Comments on: Ken Clarke should pay attention to demands to keep women out of prison 2011/06/03/why-ken-clarke-should-pay-attention-to-campaign-to-spare-women-from-prison/ London MEP European Parliament Tue, 01 Mar 2016 16:56:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Daniel Oxley 2011/06/03/why-ken-clarke-should-pay-attention-to-campaign-to-spare-women-from-prison/#comment-4604 Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:25:27 +0000 ?p=14699#comment-4604 Mary is absolutely correct when she says that male and female offences vary greatly but this does not justify a different approach to sentencing. Surely each case should be judged without reference to the offender’s gender. If it were suggested that sentencing should be in different categories based on race there would be justifiable outrage, so why should gender make any difference? We should all be equal before the law.

I find the expectation of different treatment of different genders difficult to understand. When the issue was car insurance Mary wanted gender equality but for criminal sentencing she wants there to be a gender imbalance.

The point about the failure of prisons to rehabilitate was absolutely spot on. This and previous governments have a pitiful record on this. I listened to a late night radio programme about this topic (the Moral Maze I think). One of the contributors was introduced (I think) as a philosopher but her comments were eminently practical about sentencing, she said ‘don’t let the judges calculate the sentences, just lock them up and don’t let them out until they can read and write’.

]]> By: James 2011/06/03/why-ken-clarke-should-pay-attention-to-campaign-to-spare-women-from-prison/#comment-4600 Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:01:40 +0000 ?p=14699#comment-4600 I believe that a call to spare women from prison is morally abhorrent; though I also believe that prison sentences for many [male and female] criminals is far from the most effective route.

Firstly, I take opposition to your statement that prison serves three purposes, one of which being ‘punishment’. If you in fact acknowledge that one purpose of prison is punishment then to spare this, is to spare punishment – and, it appears that imprisonment is the most harsh our courts can deal . In addition, the argument which states that we ought to evade this measure of punishment but your points make generalised points which do not exclude males.

In fact, all points excluding one are general and thus steer towards an argument that prison ought to be reconsidered for all non-violent crimes. To say, John Doe who committed forgery ought to go to prison by virtue of him being male – since male criminals in general commit more violent crime than females – but Jane Doe who committed the same crime should not go to prison simply because females in general commit less violent crimes statistically, is completely mind boggling. It’s simple, if the prison system needs re-evaluating then it should be for everyone. Both genders should be treated equally. Non violent crimes ought to be re-considered, regardless of gender. With this, if percentage-wise less women go to prison as a consequence of the law then the outcome has been reached, but based on equal grounds.

Is this not what you desire, since I assume you must surely believe women convicted of violent crimes ought to go to prison?

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