You are quite right... I suppose I, like the author of the book, fell for the other Leftie tactic of suggesting everyone is equal and uniform, i.e. that crime in France should be no different to crime in Britain because "we are all human".

The comment you left on the 3-strikes rule is also a good one... I suppose I am left back at almost-square-one with little more to say than just: we should build more prisons and fill them with more criminals.

Personally, I do not see how "education" can affect the crime rate any more than it may have done already, just as "sex education", in my opinion, can only go so far in reducing (if that's what we want to do) teenage pregnancies.

Anyway, I'll be sure to check out your blog every so often - though mine is currently in something of a hibernating state.

Yeah, I've never understood that one myself. If there are "too many people in jail" then there are too many people doing things that are against the law, and getting caught. Perhaps they should be more careful in future. Admittedly "being good isn't always easy", but banging on about "root causes" and shifting the blame on to "society" doesn't really help with that, now does it?

Squander Two, the table Raw Carrot reprints is from 1996. If you look at a more recent report (such as this) it shows that the UK prison population per 100k is quite large compared to most other countries in western europe.

On your main argument, the reason for pointing to other countries is that they are able to have a lower prison populations and still maintain law and order. They show that a huge prison population isn't neccessary for public order. That's a worth-while thing to know when debating prison policy, especially because prison is expensive.

(Note for anyone about to argue that the recent riots in France show that western europe is in fact teetering on the brink of anarchy: an anecdote isn't evidence, so please don't bother)

> If you look at a more recent report ... it shows that the UK prison population per 100k is quite large compared to most other countries in western europe.

So what?


> an anecdote isn't evidence

Well, any discussion of riots in France wouldn't be an anecdote; it would be at least one anecdote per year for most years. Whenever the French are upset about anything, they start rioting. But that's still not the point.


> They show that a huge prison population isn't neccessary for public order.

They only show that in their countries, and they don't show that reducing the prison population is necessary for public order.

The people who tend to make the claim that the UK's prison population is too large compared to other countries' are the same people who claim that crime is a result of many social factors. If this is true (and it certainly is, though we might disagree about what those factors are), then the only reasonable way to compare Britain to France is to compare all those social factors, not just prison. How is crime affected by having nationalised banks, a constitutional right to be paid while on strike, the whole country going on holiday at the same time, state-controlled standardised prices for bread, terrible pop music, a strong and proud cultural identity, the baccalaureat, a beheaded royal family, etc? No-one thinks the French are the same as the British in any other respect, so why should their criminals behave like ours?

You are right that it is well worth knowing that the French are maintaining law & order with a smaller prison population than us. Where the fallacy arises is in the reaction to that information. The view regularly put forward by the people who raise this issue is simply: France has better law & order and fewer prisoners, therefore we need to shorten sentences and lock fewer people up. In fact, assuming that miscarriages of justice are fairly rare (which they are), a more sensible reaction to the information would be to ask why it is that Britain has so many more criminals than France. Then we could take long-term measures to reduce crime, and then, having reduced crime, we would have fewer criminals and could therefore lock fewer people up. People who raise the prison-population-comparison issue tend, in my experience, to ignore that middle step.

"So what?"

So it shows that Jon Snow is right on this matter and you are wrong to disparage him, obv.

"[their view is that because] France has better law & order and fewer prisoners, therefore we need to shorten sentences and lock fewer people up."

No, that's a caricature of the argument. They're arguing that the European example shows that other policies might be just as effective as prison, while being cheaper and more humane. Because prison is expensive, there's a trade-off between more prisons and doing other things to cut crime (and higher taxes, which I'd guess you also oppose).

"a more sensible reaction to the information would be to ask why it is that Britain has so many more criminals than France."

That's not the only explanation. The other possibilities are (1) the UK sends more offenders to prison (rather than fine them or give them community service), (2) they stay in prison longer and (3) more things are illegal in the UK. I'd guess that longer sentencing is the strongest factor, though I have no statistics on this.

> So it shows that Jon Snow is right on this matter

So what? As I said, the relative sizes of prison populations are immaterial to my argument. That's my whole point, in fact. If the UK has a thousand times more prisoners than France, I still don't care.


> No, that's a caricature of the argument.

It's the exact argument I see presented time and time again. If it's a caricature, then those presenting it, including Jon Snow, need to work on their wording.


> They're arguing that the European example shows that other policies might be just as effective as prison

... while ignoring or disparaging all the UK data that shows the opposite, such as the way the crime rate has risen the smaller sentences have got, and ignoring or disparaging all the data from non-European countries such as the US and Singapore which also show the opposite. In other words, they look around the world till they find an example which backs up the point they wanted to make before they even found the example.

There may well be a reason why English-speaking people are more prone to crime without a strong threat of prison; I have no idea. Perhaps that's worth investigating. But it is ridiculous to consider French or German data as more important than British data when deciding British policy.


I'd be interested to know if you have a response to my point about fair trials. Do you think it's fair for a convict's sentence to be based on the crime rates in other countries?

"data from non-European countries such as the US and Singapore [...] they look around the world till they find an example which backs up the point they wanted to make"

heh.

"Do you think it's fair for a convict's sentence to be based on the crime rates in other countries?"

No, but no-one outside your imagination is proposing that. We're arguing about sentencing policy, not individual sentences, and evidence from other countries is directly relevant when forming policy.

"[arguing that] other policies might be just as effective as prison [while] ignoring or disparaging all the [UK + US + Singapore] data that shows the opposite"

How does the evidence 'show the opposite'? How could evidence from other counties show that these policies aren't effective, when European countries demonstrate that they can be?

> heh.

No, not heh, because my main example is the UK. I think UK data trumps all other data when considering UK policy. If you do want to consider other countries, fine — consider all of them, not just those that suit your prejudices. But there's no reason to elevate European data above US data, especially when the US has a legal system based on the UK's and no European country does.


> no-one outside your imagination is proposing that. We're arguing about sentencing policy, not individual sentences

Right, and, er, individual sentences are unrelated to sentencing policy.


> evidence from other countries is directly relevant when forming policy.

No, it's indirectly relevant. Data from one's own country is directly relevant.

Reckon we should shoot traitors, like they do in China?

> How does the evidence 'show the opposite'?

I said: the smaller we've made our sentences, the less we've used prison, the higher our crime rate has got. Sure, there could be other factors, but that's also true of sentencing and crime rates in other countries. If you know what those other factors are, you should be able to introduce policy based on those factors which reduces the crime rate. So far, every attempt at introducing policy based on theories of what those factors are has failed to stem the steady increase in crime.


> How could evidence from other counties show that these policies aren't effective, when European countries demonstrate that they can be?

How could evidence from European countries show that these policies are more effective than prison, when the US and UK demonstrate that they can't be?

Lots of things work differently in different countries. Try to introduce state control of English spelling to the UK and see how far you get. Different nationalities are different and react differently to government policies. This shouldn't be a big surprise.

S2, your point about legal systems brings to mind the fact that civil law countries, like those on the Continent, use the inquisitorial rather than the adversarial system of criminal justice. Caricatured as "presumed guilty until proven innocent", it is nevertheless true that it is a system with a far lower emphasis on the rights of the accused, and a much greater emphasis on the need for the State to do justice. Could it be that public order is better served by an explicit statement of State paramountcy in the justice system, rather than an emphasis on the rights of the accused, buttressed by popular culture icons such as Miranda and crusading defence lawyers? (Note I'm not saying I approve of the former approach, just that it might better serve public order.)

> Could it be that public order is better served by an explicit statement of State paramountcy in the justice system, rather than an emphasis on the rights of the accused ...?

But of course. Well known fact. That's why countries with tyrants have low crime rates. Doesn't make it a good idea.

One thing that we seem to have missed in the "debate" about population size v prison population is that the UK appears to be a Premier League criminal nation...

If you compare prison population v number of reported crimes, we imprison only about a quarter as many people as, for instance, Spain.

So, the UK is actually very soft on crime.