How do you deal with prison overcrowding?

"Free them", that's the answer from the UNELECTED Secretary of State Lord Falconer.

Blair's buddy Falconer has drawn up the proposals to open the gates as the eight-month overcrowding crisis deepens. Under the plan, up to 2,000 prisoners serving less than four years would leave jail early. Those considered for release are likely to be burglars, fraudsters and drug dealers!

Gee thanks! The government, over the last ten years, has created a vast volumn of new offences, that make everything except for breathing a crime. But, they have done nothing about prison capacity, resulting in the overcrowding crisis, and are now planning to free criminals because of their cock up.

What a nice caring "victim focused" government we have in power. Yes I am being sarcastic.

Plus it makes a complete mockery of a justice system, or should I say just adds to the mockery that Labour have made of our justice system. After all, how many prisoner actually serve the sentence handed down by the courts, thanks to the tariff system introduced by the Blair regime, precious few. It's bad enought that a criminal handed a four year sentence will only serve half of that, minus any time spent on remand, but now be freed even earlier! That doesn't sound like punishment to me. If anything, to quote an opening line from Porridge, a criminal "will see prison as an occupational hazard", rather than a punishment.

For a government that constantly talks big on crime on security, what their actions have actually done, is quite different.