“We Shouldn’t Jail Shoplifters - Victims Should Pay for Thieves’ Rehab Costs” Police Chief

“We Shouldn’t Jail Shoplifters – Victims Should Pay for Thieves’ Rehab Costs” Police Chief

GOTTA LOVE THIS WOMAN –

Sept. 24, 2021 – Miss Jones, who at 27 was the youngest ever magistrate in England and Wales, said: ‘I think that we need a review of the way that sentencing in this country is done…

‘Often for shoplifting, even if you are a prolific offender with 200 shoplifting offences, the chances are you might get six months and, therefore, you might do 12 weeks.

‘Then you’re out and actually is that really going break your addiction, or you’re more likely to take drugs when you’re in prison anyway, and then come out and just be carrying on the way that you were before?

‘Are we just incarcerating people? Are we actually stopping them from reoffending?’

Miss Jones, a spokesman for victims and serious crime for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said there must be a ‘better way’ to cut reoffending and make the country safer. One consequence would be to free up ‘more prison spaces to lock up people that are really violent and dangerous for longer’.

The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner, who was elected as a Conservative, hailed a scheme in Birmingham to pay for intensive residential drug rehabilitation for career criminals as a ‘beacon’.

Two heroin and crack addicts turned their lives around after being selected by police for the Co-op funded rehab programme. They had committed 200 known offences.