As a general principle nonviolent offenders should be allowed house arrest, because as a general principle, nonviolent offenders tend to be less dangerous to society, and thus require less secure containment. The punishment of jailing is age old and serves two main purposes. One, to prevent the dangerous offender from continuing to offend against society, and two for ‘rehabilitation’ purposes. Jails through their long history of use and misuse have also served other purposes such as for containing political prisoners, torturing religious offenders, etc. However let us give our modern society the benefit of the doubt and assume that the above two purposes are the primary focus of an imprisonment.

Imprisonment, thus, serves to keep society safe from dangerous criminals, and keep society clean of undesirable elements such as those offenders who commit white collar crimes or drug trafficking and so forth, which may or may not have violent connections, as well as giving the prisoner the chance to rethink their ways. Thus it serves the needs of society, in being protected from crime, and the prisoner, in giving them the chance to reform themselves.

With regards to offenders of a nonviolent nature, and here ‘violent’ shall imply both crimes of a directly violent nature, such as assaults, rape, brutal murder etc and also crimes of an indirect nature such as threats of violence and terrorist masterminding activities, the offender, not posing a serious direct risk to people, should not be treated like any common rapist or murderer, and locked up with that sort of person. Firstly because they do not pose such a risk as to require such secure containment, and secondly because they could be harmed by being sent to such an environment, and there is no logic in sending an innocent lamb to be slaughtered, if its innocence is merely smudged by the theft of a snuff box!

Thus, echoing the sentiments of Dickens, it would seem logical to allow those ‘criminals’ of a nonviolent nature, such as debtors, to be given better treatment, and less secure conditions of containment. There is of course the problem of offenders of a political nature, who may have outraged people for some reason, or offenders of any nature who may have made enemies without being violent. They would naturally require secure containment, but also protection.

House arrest in its various forms is far more suitable to nonviolent offenders because it gives them a greater chance of rehabilitation, while also freeing up the prisons for the more serious criminal types. Ideally, of course, all criminals could be treated humanely and justly, but the resources for that simply do not appear to exist. Also there is the fact that in the worse cases of violent offence, even a civilised person will wish to punish them purely for punishment’s sake, and a blind eye would naturally be turned to that.

The utilitarian function of prisons, thus, to protect society and to give prisoners a chance to reform themselves, are best divided. Whether this be by the creation of more, novel styles of prison, such as Mr Creakles, with all its hypocrisy and absurdity, or whether it shall be by more logical methods such as house arrest, remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain, a reformist sees no profit in overcrowding an already bursting cage of rats with further additions of mice.