Prisons are the problem, not the solution

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‘Re-conviction rates in this country clearly show that prisons are not working’ (Getty Images)

As a former probation officer and someone who worked extensively with criminal justice organisations in the UK and Ireland, I read with interest your correspondent Phillip Pound’s observations on the “Prison Works” debate (Letters: “Who says prisons don’t work?”, Thursday 20 February).

I agree that if you confine the debate to the fact that the public is safe from dangerous people actually serving sentences then prison does indeed “work.” He is also right in stating that problems occur when convicts are released back into the community. At that point, however, re-conviction rates will show that prison clearly does not “work”. I would also add that there is no evidence that longer sentences are a deterrent.

What is known is that those holding antisocial attitudes generally are more likely to reoffend. When they mix with family members, friends and acquaintances who hold similar attitudes, their view of life is likely to be reinforced, potentially leading to antisocial and criminal behaviour.

Where do we find the biggest concentration of people with antisocial and criminal attitudes? In prisons. Where we are sending an ever-increasing number of people for relatively short periods of time, often for non-violent, relatively petty crimes. There they meet the very people that, as a probation officer, I urged them to avoid.

No wonder reoffending rates are so high. A criminal justice approach that is controlled by politicians who continue to pander to the public’s belief that prison sentences “protect” them is doomed to be an expensive failure. The delivery of non-custodial sentences can place heavy demands in terms of skills and time on those delivering them. A better-resourced and skilled probation service would be a starting point.

Peter Davies

Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

Principles or profit?

And I always thought wars were about morality – right versus wrong. It seems it is not so.

It's about power and money (”Trump ‘wants 50 per cent cut’ of Ukraine’s mineral riches in return for peace”, Tuesday 18 February).

It’s why the US now wants $500bn in rare earth minerals from Ukraine. After all, the US has supplied Ukraine with weaponry, now they expect that Ukraine responds in kind.

What a wonderful world we live in.

Did the US involvement in the conflict ever have anything to do with principles? Or was it all part of a process to extract as much wealth out of the country as possible, without coming across as opportunist vultures taking advantage of a weakened, vulnerable "ally".

Volodymyr Zelensky was right to push back and say “I defend Ukraine. I can't sell our country” in the face of Donald Trump’s criticism.

The new administration in America certainly know how to take advantage of their allies, and in so doing, they are revealing the true nature of the system which always puts profits above people.

Louis Shawcross

County Down, Northern Ireland

The real cost of war

The US approach to ending the war in Ukraine will go down as a 21st-century political abomination – it should be openly and strongly condemned (”Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump ‘very frustrated’ with Zelensky and Musk launches cruel tirade”, Friday 21 February).

I desperately want to remind him and other amnesiacs of the images that have stuck in my head – dead Ukrainian children lying in the street after a Russian attack. It was horrific, there was no mercy in the Russian aggression.

We must be reminded of how many lives have been lost. We can’t lose sight of that in the current barrage of words and insults. We cannot forget the shocking scenes of crumbling, bombed buildings or the funerals of uniformed soldiers – of civilians, of all ages, dead in the streets. We have all paid witness to the human loss. That’s the true cost of the Russian invasion.

Can the media please reel back to those images to remind everyone, lest we forget? Remind us what this peace deal is really about. Remind everyone that war crimes have been committed. Remind us who ordered those attacks and will keep ordering them, without impunity.

We can’t turn our back on Ukraine, we must support a world with freedom, justice and humane values.

Karen Marnie

Address supplied

A solution for our Winter woes already exists

I can understand Geoff Blackman’s frustration with elderly people not having the flu vaccination and then taking up a hospital bed. (Letters: “Should the flu vaccine be made compulsory for the elderly?”, Thursday 20 February).

This, as with the Covid vaccine, will likely never be implemented as mandatory. But, there are other ways to limit the admissions, by publicising the availability of the RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine.

A large number of beds are filled with elderly people made seriously ill by this virus. Yet little advertising is given to this vaccine and it is not known widely that it is available.

It is free on the NHS for those aged 75 to 79; from a private provider, it would cost £245. We need to make people more aware of the help that is out there, otherwise every winter we’ll just keep seeing the numbers in hospital rise.

Carl Carlson

North Corneli, Bridgend

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