Thursday 6 August 2009

The pointlessness of it

The Sun...
CRIMINALS are being given exotic salsa dancing classes in prison.
Two officers stand guard while lags gyrate to the trendy Latin sounds in the prison gym.


How dare they? Don't they know they're in there for our revenge? They should be counting themselves lucky they're not still shitting in buckets that get emptied once a week.

Prisoners. Camping it up when they should be breaking rocks. It's youmanrightsgornmad!

Is that what I'm supposed to think?

Well, that's not all. The prison in question, Kirkham, has a putting green. Not just a putting green, but a putting green in capitals. And bold. That's how outrageous it is.

A source, obviously too shy to be named has revealed something that would probably be admitted by the prison itself...
Prisoners at Kirkham really do have a cushy deal. The thinking is that if the guards keep the prisoners happy, they'll behave.


Sound reasonable. if I was treated like an animal I be a bit rebellious, too.

There has been a big crackdown on drugs and mobile phones. The salsa and golf are seen as part of the solution. It would never happen without the blessing of prison bosses.


Again, what the problem? Drugs, obviously bad in a place like prison and mobile phones too, I suppose to some extent. And obviously it wouldn't happen without the governor's say so. It's tunnels and the manufacture of stabbing implements that the governor wouldn't know or approve of.

The article right at the bottom mentions that the dancing and putting green are not funded by the prison service, which should calm the reader down about, and also that these activities do not detract from the proper work and education and punishment that should be going on inside prison, either.

But still. All these dangerous, nasty people dancing and putting, they should be being punished. What the article is missing is that a category D prisons, as Kirkham is, is an open prison where lags coming to the end of their sentence and can be trusted are sent to as prison is about rehabilitation as well as punishment.

With interests and hobbies prisoners are less likely to re-offend, aren't they? And if it's not costing the taxpayer anything, then what is the problem? And so what is the point of the Sun's article?

2 comments:

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Wow, no posts for days and then 4 come along at once...

Any chance we should balance these out?

merrick said...

Don't you UNDERSTAND? Haven't you thought of the CONSEQUENCES?

These people are about to come out into SOCIETY! What will YOU say when they come and start putting all over YOUR neighbourhood or dancing in YOUR village hall? How would you like it THEN you lefty pinko probable homosexual?

We all know that prisons are like hotels, just as beggars are all rich really. These are not idle vengeful thoughts to gag our niggling conscience, but facts. Which is why we're all out begging and forming orderly queues to get into prison.