Jails empty as judges urged to be lenient
25 Jan 2007 by Ben Bostrom
Following the recent letter from Home Secretary John Reid urging judges to send fewer people to jail, prison populations are predicted to steadily decrease to a manageable position within the year.Civil servants in the Treasury have already begun work drawing up a proposal to reduce the number of prisons in the United Kingdom by up to ten percent, taking advantage of the probable decrease in capacity requirements. This is expected to save millions of pounds from the budget, and the closed buildings can then be moderately retrofitted to act as hotels, bringing more revenue for the government. It is planned that current prison officers will be kept on as bell boys and waiters.
Meanwhile, civil servants in the MoD have begun drawing up proposals to request judges to increase the number of offenders sent to prison, but to offer them the choice of National Service in the armed forces for the length of their sentence instead.
Greg Mullet, a spokesman from Dr Reid's newly-employed PR company, called in to put a less-appalling spin on the ever-growing number of monumental screw-ups emanating from the Home Office, commented on these seemingly contradicting "initiatives".
"It's perfectly logical," Mr Mullet said. "Government departments must react to socio-economic stimuli that affect their interests and propose corresponding legislation as a result. Ministers are deliberately kept in the dark about what the others are up to in order to avoid 'group think', in the hope that the result will be the very best solution possible. When the Government is working perfectly, no one knows what anyone else is doing and everyone is working against everyone else. Otherwise, there would be chaos!"
Mr Mullet went on to describe the proposed compromise that has come about from this debacle. It is planned that judges be urged to both reduce the number of offenders sent to jail, and to offer those who are given custodial sentences the option of serving their time in the armed forces instead. This should reduce the number of inmates two-fold, thus allowing for the Treasury's planned hotel empire. It is estimated that the number of prisoners in Britain, currently standing at almost 80,000, should drop to less than 15,000 by the end of the decade.
Further plans to "improve" the country's justice system are currently being dreamed up by members of Dr Reid's PR company, who are now taking over all Home Office policy decisions to prevent any more contradictory proposals. This planned overhaul is rumoured to include deportation, labour camps, hypnotherapy, and frontal lobotomies. There have been no indications of what measures might be applied to criminals, but it is hoped that everyone will feel a lot better with the Home Office taken care of.
In the mean time, the current strain on the justice system is predicted to slacken off in the spring, when many criminals are expected to take advantage of the improved weather to go on holiday and commit crimes abroad, free of repercussions here in the UK.
