Nick Ferrari Rows With Guest Who Wants To Ban Short Prison Sentences

19 February 2019, 08:59

When this guest proposed banning prison sentences of less than six months, Nick Ferrari insisted he wanted these criminals in prison for longer.

Justice Secretary David Gauke suggested that short-term prison sentences should be scrapped as they have a poor record in stopping re-offending.

Peter Dawson, the Director of the Prison Reform Trust, agreed and suggested we need to help the perpetrators instead.

But Nick did not agree with that idea, saying: "We should put these people in for longer, shouldn't we?"

Mr Dawson responded: "The moment they come out of prison, they will start doing that again.

"When you send someone to prison for a short period, you postpone that issue. You don't save people from shoplifting, you make it worse."

Nick asked what the alternative to jail was and Mr Dawson said: "You've got to understand why a person is shoplifting. For some people, it will just be pure wickedness, but for other people, it is likely to be things that go much further back in their life.

"They need help. If you haven't got a job, if you haven't got an education, if you haven't got somewhere to live, then you're in a pretty poor place. You have to get alongside them."

But Nick asked: "Get alongside them? What does that mean? I don't understand.

"What are we going to do? There are 11,500 people behind bars for shoplifting offences, are they all going to get their own council flat?

"What are we going to do if someone keeps nicking stuff from Sainsbury's?"

They then went on to do some role-playing about how to deal with a shop-lifter, which became very entertaining.