About 700 prisoners absconded from open prisons last year. Are young people shocked by this figure? The head of the Prison Service says that more than three in four of those who walked out will have been rearrested and returned to custody. Do young people find that reassuring?
One reason for escapes may be that there are too few prison places. Some prisoners may be transferred to open prisons when they are not ready for it. The general secretary of the Prison Officers Association says there are 77,000 people in a system that is built for about 50,000. Discuss young people's solutions to the problem. Do we need to build more prisons?
Should we have a smaller prison population?
Talk about the point of open prisons. In them, prisoners coming to the end of their sentence can get ready for life on the outside, including working in the community. How important is this?
Talk about another set of prisoners who walk away after being jailed.
The Home Secretary told MPs last week that 85 serious foreign offenders released from prison without being considered for deportation are still free. In total, he said 1,019 foreigners had been freed without being considered for deportation, although the Home Office never seems sure of anything these days. Do young people think foreign nationals who commit crimes should lose their right to stay in the UK? What if that means a family being separated? Talk about why people who have served a prison sentence should be punished further.
Many newspapers have called for the automatic deportation of convicted foreign prisoners, even if they face torture or ill treatment in their home countries. But this is illegal under international human rights law and refugee laws that have existed for more than 50 years. What would be the benefit of the UK withdrawing from human rights commitments? What might be the drawbacks?
