The city of Leeds has finally decided to start issuing tough prison sentences for burglars, and this comes after years of claims by intellectuals and political officials, including judges, that prison doesn’t work. Writing in City Journal, Dalrymple points out the corollary:
[J]udges in Leeds have knowingly been handing down sentences that they believed were less effective than those they were permitted by law to impose.What is true… of judges in Leeds is likely to be true of judges in the rest of the country who, whether from moral cowardice, careerist opportunism, or some other reason, have acted and continue to act on what they don’t believe—namely, that prison does not work. In doing so, they have created many more victims of burglary (and no doubt other crimes) than there need be.
Read the short piece here