UK Parliament / Open data

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

My hon. Friend is right. I am perhaps a bit more hardline—[Hon. Members: “No!”] When I was at school, those who behaved would be let out on time, but those who misbehaved would be kept in for longer. It seems to me that our prison system should reflect that. We should expect prisoners to behave well in prison. Those who do should serve the sentence handed out by the courts, but those who misbehave should serve longer. That is what I would like to see and, I think, what most of the public would like to see.

I certainly take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). If we are to allow people to be released early, that should be conditional on good behaviour in prison, rather than the automatic right that it is at the moment. That automatic right—the figures and the correlation are perfectly clear—is part of the reason behind the increasing number of assaults on prison officers, because there is no consequence for the prisoner.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
639 c1154 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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