The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger - Plot & Excerpts
In 1978 there were over 450,000 people in jail, by 2005 there were over 2 million: the numbers had quadrupled. In the UK, the numbers have doubled since 1990, climbing from around 46,000 to 80,000 in 2007. In fact, in February 2007, the UK’s jails were so full that the Home Secretary wrote to judges, asking them to send only the most serious criminals to prison. This contrasts sharply with what has been happening in some other rich countries. Through the 1990s, the prison population was stable in Sweden and declined in Finland; it rose by only 8 per cent in Denmark, 9 per cent in Japan.236 More recently, rates have been falling in Ireland, Austria, France and Germany.237CRIME OR PUNISHMENT?The number of people locked up in prison is influenced by three things: the rate at which crimes are actually committed, the tendency to send convicted criminals to prison for particular crimes, and the lengths of prison sentences. Changes in any of these three can lead to changes in the proportion of the population in prison at any point in time.
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