With so much crime happening these days, mostly related to drugs.  Courts are handing down longer and longer sentences to offenders even first time offenders now their is a chance you can go to jail for a minor crime like shoplifting.  But it seems to be lower end crimes that have gotten longer sentencing.........

Over the last decade the UK law as gotten more tougher and our prisons are full to bursting, I think we have like nearly 90,000 people inside last count.  We have people inside for non-payment of council tax to Murder.  I don't think the threat of prison stops people from doing crime at all to be honest.

Plus sentencing is all wrong as well I believe,  not so long ago a guy punched a man in a supermarket and that man died,  The guy got 4 years for manslaughter  (but this guy had history).  But not so long ago a woman was driving her car while using her moblie phone and crashed into another person who died.   She got a 4 years prison term for death by dangeous driving (she had no criminal history). 

Sentences for driving offences have gotten longer over the last decade while murder, manslaughter have nearly stayed the same.  To Americans our prisons are like holiday camps when compared to yours but I think Ameican sentences are Outrageously long (100 years for dealing drugs ?)

Do/Did you watch Question Time. In that, someone (jokingly) proposed an alternative to prison: getting the criminals to pay back what they stole, and the prisons would be empty over night.

It was obviously a hit on the MPs expenses claims.

Well, if they're in prison for longer, than it keeps them from committing a crime for longer... outside of the prison. XD

And I agree a lot with the terms in America; I think some are too short. I don't think we should mess around with crimes. There are laws, you should know what they are and if you break one then it's your own damn fault, and you get to serve the punishment. Obviously, the circumstances will vary, but this is a general rule that I think we should stick with.

I don't think prison is for stopping crimes. It's to punish people who do comit the crimes.

There are tons of people in jail for murder for life that likely would of never killed anyone for the rest of their lives for example.

I'm of the belief that threat of punishment is not a legitimate measure to prevent crime from occurring.

Throughout history, this has always been the case, and nothing we are going to do now is going to change that. The things that seemingly prevent crime from happening is education and class standing. Desperate people will resort to any means to get what they need, and no amount of punishment threat will change that.

All punishment is revenge, which is not preventative.

I'm not even sure it's class standing.

I mean the UK for example has a higher crime rate per capita vs the US despite the UK having a lower Gini Coefficent.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

There is something else in there that also affects this, but I simply used class standing as a blanket statement.  It really needs to include things like context (different in every country), racial/religious minority, sex, etc.  I'm really focussing on things I would consider preventable crime, theft, drugs, vandalism, gang related violence, etc.

My main point will always remain the same though, as someone that is going to commit an illegal action is never going to consider the repercussions of there actions.

yeah, i saw that, lol, the EU election special is next week, the elections themselves should be most interesting imo

I agree... about 8 times out of 10 or so.

However if penalties didn't "fit" the crimes I think it would be different.

For example if the penalties were ludicriously low if caught.  Like if you embezzle and the penalty is... if your caught you spend 1 year in prison.  1 year vs a chance to have millions?   Or like a week etc.

Harsher penalties beyond what is enough of a deterent though.