John MacDonald: Is prison the wrong place for some offenders? - Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

I’m liking what Sir Ron Young is saying about prison sentences today.

He’s really challenging us, saying that we need to re-think what we do with people given sentences of two-to-three years.

He’s talking about not sending them to conventional prisons and giving them conjugal rights.

This is how they deal with things in Scandinavian countries. He thinks we should do the same here. And I reckon we should too.

He’s the outgoing head of the Parole Board and he’s saying that short prison sentences aren’t working and we need to have a re-think.

He’s saying that offenders who are sent to prison for this amount of time are more likely to re-offend, compared to people who go inside for longer. For say, eight years.

And there are stats to back it up. Sir Ron says the re-offending rate for people locked up on shorter prison sentences is 40 percent. And for those who