I'm just catching up on old e-mail, and a petition came by asking me to oppose the Conservative's "Cruel Crime Bill". I signed. Prisons are an unfortunate necessity, but more prisons do not a safer society make. I am sure that there is a minimum number of people who do need to be restrained. Perhaps they are pathological cases. I don't know.
What I do know is that from one society to another the number of people in prisons differs. Is that because some societies are just made up of 'worse' people? Not likely. What is more likely, I think, is that different societies define crime differently, and deal with it differently. Many have reflected on this question.
Now back to prisons and taxes. On the right side of the political spectrum (read that as you will), the burden tax payers must bear seems to be a recurring theme. If only we could get the lazy and irresponsible to work and pay their share of taxes everything would be just fine, and we could all get our swimming pools, decks, enormous garages, etc. etc. etc.
Then, instead of investing in education, health and support for families so that children grow up to be full and productive members of society, ergo, taxpayers, we leave people on the street and we build prisons.
Forget the gratuitous cruelty of this way of doing things (and gratuitously cruel it is). Think of it this way: every man or woman not working is one more person whose share of the tax burden I must bear. More prisons don't even make sense for the most selfish of motives. If 10% of the population is not working, I must pay 10% more taxes to cover what they don't pay. If I put them in prison as well, then I'm also paying their room and board and the whole dreary infrastructure needed to keep them there.
Look at this example: one dollar spent on mental health for a child translates into $11 dollars in mental health costs alone saved for every year of that child's future adult life. Prevention is not just more effective that punishment. It's rather less expensive as well.
Which forces me to conclude that our government is not only gratuitously cruel, but likes to waste money as well.
