Mr Timpson, the new prisons minister, is the head of a company that employs about 600 ex-prisoners, and this is an admirable and humane social service. But good as this experience is, it is insufficient to decide on public policy as a whole.
In a recent interview, Mr Timpson said that there were far too many people in prison in Britain, that at least a third of prisoners should not be in prison, and that Britain had a Victorian obsession with punishment. It would probably be more true to say that Britain has an obsession with absence or mildness of punishment.
It would probably be more true to say that Britain has an obsession with absence or mildness of punishment.
There is no correct number of prisoners per capita that is independent of the number of crimes committed. If there had never been any crimes committed but there were a low number of prisoners, this would be an outrage against justice.
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