Prisoners pay-back scheme: how does a community welcome them back?

Jack Straw has launched plans to offer prisoners the opportunity to do community work rather than serve time in jail.

Part of the “alternatives to custody” project includes getting them to do unpaid work for the community, electronic monitoring and help with resettlement.

All this is designed to keep them from staying in prison. The government believes they are better off helping ‘pay back’ the community than being kept in cells.

The Tories have slammed these plans, claiming it is a strong indicationt that the government has failed to build enough jails.

They say under the governments End of Custody Licence scheme, one prisoner is released every 17 minutes.

Above is a video of an alleged robbery in East London.

Some questions must be asked: should this young robber be let out of jail early? If he took part in Straw’s ‘community payback’ scheme, would the community he robbed and injured gain from his release? If he were assigned to do community work on your street, would you let him into your premises to, for example, weed the garden?

On the other hand, others like Straw believe that this guy deserves a chance.

So does the Prison Reform Trust which fights for the rights of prisoners.

In an article in the Guardian, the organisation claims many of them should not be in prison in the first place.