Prison - its purpose, deterrent or complete waste of time and money?

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  • Ok wasn't sure whether we had a thread about prison on here a quick check showed we haven't, but if we have feel free to move or merge this!

    Is the prison system we have at the moment fit for purpose and what exactly is its purpose, should it be as a deterrent to try and stop people committing crime or as a rehabilitation to enable criminals to try and give up crime, because at the moment its failing as both.

    In fact some are seeing it as an alternative to trying to make a go of living a standard life of earning a living and paying their way in society, they prefer to be in prison where they are fed watered and have no bills to pay.

    Also our prisons are over crowded, so what can be done to improve the situation, can anything actually be done?

  • Despite Jenny's resignation from this forum her posts on this subject from about a year ago and the ensuing conversations might be useful to include if the mods have the super powers to retrieve them and possibly include them in this thread. As you can imagine Jenny was not a fan of incarceration and I was more of a throw away the key and give them punishment beatings kind of guy.

    My view on prison is that I have no interest in rehabilitation. Prison should be about punishment and if hardened and persistent criminals keep returning to prison they should be broken until they get the message. Prison is about hard time, wasted time, time to regret, time to reflect....lots of time. I don't give a flying f*ck about their boohoo sob story, right is right and wrong is wrong, we all know the difference but some just take advantage and hope to get off lightly and most do.

    We need to build more prisons, the government is sitting on lots of surplus land. We need to introduce hard labour and forced labour especially so for nonces who should have to survive in general population. Also, all cultural and religious rights should be suspended and a single regime and diet for all inmates should be introduced. All inmates should have to survive in the same environment, they will soon level themselves out and a natural order will be found and any socially unacceptables will be doubtless found dead and weeded out of the system via natural justice. In short prison should be a terrible place that nobody would want to go to.

    Clearly there needs to be something for released prisoners to do and as most employers won't touch an ex-con the government will need to provide work so external work houses with board and lodging in exchange for vital work such a roads and drains and groundworking could be provided. As most released prisoners will be old anyway after serving their full sentences without parole they probably won't be able to work for long anyway but they are not likely to cause trouble either and that is all that matters in the end.

    I would be particularly keen to see jail time introduced for drug users and addicts as we need to clean this sh*t out of society. If there is no demand the dealers will go out of business. Even possession of a splif should get a mandatory 6 months inside. I really have no tolerance for the drugs thing, it is one of the prime drivers for our societal degeneration that we see going on at the moment.

    We have a current population of 66 million and rising fast, life is tough enough without having to deal with criminal scumbags. We need to be much tougher than we are right now, much tougher.

    I know, I'm just a big softy :)

    Celebrate it, Anticipate it, Yesterday's faded, Nothing can change it, Life's what you make it

  • Here's a thought: There must be an appreciable number of prisoners who are also builders. Why not get them to build new prisons? There are also a lot of fit young men who could do the labouring needed.

    IIRC POW's used to have to build their own camps.

    Despite Jenny's resignation from this forum her posts on this subject from about a year ago and the ensuing conversations might be useful to include if the mods have the super powers to retrieve them and possibly include them in this thread.

    All postings stay in the main data base unless an admin removes them even if they are not shown on the forum which is the presentation layer of the site.

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  • Prison, as currently being run and administered doesn't work. In fact the whole idea of crime and punishment has become so screwed up that no-body has any confidence any more.

    Yes there are criminals who break the law...thats one half of the problem. ---BUT------- The other part is that there is no active punishment available for sentencing. Jail should not be a long term solution, It should be short, sharp and degrading. Prisons should be places that NO-ONE should ever want to return to. NO television, No playstations, No nice warm cozy environment. Make the prisoners work all day for the benefit of the community. Offences such as attacking prison staff should be dealt with by physical painful punishment. Hard labour should be just that --- HARD Labour.

    Of course we would see howls of protest from the "Holier Than Thou, snowflakes" --- but most sensible people would approve of a tougher regime.

    The Voice of Reason

  • The other side of the coin is that instead of putting all our money and effort into prisoners and prisons is to put that money and effort into society and clean up society so nobody has to commit the crime in the first place. Prevention rather than creating an environment that creates crime to then go and punish them for it. Of course this will never happen because the legal and prison system is a big money earner but instead of that money going into prisons it feeds the crown, lords, lawyers and the rest of the so called good upstanding members of the public who work for the legal system. Prisons are no longer a prison like in the old days and are now a business more than anything else. For a successful business you need returning customers.

    I would say that 90% of prisoners are not born evil and of course that other 10% either need executing or put in solitary for life but why waste money on keeping someone like that until they die. Take the shortcut and save the cash I say instead feeding more money to the rich by keeping the system going. Then there are the sex crimes. Now should they be in the class of born evil, no they are not born that way and sex crimes are another cause and effect of society. We are surrounded by sex in advertising and everywhere else so if someone is not getting any, especially a man then there are natural urges that may overpower someone's decision making. Maybe its a medical condition and those hormones need suppressing. Brothels and prostitution is made a crime so these kind of folk have to then look elsewhere. Another way to create customers.

    Kiddy fiddlers are weak because kids are an easy target and it can be hidden under the position of power. Most of them the kind of person that creates the legal system whether that's religion or the law of the crown. Pretty much anyone that has some kind of authority and power over someone else. In fact they are the real evil ones and many of them will also have a wife back home so it's there for them on a plate if they want it so it's more about the domineering power they are getting off on. Maybe the wife sees them for what they are and don't give them any back home and only stay for the money and the bloke accepts this because it gives them a cover along with their position of authority.

    Locking all drug addicts up is the most ridiculous thing I have heard. In that case you can lock up the majority of the population who are now all addicted to vaccines and those that drink alcohol. Doctors and pharma are the dealers along with the breweries and publicans. We could even extend that to food that is now pumped full of chemicals to get us addicted to certain foods. It's a bit like the sex crimes, brothel scenario again and it creates customers to make some things illegal. Legalise them all and let people do whatever they want to themselves and their own body. I would not be surprised if sugar is made into a controlled drug in the future to try and reduce fat people. They may even make the killing of animals and eating meat illegal eventually.

    It's all about money which is the biggest evil in this world more so than any of the above. What we also have now is the transferral of business from the health service to the prisons. A good 80% of prisoners have some kind of health or mental illness and the screws have to be social workers as well as screws. The same can be said for the police who eventually offload them to the prisons. People are like cattle being herded and moved around to juggle costs from A to B to suit whatever the political agenda is at the time. I think you would be surprised how many elderly are in prison now because they can't afford a care home and have no family. Ex Armed forces that have served the country too. These people may start off homeless but will eventually land in prison through one way or another. In fact in many cases prison is the fast track to getting the help and support and required access to services that one may have been hunting down with no luck in the first place, whether that's education, employment, mental health services, social care and housing and the rest of it, and surprise surprise most of that help will come from charities, not the system. Some of the most successful people started off from prison. Ozzie Osbourne, Billy Connelly etc. Even the likes of John McVicar who went on to become an author and journalist. People are told that crime does not pay but in fact in many cases it's the exact opposite.

  • The majority of the population would agree with you about weak punishments and the need for capital punishment to deal with the most serious offenders, but our politicians are too weak and so it will never happen.

    I don’t think many would agree with the radical changes you advocate for society, though!

  • The other side of the coin is that instead of putting all our money and effort into prisoners and prisons is to put that money and effort into society and clean up society so nobody has to commit the crime in the first place.

    They are doing in this in parts of the USA at the moment. They have just stopped arresting and prosecuting and as a result nobody goes to prison but I don't think you would call it cleaning up society. This is what you get when you are stupid enough to defund the Police. Of course, they are calling it organised retail theft to give it a veneer of something bigger but in reality it is a bunch of independent scumbags just helping themselves because they know that things have degenerated so far they can please themselves. As a result the companies impacted are just closing their stores and moving elsewhere. In this instance it is Walgreens a large pharmacy chain, a company on which many locals desperately rely for their medications etc.

    Walgreens San Francisco

    Celebrate it, Anticipate it, Yesterday's faded, Nothing can change it, Life's what you make it

  • That's not cleaning up society. Do those people have the money to be able to buy the drugs. If they are drug addicts are they getting the help and support with their addiction. All they have done there is remove the police. Of course that is not going to work if they don't fix the cause of the problems. Put yourself in their shoes and see it from their perspective. I bet some of them would rather be in prison to help them with a detox. Anyway America has bigger problems than that when it comes to healthcare. Maybe what they should do is for every theft from the pharmacy make big pharma pay the pharmacy to cover the costs. Better still big pharma should hand the drugs out for free to those in poverty considering they are the one's that create the addiction.

  • Also our prisons are over crowded, so what can be done to improve the situation, can anything actually be done?

    I'll come back to this thread when I can, but most in prison are there related to drug offences and/or have mental issues, so that should give some clues.

  • I'll come back to this thread when I can, but most in prison are there related to drug offences and/or have mental issues, so that should give some clues.

    Do you mean legalise recreational drugs and/or providing better access to drug rehabilitation also improve mental healthcare?

  • Not actually legalise, no and that's for one specific reason.

    In my area, or at least not far away, was a girl in the 90s who died after taking drugs. Her name was Leah Betts and my brother knew her family. She wasn't from a council estate by the way, far from it, but her death had a massive impact on my area and possibly the wider country too, as it got a load of publicity. After she died there was a massive call to legalise drugs and this is something her parents campaigned against and they won the arguement because even "minor" drugs can kill and also lead onto taking harder drugs. So, legalise, no.

    However....

    There was a HBO drama called The Wire (it was brillant) and they explored this subject during one of their seasons and it was very interesting. On the show, the police created a "tolerance zone" where drug dealers were allowed to peddle their trade, along with pimps and prostitutes and for a while it worked, until a child died.

    I'm not suggesting something like this, but there does need to be a system where the "business" can be taken out of drugs and the addicts gradually weaned off them, but I would always be against full legalisation for the reason I've already stated, so not sure how it would work.

    Of course the reason that many in prison are on drugs is they come from the "care" system. They have no families and no one gives a damn about them (a bit like the elderly) so until that is addressed, we'll get nowhere.

    I partially agree with Norra's comments and will come back to this later.

  • I fully understand those people who say drugs should not be legalised and I understand the arguments. But what they are not getting is that the existing law around drugs does not work and encourages criminality.

    The opposing view, to which I subscribe, is that drugs should be available for sale from designated centres run by the NHS. Each person would be registered and appropriate advice given on the risks of taking them and the safe means of consuming them.

    This would enable people who wanted to stop taking drugs simply to do so, or to seek advice on weaning themselves off them. At present, people take their drugs off dealers, and if the dealers pick up that anyone wants to give up, they come up with special offers to encourage them to keep going, and most do.

    So under a legalised system, drug lords would no longer find it profitable to sell the drugs, and all the criminal hierarchy would be gone. The criminal drugs trade would disappear, drug takers could stop more easily, crimes by drug takers to fund their habits would decline and some would be persuaded of the downsides by the medical teams.

    Not only that, but some much needed money would flow into the NHS arising from commercial profits forthcoming from the sale of these drugs.

    It is, actually, an elegant solution, but our politicians won’t touch it with a barge pole.

    And so the problem continues….

  • She wasn't from a council estate by the way, far from it,

    Sorry but that comment made me chuckle, just don't see the relevance of that comment, I know plenty of people from "council estates" they are not all drug addicts and or dealers, and for the record I myself actually live on what could be classed as a "council estate" and I'm not a drug addict and or dealer either. But do feel free to look down your nose at me I wont be offended. :P  :D

  • I remember the Leah Betts story and just did a Google to remind me of the facts - this comes up from the search...

    "Leah Sarah Betts was a young woman from Latchingdon, Essex, United Kingdom, who died shortly after her 18th birthday after taking an ecstasy tablet, and then drinking approximately 7 litres of water in a 90 minute period. Four hours later, she collapsed into a coma, from which she did not recover."

    Just for clarification 7 litres is 12.3 pints or 1.54 gallons. Clearly the Ecstacy drug had a devastating impact on the girls system but I would contend that anyone drinking that volume of water in 90 minutes is likely to be in trouble, that is not far off the same as drowning.

    Celebrate it, Anticipate it, Yesterday's faded, Nothing can change it, Life's what you make it

  • Leah Betts

    You have hit home mentioning her ;( and I remember it well as it was at the centre of my scene at the time. She basically drank to much water and died from internal drowning and at the time it was being pushed by the media the importance of keeping fluid intakes up while on Ecstasy. Yes it was important to keep fluid intakes up but it had to be an even balance of knowing when to drink water and when to not drink so much that you overdose and internally drown so tissues become flooded and organs start to shut down Uncontrolled sweating and body temperature regulating. The kidney's are put under an immense amount of stress while on E in the same way the liver is for someone that drinks alcohol.

    I personally must have taken at least 500 pills over the period of 10 years raving from the late mid 80's to mid 90's so have first hand experience and knowledge on this subject. The dehydration came from the small amounts of strychnine (rodent poison) that was often mixed into pills. I say small but the amount would vary and the pills she took happened to be particularly strong. An experienced raver would never take a whole tablet in one go and would take half a tablet to begin with to test the waters so to speak. Then give it 30 - 40 mins to come on and see where your at. It was the strychnine that also caused the muscle spasms to make one dance and also cause jaw ache if you did not chew gum. The hallucinogens came from other ingredients whether that be MDMA, a small amount of smack, or something else or even a mix. E's where basically a cocktail of drugs. Energy would come from barbiturates like speed or even caffeine.

    I don't recall if Leah was drinking alcohol or not not but that is a major no no and should never be thrown in the mix as it adds to the dehydration. A sensible venue would not even sell alcohol in the club and would only provide bottles of water. One positive thing that came form Lea's death was the increase in test kits but many would be wary of approaching a team to test their pills in a club as you could be grassed up or have your pills confiscated and there there concerns over anonymity. There was also the other issue that having testing teams in a club is like an open admittance by the club owners as to what goes on there and it is illegal and if clubs are caught there are large fines or worse they could be closed down. Many clubs turned a blind eye to drug taking but not the dealers, though in some venues they would be in on it, whether that was for profit margins or external pressure and threats from the drug dealers and distribution enforcers.

    The problem here is not the drug taking per se as you will never stop that and it will just evolve as one thing is eradicated into a new possibly even more dangerous drug like legal highs became for example. The problem here is the cocktails of non standard measurements or ingredients used. They should be made legally and sold legally like tobacco and alcohol along with all the health warnings, risk assessments and education for those users as we do with tobacco and alcohol. Bloody hell the tax that could be made from it as long as they don't take the piss could replace the tax they will lose from petrol sales. I say take the piss because have you seen the prices of CBD vape juice and other CBD products on the market. It's cheaper to go and buy some weed and then get all the benefits of THC alongside the CBD and not be ripped off by some weak commercialised product with placebo effect. To much CBD is as bad as too much THC...you need an even balance of yin and yang to counteract each other and the strain can veer further to either side depending on the buzz or treatment your after.

    The buzz can also be a pain killer in itself as we experience when taking things like Codeine. If you want stronger you take Morphine (aka heroin) and if you want weaker you take Paracetamol etc. To much of a good thing in either direction is bad for you and every drug whether legal or illegal can have adverse effects and I include Tobacco, Caffeine and Alcohol in that. Jeez we could even go as far as adding non natural sugars in the foods we eat. We are surrounded by and take various chemicals daily. The human body is like a walking pharmacy and it's all about preventing, encouraging and re-routing electrical signals to the brain and other body parts.

    Of course the reason that many in prison are on drugs is they come from the "care" system. They have no families and no one gives a damn about them (a bit like the elderly) so until that is addressed, we'll get nowhere

    That is complete nonsense stereotyping but it's not your fault. It's how things are portrayed by the authorities and the media. Anyone from any background can be addicted to drugs. Look at the numbers of people addicted to what their doctor have prescribed to them. The doc stops prescribing and they then have to go elsewhere. It's a massive problem as instead of the doctor being their dealer they have to then go to other sources which could be less controlled like online pharmacies abroad or the black market. The majority of drug addicts will be 9-5 workers who like to take something after work or on the weekends. There are also many that will contently take drugs while at work and in some circumstances it may even aid their work. There will be bucket loads of Cocaine taken in the stock exchange toilets. The majority of drug addicts are those you would least expect to be a drug addict.

  • It's not complicated at all. Basically anyone who chooses to take illegal substances is volunteering to suffer death or serious health problems. It's as straightforward as that.

    The answer is education from primary school age that illegal drug taking is stupid and can ruin your life.

    Also any so-called Celebrities found to be taking illegal drugs should be banned and shunned by the media and never work in the entertainment industry again.

    Young people should be shown that there are serious consequences to taking illegal substances.

    The Voice of Reason

  • You can't define only illegal drug taking as bad for you as either legal or illegal drug taking can either be good or bad for you. The biggest drug problem we have in the country right now (not including alcohol) is anti depressants and ADHD drugs as well as the high doses of pain killers being prescribed or bought over the counter.

  • With the exception of tobacco and out of all the different drugs, legal and illegal, I have taken over the years, the one that has caused the most damage is Codeine. 12.5mg in every Nurofen Plus tablet. I now have to be very careful with Codeine unless coated in Phosphate because of the damage to my stomach lining and risk of stomach ulcers. So Codeine Phosphate I'm alright with but can no longer can take Dihydrocodeine or equivalent. These days I try to not take anything for pain so have to live with it unless I have some Tramadol laying around but even then I wont take them unless absolutely necessary as they will eventually cause damage. I live with severe Osteoarthritis from previously broken bones, a completely dislocated and tethered ankle, half the Tallus bone missing and calcium build up, I also have no fluid under the patella in my knee so it's bone against bone grinding and one leg slightly shorter than the other so puts pressure on my lower back. I would have been better off if they chopped my leg off and gave me a false one. Oh and I have four broken toes that have heeled in the broken position as they where never fixed so a couple of the the tops of my toes rub on the inside of my shoes or trainers and takes the skin off until red raw which then scabs over until I pick them off.

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