The very different justice

I came across in a Singapore newspaper that reproted a Malaysian chap was jailed for 12 years for skimming cards in Singapore. Initially, he was sentenced for 52 months and the prosecutor successfully obtained a lengthier 12 years sentence on appeal. The judge warned that card skimming damages public confidence in e-commerce and must be severely punished.

Personally, I think 12 years is a bit too harsh and there would be no easy parol where most criminals are out by half time as in the UK.

How strongly this contrast the UK Criminal Justice system today. In UK, now criminals are not to be put to jail because there is no place in the jail for them. The Home office claims that jails are too expensive to build - of course, they need to building something that ensure that the human right of the criminals are not infringed, or perhaps, they are trying to build a hotel. A converted prison from an abandon warehouse would probably cost a lot lot less. There was another report that I read sometimes back - there was a US Prison head that managed to build a prison for < $100k (I think) and people who goes there never would want to be there ever again (and hence no reoffending). Card frauds and online banking fraud is sky rocketing in UK and yet in most cases, banks and police are not even interested to investigate [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/6281883.stm]

Now given the new Home office guideline, they can even be guaranteed (if John Reid remain in office for the next few weeks of course) that they are not jailed.

UK becoming a heaven for criminals ?