Across the Pond

Corrections sentencing issues have been heating up in Britain lately, with heavy echoes of what we are doing over here. You may remember a few days back that the British Home Secretary, looking at bursting budgets and more cost-effective options called for judges to limit prison terms to the violent and habitual types in the country and to send lesser offenders to alternatives, which drew howls from the "all who commit crimes are equal" folks and the judges who think their experience and unsurpassed wisdom are enough to decide sentences, thank you very much. Well, the Home Secretary is still catching heat, shouting the words of one who is about to quit--"I won't quit." That's brought forth this very thorough and familiar-sounding analysis from Yorkshire Today (h/t CrimProf Blog), which just shows they're as clueless as our policymakers in face of clear evidence of what works and what doesn't. Now, on top of all these problems, here's another familiar revelation--they've lost track of 322 sex offenders, primarily due to the problems of resources and implementation. If the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, which of us is the apple now and which is the tree? Does it really matter?