If you make someone sit in a cell staring at walls for 23 hours a day – that’s fairly brutal. Not as bad as some places of course but still bad.

Can do the time , don’t do the crime
I find it difficult to believe that even most prisoners would refer to it a brutal.
They get fed, watered, heating, education (if wanted) and work … It might be as dull as f***, harsh, maybe but calling it “brutal” is a little “Sky News”
I have no doubt all prisons have their pecking orders and hard men. But you don’t have to go there …

They get fed, watered, heating, education (if wanted) and work

No, they don’t. Very few prisoners get work and education, and they mostly like it because its time out of the cells.

No, they don’t. Very few prisoners get work and education, and they mostly like it because its time out of the cells.

So how / what do they have to do to access it?
I know illiteracy rates in prisona re meant to be at about 30-40%. So if basic education cannot be accessed, then that is does seem to be very short sighted.

So how / what do they have to do to access it?

AIUI we’ve been slashing the budget for rehabilitation for decades as our politicians pander to Daily Mail rants about soft prison regimes with murderers encouraged to read books and learn skills rather than ROT IN HELL LIKE THE SCUM THAT THEY ARE etc etc etc…..

They should be MADE TO READ BOOKS AND GET AN EDUCATION then … so, in fact, turning the TVs now seems to make sense …

“Slashing budgets” – very daily mail 🙂 – for “needing to get control of expenditure”?

Can do the time , don’t do the crime

Right, but in this case they have already done the crime. Deterrents only work BEFORE things have been done.

So why did the Brits / Americans hang Saddam Hussien or kill Bin Laden then?

Deterrents can work to stop future actions happening , or to stop past actions happening again. ?

Can we not just carpet bomb caaaaaaarncil estates as a per-emptive crime prevention measure?

Actually….

*wanders off to secure funding for right-of-centre, blue-sky, Westminster think-tank*

So why did the Brits / Americans hang Saddam Hussien or kill Bin Laden then?

Good question.

I don’t think anyone would consider that a deterrent. How many other potential dictators would think ‘oh wait, I don’t think I’m going to start a coup now’..?

Deterrents can work to stop future actions happening

They can.. but how many burglars are really weighing up prison life? Or are they just banking on not getting caught?

yeah coz Iraq has seen nothing but nothing but peace, prosperity and brotherly **** love since sadaam was killed

and no one would dare launch a terrorist attack in the states since they got bin laden

Can we not just carpet bomb caaaaaaarncil estates as a per-emptive crime prevention measure?

I’m in. When can we start?

The Ludovico technique’s next on the cards.

I believe prisons have libraries. Take away all the TVs, they can read books. I am sure I remember reading a fact somewhere that Stephen King is the most borrowed author in US prisons.

Even if you have to watch Loose Women every day? Even the title taunts you, then ultimately fails to deliver…

Escape to the Country is probably a bit more of a letdown…

So how / what do they have to do to access it?

Get a long enough sentence in a properly staffed prison that actually runs the programmes and has space and (for education) can address their (frequent) special educational and health needs.

hels
I believe prisons have libraries…let them read books

he prison population is some 85,000. More than three-quarters of them cannot read, write or count to the standard expected of an 11-year-old.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/03/illiteracy-innumeracy-prisons

approximately 81 per cent of prisoners screened were assessed as lacking functional literacy and 71 per cent as lacking in functional numeracy”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20852685

Have you considered a career as Home Secretary, hels?

I dare hazard a guess that I’m the only serving prison ossifer on STW & I’m reading this with much interest, & chuckles (about how little you lot actually know about ‘jail’)

Carry on…

I am sure I remember reading a fact somewhere that Stephen King is the most borrowed author in US prisons.

I’m sure he is.

Deterrents can work to stop future actions happening , or to stop past actions happening again

2 problems
1. If deterrent is your objective then you can punish anyone to achieve the goal whether guilty or innocent as you are punishing them not for what they have done but to deter others.
2. It does not work and may even be counter productive. Might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb for example. Note also brutal regimes with draconian sentences are not crime fre

Most are in for drug related stuff, they could get an education and a basic wage job or they could sell drugs to your kids for 2k a day. The dimmest one getting caught (repeatedly) cos they is a little bit thick?

Having said that, the prisoners car park near me has a much better quality of car than the staff one, so maybe their not so daft.

Prisons aren’t filled with people clearing 700 a year selling drugs to kids. They’re filled with addicts, the illiterate, the mentally ill and the very occasional person who deserves to be in there.

It’s no use spewing specious bollocks like “they should stop watching Sky Sports, read a book and get an education” when so many of them can’t read and can’t access education. You’ll notice the govt hasn’t increased funding for eg education, mental health or detox – things that would actually reduce recidivism.

what he said and lovely use of recidivism, a word hard to drop in to conversation but one of my favourites- some googling required for some I suspect 😉
KB talks much sense on this issue and has no jerking knee

It’s no use spewing specious bollocks like “they should stop watching Sky Sports, read a book and get an education” when so many of them can’t read and can’t access education. You’ll notice the govt hasn’t increased funding for eg education, mental health or detox – things that would actually reduce recidivism

No matter how hard you try, no matter how evasive the government could get you will always get people in society who suffer from the worst of human conditions: Rage, lust, psychotic, gambling, fraudulent etc etc.

How is education ever going to solve this?

I wonder how many babies are born on estates to parents who are basically alcoholics, who drank through pregnancy- who you couldn’t stop doing this as it happened to them to. **** in the womb, **** in life even before you’ve started. (Alcohol fetal syndrome).

Prisons will always be there and always full.

They’ve basically just announced what happens anyway as if it’s a brand new hardline policy.

Prisons will always be there and always full.

Well we could look to the example of Norway, which has unbelievably low recidivism rates (and a much more liberal prison system). But no, let’s look to America, they seem to have things well sorted.

I’ve been trying to get a music education project off the ground in a local prison – but they are in chaos/crisis due to funding cuts. I have the money so they wouldn’t have to pay a penny but they can’t even spare staff time at the moment.

If that project helped one person not to reoffend it would save it’s costs many times over…..

Well I was kind of half joking re the libraries, but surely spending money on literacy programs has to make a much bigger hole in recidivism than Sky TV ?

And writing people off because they had a bad upbringing is not going to help much either.

P.S and good use of “specious” too. Clearly your mother didn’t drink when pregnant.

As was pointed out above – the reason people are sat around watching TV is generally because the prison can’t afford to provide enough work/education/exercise programmes. These things don’t run themselves for free.

These things don’t run themselves for free.

What? Not even as part of the Big Society? I’d been led to believe, by Dave himself, that this has taken care of any funding shortfalls with this type of thing!

Yeah, where are Dave’s army of volunteers for this ? Make the pensioners earn that free bus pass.

esselgruntfuttock. With the benefit of your experience, how do you see prison life?

And just for some stats to back up my earlier rant:

70% of prisoners have two or more mental disorders – http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-statistics/prisons/

70% of offenders report drug misuse prior to prison; 51% report drug dependency; 35% admit injecting behaviour;
36% report heavy drinking; and 16% are alcohol dependant. A survey by the Prison Reform Trust has found that 19% of prisoners who had ever used heroin reported first using it in prison: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/184/18409.htm

80% of prisoners can’t read to 11yo schoolchild level and 52% have no qualifications whatsoever: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0000/0422/Literacy_changes_lives__prisons.pdf

Chris Huhne is in prison: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/11/chris-huhne-sentenced_n_2852459.html

KB has no jerking knee

On the contrary – my knee jerk reaction to any government announcement about prisons is that it is utter bollocks.