Captive audience

Every year, 120,000 criminals from socio‐economically deprived backgrounds are processed through our prisons. They constitute over 90 per cent of the total prison population and, unlike their companions of middle‐class origins, they are likely to repeat their offences and become recidivists. Between them they will commit hundreds of thousands of offences ranging from theft to violent assault, drug‐taking, car offences, sexual attacks and homosexuality. 87 per cent of their offences will be against property and there is a clear causal connection between socio‐economic deprivation and crime.