The Independent newspaper makes its case for sending fewer offenders to prison: ” A smaller (jail) population should enable more of the prison’s budget to be spent on tackling drug and alcohol abuse and on other rehabilitation schemes. This is one area of public spending where it is possible to envisage more being done for less. …The political fetishisation of sending offenders to prison for longer periods…has been a disaster. We have ended up warehousing petty criminals, the mentally ill and those addicted to narcotics at huge public expense.”