Editorial: If we want longer jail sentences then we must built prisons

Muddled attitudes towards prison in society are again evident.​

There has been wide support for severe prison sentences for anti immigrant rioters who, in some cases, attacked migrant centres. Such conduct in England was outrageous, as were attacks in Belfast that saw some shops or businesses opened by immigrants destroyed.

Let us set aside for a moment the uncomfortable truth that this is not how the UK has responded to previous riots, such as in England in 2011 after a black man in Tottenham was killed by police or how republican riots in NI have been treated (in fact, as this newspaper has pointed out, sustained rioting in the Ardoyne after Orangemen abided by restrictions on their 2012 return parade was rewarded the next year with a full ban on the Orange return).

These double standards are an affront to justice that must be highlighted. Even so, if we set them aside and the long sentences for recent rioters are viewed in isolation as an appropriate reaction to disgraceful violence, then the question arises: where are these rioters going to be jailed? Prisons have been at breaking point for years.

It was reported yesterday that the government might trigger Operation Early Dawn, a plan to hold defendants in police cells until prison beds become available.

This is a thoroughly inadequate response to the problem, and the blame lies with high minded liberals who want, on the whole, to reduce the number of prison cells, indeed in some cases they talk about abolishing prison altogether. Unless it is a particular type of offence such as racially motivated one or one deemed misogynistic, in which case they want long sentences.

Murderers in the UK still get relatively soft sentences. And look how many are taking advantage of temporary release to abscond. If we all believe in prison, then we will have to fund and build them.