Peter Jay - The case for Abolishing Prisons

Peter Jay, economist, former UK Ambassador to the US and journalist was on the radio four programme Broadcasting House this Sunday where he was invited to talk about the possibility that politicians would, in the coming round of public expenditure, actual 'think the unthinkable'.  He concluded they wouldn't but in illustrating his point said

I for example as an administrator/policy maker would say 'abolish the prisons', close them, get rid of the staff, sell the sites, we know beyond a shadow of doubt they perform absolutely no valuable penal function, they don't reform people, they don't deter people, they are unbelievably expensive - it costs more to send someone to prison than to send them to Eton.

The programme is on-line until next Sunday here and Jay's comments start about 19 minutes and 30 seconds in.

Hat tip to Danny K of Transform for alerting me to this.  Danny is also on the programme and like Peter Jay talking common sense. In Danny's case this is calling for the legal regulation of all drugs. (About ten minutes in)