The cost of jailing someone for one year is roughly the same as the cost of employing a full time policeman for a year. That’s the starting point for my piece in this week’s Liberal Democrat News about fighting crime:

So when Tories and Labour thump their tubs about being tough on crime, we shouldn’t feel meek about pointing out the costs of their failed policies. Having a large prison population is not a sign of success – it is a sign of a failure to prevent crime and it leaches huge resources away from other parts of the justice system. Instead of prioritising preventative police work and rehabilitating re-offenders, money is sucked into cramming people into poor conditions. Now – you might say, they are criminals so who cares how bad their conditions are?

You can read my answer to this question in the full article on my website.