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Offender Management Bill

The judge who decides the sentence can already determine that it will not involve detention. If, however, he decides that detention is appropriate, the clause permits other authorities—probably the regional offender managers—to overrule his decision and put the person into a children’s home. It will no longer be in the judge’s hands. The Minister will know that one argument often deployed against prison is that it is a university of crime. An innocent person goes to prison—it is unlikely but, nevertheless, that is the argument—meets all the old lags, and suddenly becomes a criminal. If there is any truth whatsoever in that argument, how much worse is it to put hardened criminals—that is what they will be if they are sentenced to detention—into a children’s home with vulnerable young people?