Festive Christmas Prisoner Propaganda

One of the myriad of anti-prison groups have generated some coverage with this seasonal PR piece, faithfully reported by the BBC as news:

More children will be separated by prison than divorce this Christmas, the Prison Reform Trust has said.

The organisation is calling on people to think about the distress faced by prisoners and their families.

It says putting criminals in overcrowded prisons and breaking up families does nothing to make the public safer.

First of all it is an obviously bogus claim that prison has a bigger impact than divorce in separating children from their parents. There are millions of divorced parents whereas the prison population is stuck at around 80000, most of whom are not parents anyway. Secondly it is equally untrue to claim that locking up criminals doesn't make the rest of us safer, do these people think that if criminals are jailed then someone else will carry out the crimes that they would have committed in order to keep the numbers up?

Lastly if they think that Christmas will make the public more receptive to pro prisoner propaganda then they are deluded. The worst time of year for this sort of thing is when the inevitable spate of burglars nicking the presents of children arrives.