external influence would ever "choose" prison for their future; freedom and creativity are essential for happiness. It is our society that breeds the people who become the vast majority of the prison population with dismay and dejection from birth to crime.
They are in prison because society lets the situation arise where crime seems like a sensible or the only option. We do not need to perpetuate that cycle by eventually releasing angry, ignored and destitute people.
If it is so different in the UK, I'm sure you'll be able to provide evidence to prove it.
Soldato
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Society is not to blame for these ppl committing a crime, they have that sole responsability, everyone has a choice, weather it be getting an education, or getting a job, or chooseing a life of crime, and yes I want them to hate the system, and by that way, think "I never want to go back to prison if I have to break rocks all day and do manual labour" I want to make life in prsion a deterrant for every criminal, so they think twice about do the crime in the first place.
So is that such a bad idea? or do we carry on with the way it is at the moment, because am sure none of the never re-offend do they???
I never said it was different, so why would I need to provide any evidence???