Has it ever been done in this country.....on a large scale?
That takes money and resources, and the will. I am not sure the current government particularly, or any government really, has put all those in place. There is still an element that believes tough conditions will cure all the problems.
Other countries, e.g. Norway, seem to make it work:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48885846
https://voxeu.org/article/incarceration-can-be-rehabilitative
There have been trials of different measures in parts of the UK, as this one in Durham"
"How should we treat convicted criminals? This is a matter of continuing public debate, and varies enormously across countries. Even within the so-called developed world, there are wide variations. The US, for example, imprisons more people per capita (over 700 per 100,000) than any other country in the world. At the other end of the spectrum are the Scandinavians. Norway, for example, has one of the lowest, at 66 per 100,000.
While the composition and severity of crime varies, the US and the Scandinavian model represent different philosophies. The US system focuses more on punishment, whereas the Scandinavian model emphasises rehabilitation: treatment and support aimed to help the offender become a law abiding member of society. This might include developing skills to improve employability or treating mental health problems, for example.
The UK falls somewhere in between these two models. Although it has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, the country has experimented with initiatives aimed at diverting low level offenders away from prison.
One of the largest such schemes – Operation Checkpoint – is being run by Durham Constabulary. This “deferred prosecution scheme” allows offenders for certain types of relatively low harm offences (such as theft or criminal damage) to avoid prosecution if they participate in a programme that addresses their causes of offending – such as mental health issues or substance abuse. The first set of results from this programme, recently published, show a 15% reduction in reoffending rates when compared to similar offenders who did not participate.
A back of the envelope cost/benefit analysis suggests that the programme also represents good value for money, with the benefit to society from reduced re-offending estimated at £2 million against a cost of half a million for running the programme. Of course, while not every rehabilitation programme in the UK has been rigorously evaluated, these results are consistent with other evidence across England and Wales indicating that non-custodial alternatives can reduce crime."
Too often we in the UK are convinced that we know best, whereas in reality we suffer from the "not invented here" attitude to change. When prison does little to prevent re-offending just do the same again, but harder.
