So now loads of inmates are being let out early - all very well, and 99% of them will be fine (indeed, probably 50% should not be in prison in the first place) but we all know 1% at least will reoffend and that will be what the media picks up on (it's a GOOD STORY).

So the under funded probation service (which I found, like the prison service, does an impossible job pretty well) will get blamed. Screaming headlines.

BUILD MORE PRISONS!

Whereas the answer is, of course, spend less on new prisons and sort out the broken police, judicial and sentencing systems.

That is harder. And gets less obvious results (fewer crimes) resulting in less headlines (not a GOOD STORY).

So the government (totally controlled by tabloid headlines) obeys the brain dead simplistic caricature solutions (BUILD MORE PRISONS! LOCK MORE PEOPLE UP - who cares if they are innocent?)...

And to do this - funding - they TAX US.

Instead of using the tax income for building more hospitals, improving schools, constructing ways of dealing with the mentally ill, preventing future crime... the intelligent, decent, humane way...

they obey the faltering tabloids (circulations collapsing as more and more readers desert and distrust them).

You couldn't make it up.