ABSTRACT
The short, sharp shock was through to be a method of deterring young offenders from reoffending but as we now know it was another failure on the part of the criminal justice system. This chapter discusses the idea of the short, sharp shock and how many young prisoners I knew had been through that system and how my own experience of the short, sharp shock was different. Ironically, my experience of this punitive method of prison and punishment was in the army which was as brutal if not more brutal than the civilian counterpart, the difference being not for any criminal offence. The military would use the same methods for simply breaking army rules and once a former prisoner left the army whether by force or eventually having completed their service, they would have no record of it on their records. An interesting contrast to how the criminal justice system operates by labelling individuals for life for having transgressed the law at a young and vulnerable age. This chapter takes readers through my experience of the army glasshouse.
