The only way to make our streets feel safer is to lock them up.
Shaming them.
Community work.
Whack them in the stocks.
Retrospective justice.
ASBOs.
A fine.
Aversion therapy.
Community service.
Death penalty.
Tagging.
Counselling.
Psychiatric help.
The Government want to create a lot of new prisons to try and reduce overcrowding,
but I don't think that will work either and the reason is
most of the people who are in prison have got problems of one sort or another.
They take drugs, their mental health isn't good,
they have been rejected by their families.
This isn't an excuse for what they've done,
this is just a description of the kind of people they are.
If we want, as a society, to try and sort out those problems,
prisons aren't really the best place to do that.
I think the sentence for murder and for rape should be life imprisonment,
or if you can be absolutely certain, the problem is I don't know whether you can,
the death sentence should be brought back.
There has been a mass of statistical analysis, particularly in America,
in comparing states which have and haven't got the death penalty
and basically answer is there is no clear relationship between
having the death penalty and deterring violent crime.
So I don't think there's any argument for reintroducing the death penalty on the basis of deterrence.
I think a good alternative to just putting people in prison
would be to get them to do something that is not a particularly nice job.
Community service is beneficial to society because they're learning
that when they do something wrong they need to put something back into society.
I think it's a successful sentence because it deprives people of their liberty,
their free time, without locking them up,
but in a socially useful way.
I think it needs better resourcing and better placements, better opportunities,
so that people feel they are really making a difference.
In most cases it works.
In most cases offenders complete the hours that they're supposed to.
Tagging is a fairly good idea because you can keep tabs on people and find out where they are.
House arrest. Curfews, which can be enforced through electronic tagging,
and when people are not where they should be, an alarm is raised
and people come and find them and if they're not where they should be,
they can be arrested and taken back to court.
If you do have somebody who's mugged somebody,
they don't know that person, they don't know the situation that person is in.
I think they'll feel more guilty once they see the person they've committed this crime towards.
Restorative justice, particularly in some of the violent cases ...
in Australia the evidence has been that the people who've gone through this system
are less likely to re-offend than those who go through a straight court system.
There is a dialogue that opens up.
People can kind of understand, not necessarily forgive.
It's not about forgiving, but they can understand.
The evidence from the research is that most victims who take part in these kinds of meetings
are glad that they did.
I think that if there were more financial penalties for people doing minor crimes ...
The problem with fines is basically that a lot of people who get into trouble are poor
and poor people don't have any money, if you fine them, they have even less money
and if they have less money, perhaps the chances are they might get back into crime.
They should find a relative kind of punishment to their background
and their affluence and income.
I think we need to move to a day fine system or a unit fine system,
in which the amount depends on what your money is each day,
what disposable income you've got.
Young offenders who are under a certain age...
I mean, stuff like, like rehabilitation groups to help these kids.
There are programs of what I call reparation orders,
that young people of under 18 can do,
these are the kinds of community based initiatives that we need to invest in
not only for the under 18's, but I think for the 18 to 25 year old age group too.
Just on your 18th birthday doesn't mean you suddenly become a responsible adult.
We need to be using prison sparingly,
certainly to protect the public from dangerous and violent criminals,
but try to avoid using it where it can make matters worse,
particularly for non-violent crimes,
when there are other options that can work better.