Should we keep people in prison safe? (Venue: Caffè Nero)

(Scroll down for topic intro)

THE VENUE: Caffè Nero

It's winter so we will meet indoors for the next few months.

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Nero location.

We meet upstairs at Caffè Nero. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: Should we keep people in prison safe?

This week's topic has been written by Duncan.

In 2002, a man named Ian Huntley murdered two 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in the Cambridgeshire town of Soham. People of a certain age will remember this event vividly and with horror and disgust. Huntley was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 40 years

At the end of February 2026, he was violently attacked by a fellow prisoner and died a few days later, This was the third time he had been attacked during his time in prison.

We have discussed the idea of punishment and the role of the criminal justice system before. In this context, punishment fulfils a number of objectives:

• deterrence - punishment that aims to put people off committing crime
• reformation - punishment that aims to reform the criminal
• retribution - punishment that aims to make the criminal pay for what they have done wrong
• justice - the aim is to ensure that the right and fair thing is done

A number of writers have considered the role of the state in punishing deviant behaviour, as part of a broader 'social contract' between it and its citizens.

For Thomas Hobbes, the only way for man to lift himself out of his natural state of fear and violence was to give up his freedom and make a social contract with others to accept a central authority.

Max Weber attempted to define what a state is:
"A compulsory political organization with continuous operations will be called a 'state' [if and] insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force (das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges) in the enforcement of its order."

Thus, by living in specific country that is controlled by a state, we give up the ability to choose directly how crimes are punished and must accept what the criminal justice system has decided is appropriate.

In the UK, the death penalty for murder was abolished in 1965, and later for the crimes of piracy and treason. Thus, in our particular social contract, we agree that imprisonment, possibly for life, is a sufficient punishment for even the most serious of crimes.

Further, all violent behaviour towards another person (with certain exceptions **) is illegal and may be punished by the state, and only by the state.

This seeks to deter those who believe a particular punishment is - or will be - insufficient from taking the law into their own hands. After all, this was a crime that shocked many people and provoked a strong emotional response. Is a cool-headed judiciary better placed to determine the appropriate punishment ?

Given that at least some people will believe that Huntley's punishment was insufficient and unjust, should we have foreseen that someone who had access to him may try to correct this perceived injustice and take matters into their own hands, particularly if they already have a record of violent behaviour and have shown little regard for the rule of law ?

Do we believe that prison inmates should be kept safe, no matter how disgusting their crime ?

** it is still legal in England and Wales to smack your child, but not in Scotland and N Ireland. Sports such as boxing are also legal, but have strict rules to determine what is permitted and what is not.