Monday, September 11, 2006
Prisons Again
I posted here on prisons in response to a typical "academic" report.
The last thing I expected was for a prisoner to agree with me here, possibly making up for the increased price of The Times, but we'll have to see a lot more like it. Forgive me for quoting extensively, but he could write for this blog: "Hardy reminisces about the “good old days” in prisons when “you had no rights apart from a surname and a number”. He points out that prison is a means of punishment and insists that prisoners should pay the price for their crimes."
“Whenever I’ve gone out and robbed somebody I didn’t read my victims the human rights charter. It was entirely my choice and I’ve got to pay the price. In case prisoners are scratching their heads wondering where I’m coming from, the operative word is ‘responsibility’."
It's not just prisoners who don't know where you're coming from; a plethora of government "advisors" and "academics" won't have a clue either.
"“Every prison I’ve been in (and it’s a fair few), all I ever seem to hear is this constant bleating about ‘my human rights’, be it due to the food being either too hot or too cold, an officer didn’t refer to me as ‘Mr’ or whatever other petty complaints yet another mundane day of incarceration can throw up."
Well it's pretty much the same outside now you know, so at least you're being prepared for "integration into society".
"“This is now becoming far more commonplace than the other weary old chestnut, ‘I didn’t do it’. Prisoners tend to conveniently forget why they are locked up and forget too the rights of the victims they created.” "
More on responsibility, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Of course in the interests of balance (not that they bothered to balance this report here) we have the obligatory "leftie-liberal" comment (you can hear the whine, whinging out even when reading it): "Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, said: “I find it ironic that Mr Hardy is pooh-poohing human rights by writing a letter to a newspaper — something inmates can only do because they have used human rights arguments to win that right. There was a time when inmates were banned from writing about their prison conditions."
No, it isn't ironic at all, just because he can do something, and takes advantage to do it, doesn't mean he thinks he should be able to do it. Does it?
It all goes to show just how far off track government policy and practice have become. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"? No! Tough on victims, soft on crims.
The last thing I expected was for a prisoner to agree with me here, possibly making up for the increased price of The Times, but we'll have to see a lot more like it. Forgive me for quoting extensively, but he could write for this blog: "Hardy reminisces about the “good old days” in prisons when “you had no rights apart from a surname and a number”. He points out that prison is a means of punishment and insists that prisoners should pay the price for their crimes."
“Whenever I’ve gone out and robbed somebody I didn’t read my victims the human rights charter. It was entirely my choice and I’ve got to pay the price. In case prisoners are scratching their heads wondering where I’m coming from, the operative word is ‘responsibility’."
It's not just prisoners who don't know where you're coming from; a plethora of government "advisors" and "academics" won't have a clue either.
"“Every prison I’ve been in (and it’s a fair few), all I ever seem to hear is this constant bleating about ‘my human rights’, be it due to the food being either too hot or too cold, an officer didn’t refer to me as ‘Mr’ or whatever other petty complaints yet another mundane day of incarceration can throw up."
Well it's pretty much the same outside now you know, so at least you're being prepared for "integration into society".
"“This is now becoming far more commonplace than the other weary old chestnut, ‘I didn’t do it’. Prisoners tend to conveniently forget why they are locked up and forget too the rights of the victims they created.” "
More on responsibility, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Of course in the interests of balance (not that they bothered to balance this report here) we have the obligatory "leftie-liberal" comment (you can hear the whine, whinging out even when reading it): "Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, said: “I find it ironic that Mr Hardy is pooh-poohing human rights by writing a letter to a newspaper — something inmates can only do because they have used human rights arguments to win that right. There was a time when inmates were banned from writing about their prison conditions."
No, it isn't ironic at all, just because he can do something, and takes advantage to do it, doesn't mean he thinks he should be able to do it. Does it?
It all goes to show just how far off track government policy and practice have become. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"? No! Tough on victims, soft on crims.
Tags: justice, crime, punishment, prison
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
