When suspects are convicted of a crime and, after years in prison, are proven to be innocent, how does society repay them for their incarceration? The United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has an idea of what to do: charge the former prisoners for food and board — at least 3,000 pounds (US$5,430) per year for the prisoners’ “saved living expenses” during their time in prison. A spokesman for the Home Office said the concept “takes into account the range of costs the prisoner might have incurred had they not been imprisoned,” adding, “Morally, this is reasonable and appropriate.” It’s not a proposal: the government has already sent bills to some freed prisoners.
A spokesman for the Scottish Miscarriage of Justice Organisation called the program a way to “punish people for having the audacity to be innocent.”
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Glasgow Sunday Herald