Prison Reform Trust lies

The cynical toad Ken Clarke has pretty much become the mouthpiece for the PRT: "Prison should be reserved for those whose
 offending is so serious that they cannot serve
 their sentence in the community" is straight from the PRT website, which also states "The United Kingdom has the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe at 151 per 100,000 of the population". There follows a quick blow-job for fatty:

The last time Ken Clarke was in charge of prison and penal policy, as Home Secretary, the average prison population (1992-93) was 44,628. Figures just released by the Prison Service show that prison numbers for England and Wales have now exceeded 85,000. In France, with the same population as Britain, prison numbers are 59,655.

Well now, let's see. The Civitas website asks "Do we have too many people in prison?" and seeks to answer it in terms of prisoners per 1,000 recorded crimes, the only sane comparative statistic. The following chart shows that England and Wales in fact have a lower imprisonment rate than France, and considerably lower than the Western European average.

The third column shows what would be the prison population of England and Wales (given as 80,000) if we imprisoned criminals at the same rate as other countries. At the French rate, the prison population would be 91,113, at the EU average rate it would be 113,150. 

Country		Prisoners per 1,000 recorded crimes		% difference from England and Wales		'What if'?
Spain		57.13		462		369,369
Portugal		34.33		277		221,987
Ireland		28.60		231		184,928
Italy		24.00		194		155,165
Greece		19.48		157		125,920
Luxembourg		19.39		157		125,394
EU Average		17.51		141		113,150
France		14.09		114		91,133
Scotland		13.63		110		88,142
Netherlands		13.21		107		85,393
England and Wales		12.37		100		80,000
Austria		12.29		99		79,486
Germany		12.09		98		78,148
Northern Ireland		9.29		75		60,094
Belgium		8.57		69		55,442
Denmark		7.37		60		47,665
Finland		6.38		52		41,269
Sweden		5.40		44		34,905

So, the Prison Reform Trust lies, Ken Clarke lies, and the Coalition government's new penal policy is a lie. We have a much higher rate of crimes per 1,000 population - that is the problem. 

Countries with low rates of criminality have the following in common: if you commit a crime, there is a high probability that you will be arrested; if arrested there is as high probability that you will be convicted; if convicted you will receive meaningful punishment; and if you re-offend, the punishment will be more severe.

None of these applies in England and Wales. QED. All the rest is bollocks.