Based on over thirty years of research of government sentencing policy
and work within the criminal justice system, David Fraser demonstrates
that Britain's increased reliance on alternatives to imprisonment has
allowed violent crime to flourish. The number of life-threatening
attacks has increased rapidly over the last forty years but justice
officials have masked this development within a blizzard of deceptive
statistics.
Anti-prison groups tell the public that violent offenders can be managed
in the community under supervision and that prison makes offenders
worse. Contrary to this misleading propaganda, the evidence presented
here informs us that criminals under probation supervision as an
alternative to imprisonment commit hundreds of the most serious crimes
every year, while the government's figures - which are kept away from
the public eye - make it clear that long prison sentences are our best
protection against violent crime.
Licence to Kill demonstrates that the death penalty was an effective
deterrent to homicide but does not argue for its reintroduction.
Instead, by acknowledging its effectiveness, David Fraser argues the
case for a re-vamped sentencing system that is as effective as was the
fear of the hangman's noose. By providing readers with an alternative
perspective, he invites them to consider the idea of a new criminal
sentencing framework.
