Hell on earth

[JAStewart]

 

Boredom is a pretty bad thing for a prisoner to experience in a prison, because these people should not be left to just sit and think, they need to be kept active, with education and activities.

 

Are you really saying that it is the taxpayers fault that a prisoner ends up taking hard drugs because no entertainment was supplied

 

Please state where I said that prisoners needed 'entertainment'.

[junior]

Something to relieve the boredom, call it "stimulation" if you want

[Guest Anonymous]

new magnie thought that sendining convicts out to work would be to expensive to organize and would possibly end up taking some other free persons job away.

I dont think this would have to be the case .

I think most of the work that would be suitable for them would be rural work away from centres of population , as it would be easier to make sure they dont escape that way , also there are lots of imaginative ways there services could be employed to the greater good of all.

The free labour could be aimed at helping struggling business's ,

looking after the enviroment ( think a truly organic farm where they dont even use tractors ) providing cheap produce for the poor.

I cant see how it wouldna be anthing other than an improvement for all concerned.

Remember we are talking about serious crime here , I am not talking about the type of convictions that do not result in a prison sentence , i think the system of fines etc work reasonably well for most things.

But a lot of the young neds who start out on a career into crime usually have never known what it is like to work for a living.

I am in agreement we juniors last post , but i do believe in human rights ,but when you are a convicted criminal your human rights should be reduced considerably - food, clean water , shelter , medical treatment and weekly communication (sundays - also a day off work so as not tooffend the religous aspects of human rights). with family only.

[JAStewart]

Something to relieve the boredom, call it "stimulation" if you want

 

I called it activity. This can be a range of things from doing physical activity to mental activity.

[junior]

Something to relieve the boredom, call it "stimulation" if you want

 

I called it activity. This can be a range of things from doing physical activity to mental activity.

 

My point was that if it costs a single penny, I'd rather see the money spent on people who have not committed a crime.

[Evil Inky]

Something to relieve the boredom, call it "stimulation" if you want

 

I called it activity. This can be a range of things from doing physical activity to mental activity.

 

My point was that if it costs a single penny, I'd rather see the money spent on people who have not committed a crime.

 

Even if by spending that money, you end up saving money in the long term ? Teaching an illiterate prisoner to read and write increases their chances of getting a job on release, and reduces their chances of re-offending. I'd much rather have a ex-prisoner working and paying tax, rather than ending up back in prison.

[Malachy]

I think most of us are in agreement here that people shouldn't be just thrown into jail to sit and wait for their release. It is a waste of time and money.

 

Some of the suggestions in your last post, droilker, were actually quite sensible. Much better than your "shoot them in the back of the head" post earlier. Working on a farm or some other kind of similar work would not only be productive it would also, hopefully, help prisoners to see the value of work, and maybe they would even enjoy it. So when they came out of prison they might choose to work rather than reoffend. Certainly, there is more chance of success with this method than putting folk in jail, beating them up and "humiliating" them for a few years as Styles suggests, then releasing them. That could only make things worse!

 

Education, as Evil Inky says, is also hugely important.

[junior]

Even if by spending that money, you end up saving money in the long term ? Teaching an illiterate prisoner to read and write increases their chances of getting a job on release, and reduces their chances of re-offending. I'd much rather have a ex-prisoner working and paying tax, rather than ending up back in prison.

 

Any return on money that you spend depends on exactly how you spend it. I wouldn't assume that money spent educating criminals will return more than money spent educating non-criminals.

[Twerto]

might even make the criminals more intelegent that they elarn not to get caught... liek most intellectual big wigs around this country

[ArabiaTerra]

Something which has not been mentioned in this thread yet. What happens if the person you have beaten/castrated/mutilated/executed turns out to be innocent? If you can prove that your criminal justice system is perfect, then some of these more extreme punishments might be justified, but it is well known that our system is far from perfect.

 

And as for Sharia law, that is simply barbarism which should be consigned to the middle ages where it originated.

[Evil Inky]

Even if by spending that money, you end up saving money in the long term ? Teaching an illiterate prisoner to read and write increases their chances of getting a job on release, and reduces their chances of re-offending. I'd much rather have a ex-prisoner working and paying tax, rather than ending up back in prison.

 

Any return on money that you spend depends on exactly how you spend it. I wouldn't assume that money spent educating criminals will return more than money spent educating non-criminals.

 

It depends on how you do the sums, of course. Stopping an ex-prisoner from re-offending will save on money spent of keeping them in prison ( around £30k a year ), but it will also prevent the crimes they would have otherwise committed from happening, which is a good thing, but difficult to express in monetary terms.

[junior]

You can't guarantee that money spent on anyone will have the desired affect, be that education, reformation or whatever. So potential savings of £30k+ is attractive, but the key word is "potential".

 

In the end, who deserves the money more, those who have committed crimes worthy of imprisonment, or those who haven't?

[Guest Anonymous]

thank you for your compliment malachy regarding my last post

I get the fealing you dont understand where I stand on the death penalty

, you seem to be thinking I would be popping caps in there asses willy nilly,

This thread is not really about yea or nae the death penalty , but I am convinced that there are sick individuals for whom it would be the best.

[Evil Inky]

You can't guarantee that money spent on anyone will have the desired affect, be that education, reformation or whatever. So potential savings of £30k+ is attractive, but the key word is "potential".

 

In the end, who deserves the money more, those who have committed crimes worthy of imprisonment, or those who haven't?

 

My point is that the prisoner isn't the only one who benefits from the money: we all do, in the form of a reduced prison population, and a reduced crime rate.

 

( If it was demonstrated that educating prisoners had no effect on re-offending rates, I'd change my mind though )

[junior]

My point is that the prisoner isn't the only one who benefits from the money: we all do, in the form of a reduced prison population, and a reduced crime rate.

 

And when money is spent on someone outside the prison system, that person is not the only one to benefit either. Give someone a better quality of life or a better education and they are more likely to get into employment and into the economy, and less likely to commit crime, that is true regardless of whether that someone is in a prison or not.