Letter: Prisons show results of society's credit-card values

Sir: It would seem that neither the Home Secretary nor Lord Woolf offer any lasting solution to present-day crime. I suggest that our society as a whole must bear a great share of the responsibility for our present predicament.

We have a society 'rich in things and poor in soul', fashioned in outlook and practice by the credit card, which claims to 'take the waiting out of wanting'. Clearly this is an invitation to gratify one's desires immediately, which is precisely what large numbers of men and women in our prisons have done. Why should we be surprised if our prisons are overcrowded? Years ago, a lady governor of a prison used the expression 'I see, I want, I take' in order to illustrate an attitude to life that seemed to her to be in increasing evidence.

In 1981, I wrote the following to the newsletter of my association:

The seeds of crime lie deep in the soil of our society, but when they come to maturity, they yield a rich and plentiful harvest, which is then garnered into the storehouse of HM Prisons, to the extent that today, more and more attention needs to be concentrated on the harvesting and storehousing, nor are these problems likely to diminish until such time as the soil in which the seeds germinate becomes less fertile, a hope which, for the hour at any rate, we are scarcely justified in believing to be at all possible.

Alas, the words seem to be as true today as when they were written, perhaps even more so, for does not the Home Secretary announce the building of more prisons?

Yours sincerely,

PETER K. SHEPLEY

Vice President

National Association of

Prison Visitors

Hyde,

Cheshire

13 October