In response to Mark Rushton’s article in Tuesday’s edition, I wholeheartedly agree. I think it’s disgusting that these criminals get all the services that we have to pay through the nose for in exchange for only a portion of their time (double credit while waiting, etc).
As far as I’m concerned that should be time lost for them and their sentence started upon conviction. The cost of keeping these persons in comfort could be better served in providing scholarships, bursaries, grants, some form of financial aid for those who wish to better themselves but can’t afford to.
When is it going to sink in that these criminals cannot be rehabilitated?
Why should they bother when the sentences are pathetically light?
I also believe that convicted criminals should lose all their rights (voting, computer access, post-secondary upgrading, payment for being incarcerated, etc.) while serving their sentence. It’s not right that they should eat better than a lot of law-abiding citizens either.
Porridge with some milk would keep them going for the duration of their sentence just as well as steak and be a lot cheaper.
As far as paying them anything, put the “good” ones on work gangs.
Convicted criminals should also have to serve the entire sentence in jail. None of this one-third, then released to carry on doing what got them in there in the first place.
The police work too hard to get these people into court, never mind prison, to have their efforts wasted by letting the criminals out early from a slack sentence.
The next time the convicts protest their living conditions by destroying where they live, which we pay for, think how nice it would be if all we had to do was burn our house down to get a free new one. If they wreck it, let them live in it.
All of the above may seem harsh but I think you have to admit that the velvet gloves approach doesn’t work.
Dan Garrett