Amen. Now so much of it’s privatised, run on principle of lowering cost, it’s a mess and achieves little other than creating a fixed customer base, from the same social-economic groups as legal aid is also reduced to ensure it, for investors. US is “tough on crime” on this model
I was a prison officer, Nick. You can't preach "tough on crime." Your lot cut nearly 7,000 prison officers since 2010 and handed our jails to G4S and Serco. You broke the system, then act shocked it doesn't work.
You know what actually works? Lads out on licence getting their track tickets, learning a trade, coming home as taxpayers instead of reoffenders. That's using human capital, not warehousing it. A lad sat in a cell doing nothing helps nobody.
And funny how quiet you all go on the tax dodgers and the oligarchs bankrolling Putin's war. Boris took a Russian ex-KGB man's hospitality at his Italian villa, dodged his own officials, then made the son a Lord. Where's your "lock them up" energy for that?