On Sunday, I posted on George Will's fun piece, mocking the New York Times for publishing headlines like "Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops" for years. Apparently at no point did it occur to these journalists that crime was falling in America because more criminals were behind bars.
George Monbiot's column in the Guardian today is a classic of the genre - aptly titled 'Crime is falling - but our obsession with locking people up keeps growing'. It continues:
[W]hy, in the United Kingdom, is imprisonment still rising? It's not because of rising crime. Last year crimes recorded by the police fell by 2%, while the most serious violent offences fell by 9%.
... The prison population is rising for one reason: people are being put away for longer.
... So why, when the number of crimes - especially serious violent crimes - is falling, are both the government and the courts imposing longer sentences?
... Why, as this country becomes more peaceable, does it become more punitive? I don't know. Nor, it seems, does anyone else.
There you have it. Monbiot accepts that longer sentences are being imposed. Monbiot accepts that crime is falling and the most serious violent crime is falling significantly. But the idea that anyone could see some kind of connection never enters his head.
