15 September, 2005

Just a thought

I have always thought politics was so boring that I never really took any notice of what was going on around me. People say that I am above average intelligence you wouldn't think so with the kind I had led until a few years ago. Now I listen and learn about what's going on and sometimes I really do get annoyed when it does seem that the less fortunate are getting a raw deal. The guy from Norway said that where he lived there had been no crime until recently and that criminals now where treated better than most. Even in this country we have the half remission for what they call good behavior but even that seems to have become an automatic thing. They have TVs in their cells and three meals a day. I was just thinking if prison was made more of a punishment wouldn't it become the deterrent its meant to be. I once heard someone from the probation service say because of the number of people in prison reforming them is impossible. I think that's a load of b-llsh-t. Pardon my language. I have been in prison and when I was there you just had a radio and one hour a day if you were lucky. There were things like sewing mail bags to earn your miserly wage and lessons at night for a couple of hours that's what made it a prison but it's what made you not want to come back. Can we learn lessons that will benefit all? I don't know, but to be as soft as we are on criminals is a waste of time and of course we will have those people saying taking away someone's liberty should be enough. Anyway these are just my thoughts what do you think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's too much emphasis on people's rights these days and not enough on people's obligations. Life may well be too cushy for prisoners these days compared to the past. They expect their 'rights', of course when we think that they have really forfeited them. But we now live in a different, more affluent society from thirty, forty or fifty years' ago and you can't really lock people up in a time warp with nothing to do, nothing to keep them in touch with the modern, outside world and with no human dignity. Otherwise, how can you expect that one day they may be able to return to a semblance of normal lives?

Those deported in the last couple of centuries weren't all criminals in the true sense of the word. Some of them were bankrupts or unfortunates who were starving, some were even hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. I wouldn't want to go back to those good old days!