tough. stay and suffer. I can go though!

Go to Australia. They're looking for "ten pound ticket Poms" again.

On-topic: Prisoners in Holland actually dare to complain about the conditions in our prisons. They want more luxury, more time outside, more time to work-out! One prison even had it's own bar/pool! Some guys even went on some sort of strike to accomplish these goals. And now some guy behind a desk thinks it's handy if they start giving them their social security money in jail (normally you get an allowance) because that way, it's easier to get back in society!!!

Outrageous! (Sp?)

Whatever happened to hangings and public stonings?

Urgh, Wizard - in the UK some prisoners are sueing the prison service for not having colour TV's available, or giving them access to other luxuries they think they should have.

there in prison not on vacation! it's not supposed to be fun it's punishment most of them are violent. whats next evening suits and fuzzy slippers oh wait i know they'll want there own shopping mall as far as "citizenship" tests i don't know if there good or not.

As far as I'm concerned, you go to prison and you give up all but the very basic human rights afforded to you by the country. If you can't play by the rules then you suffer the consequences, it really should be that simple. The human rights movement over here really is taking the piss.

Take note that Wiz's On Topic point isn't made up... its true, they are wanting to strike for "better" accomodations.

I say revert to the old system, where if you gave the gaoler a bad lip, hed smash your head in.

I definately want to Leave Holland, but don't have the necessary funds, I was contemplating Ireland and England Maybe.

Basically, a prisoner has no right to complain, with his spacious cell, and yes I do say spacious, where he can lay his fat arse to rest, on his own, with Privacy, he has especially no right to complain about what the Gaolers are wearing, be it chestpins or otherwise

Edited by - Locutov on 10/4/2005 3:09:20 PM

Somethings are needed, if you have any hope of rehabilitation. Reading to educate the criminal, guidence to get his/her life turned around, but amenitys? Absolutly knot. The want to work out, do sit up, push ups and run the rec yard in the aloted time. They are in there for a reason, not as an alturnative to not working.

criminals do need more rights in some countries, however i believe they need less in some like holland and possibly britain. also i think prison sentences shouls be longer, not as a punishment for those there, but a somethin to make peoplehave a bit of fear when it comes to stealing. most people only getput in jail for around 5 months for minor stealing, this should be longer, then it wouldn't happen as much

i am not saying that we turn england into a country running martial law, but i am sure oneday we will.

As someone said, is prison for rehabilitation or punishment? However, if you commit crime, you must be punished, because what is the motivation to not commit crimes otherwise?

Rehabilitation is important if you wish to release crims back into society if they have served their time. Unfortuately, as it currently stands - when released a high percentage are not even remotely rehablitiated at all. They commit crime again (I think it was a statistic that 80% commit further crime - or 80% that are caught commiting further crime). The short sentences and seemingly "luxurious" circumstances surrounding the criminals seems to detract from the rehabilitation of themselves. If we are failing to rehabilitate them due to short sentences (you get 50% off for good behaviour in this country, which makes the sentences a farce!) then you are neither punishing or rehabilitating them. Indeed, it's failing society as a whole in its mandate entirely, but sadly there appears to be no change to this, only further progression towards negative means.

Whom is the prison and rehabilitation supposed to serve? The nation, or the criminal?! Right now it appears to be the criminal, at the expense of the nation.
Furthermore we currently have an idea - if the jails are getting full of crims, to make room... we simply release them. Excuse me, but exactly what is the prison service for again? Are we going to start letting some crime go completely unpunished because we haven't the room? Oh, hang on - we do that already - how stupid of me. Punishment may now be in the form of a "curfew" of 9pm. Oh dear, how limiting in my life, what punishment - to be in at 9pm, wonder if anyone will take it to the EU court of human rights, that it's violating their human rights, and then to sue for it.

hmm, gives me an idea...


Edited by - Mike G on 10/5/2005 12:07:50 AM

I wouldn't be surpised if I was the only person on these boards who's actually been throught the criminal justice system. so maybe I can lend a somewhat different perspective.

when you're in gaol, you're in gaol. it doesn't matter if it's a Category A maximum security establishment, or a Category D *open* prison, it's still gaol, your life isnt your own and you are deprived of your liberty. You have nothing, no possessions, no value except what you can earn from the prison system and the value and respect you can command from your fellow prisoners. you get up at a set time, eat at set times, work at set times and go to bed at set times.

while your in prison you can't earn real money and your affairs are in effect on stop - help with outside matters is very difficult and most prisoners lose their homes and jobs, quite often all their possessions as well. So its very common to come out of even a short sentence, to nothing. if the purpose is indeed rehabilition, then if prisoners have no safety-net for when they come out of gaol, how are they expected not to re-offend? it may seem odd to provide prisoners with social security benefits whilst they are incarcerated, but the social and finacial cost of not [ doing so is even greater.

this leads on to a further argument - what are people sent ot prison for? everyone says *punishment* but what do you mean by that? are people imprisoned as punishment , or for punishment? the two things are very different. I assure you, being deprived of your liberty and taken from everything you are familar with into the alien and hostile environment of even a *soft* prison is still pretty severe. Adding the harshness of the *short sharp shock* so favoured by reactionaries is merely a licence for sadism. I always wondered why people became prison officers, its quite often accompnaied by a desire to treat people like cr*p. Prison officers treat everyone except their *pets* like dirt and they do so because they know that the prisoners can say and do nothing about it. What happens in Abu Ghraib is daily repeated in many prisons across the so-called *civilised* West - I have witnessed prison officers en masse beating the living daylights out of people who just spoke up for themselves after weeks of provocation. The physical brutality is the final expression of a regime of humiliation and de-humanisation. All the myths that are told of gang-rape and drug ganmgs inside prison? forget them - other prisoners are fine with you (mostly) it's the guards you have to watch out for. And they are almost all open to bribery - on their terms of course.

it's very simple. if people are treated like animals, they will behave like animals. Treat them with respect, you will get respect. The idea of prison for punishment and the imposition of a harsh if not brutal regime is a favourite of people who've never experienced it. it doesn't do any good, btw. all it does is make fitter leaner criminals with even bigger chips on their shoulders.

No offence Taw, what year was that in perchance?

94. why?

however going back to the original topic, this is an increasingly disturbing trend amongst the PC crowd, because they seem to single out *english* imagery as distinct from any other. I wonder if anyone who wore a St.Andrew's cross, or a St. David, would be similarly censured? I think perhaps not. And certainly, display of non-UK national imagery is seen as being fine. If such a rule is to be enforced then it must be enforced fairly.

why does *englishness* get singled out? partially I think it's a P.C. reaction to our colonial and imperial past (although that was British as distinct from English) and also there's a perjoritative element in that the Cross of St. George is associated with football and thus by extension football violence and racism, which is ludicrous of course - that's as stupid as saying every Moslem is a terrorist.

the P.C. goons should keep their own houses in order. the perfectly politically correct Sir Iain Blair, Commisssioner of the Metropolitan Police, saint of the politically correct and hand-picked by President-of-the-World Blair himself, turned out to have misused his powers to hide the facts about the London Tube shooting of an innocent man and attempted to pass the blame onto more junior commanders in the field, resisted calls for an independent enquiry and still attempts to hide what happened under a blanket of national security and operational *intelligence* - although one might well question what sort of intelligence (if any) was in operation the day Jean Charles de Menezes was shot in the head.

Sir Iain is very close to the Govt and to the Blairs (he's no relation btw) because of his history of handling PC issues - how the Police investigate rape, sexism and racism in the Police and towards the public, the Lawrence enquiry, the Newbury bypass, and was seen by many as a new type of Police chief for a new type of Police force - however these days he seems to putting as much effort into whitewashing his own name and squirming out of any responsibility. funny isn't how once upon a time public figures would resign over matters like this, now they just look for other to blame while mouthing mealy words of sympathy.

how to public institutions go on about displayingt he Cross of St George as part of their insignia, as indeed many Police forces do? I wonder...

Edited by - .Tawakalna on 10/5/2005 6:34:58 AM

It also is a question of whether the St. George's cross has been co-opted by a radical racist group so that in a sort of guilt by association, St. George's cross flag wavings too often are at racist activities.

If, in the modern past, the English flag was not brandished by patriotic Englishmen (the Union Jack being the more common emblem perhaps), worn as symbols of national pride or observance and then, in recent times, the practice was taken on by radically racist elements, the "meaning" behind a person's decision to wear the emblem can give rise to questions of that persons intended "statement."

That's the nasty thing about not caring about PC just as much as it usually falls into a degree of ridiculousness, the amount of time and illogic spent on PC.

And that's the thing about the politics of hatred and race prejudice. As it is a given that a politcs of hatred is wrong, those who advocate a form of it always will try to align its imagery with something which is supposed to be emblematic of an idea that is wholly legitimate such as simple "English pride."

Perhaps a more obviously a "charged" PC issue in the US pertains to the "official" flying of the old Stars and Bars of the Confederacy at government buildings and whether that is an appropriate message by imagery to impart to the public.