Prisoner's rights... has it gone a bit too far?

[immense]

Well i'm afraid a nice bed, nice facilities, a gym, workshops, game consoles, McDonalds as a treat [the list goes on] isnt what most people would call daunting.

nice bed - it's standard
nice facilities - standard
gym - not all
workshops - fundamental aim of our prisons is to reform criminals
game consoles - not always true

[Inseriousity.]

I am media driven because thanks to a free media in this country you learn the goings-on of this country and the shambolic way it is governed, of course if you read the likes of Polly Toynbee you may aswell declare yourself insane and march back off to Pollyland where crime is falling and everythings 'happy-diddy go'. It is your idea of hell because you are well off and not a criminal, it would be my idea of hell as well because I am well off and enjoy freedom and understand its value - these people [criminals] do not have that same outlook, hence why they commit crimes in the first place.

The criminals do come first in Britain, in this country you take a life and get around 10 years for it - a life isnt worth 10 years, its worth a life.

The media exists to sell and make money, not to inform and educate people. Have you been to prison? No. Why haven't you been to prison? Cos you know that being out of it is a lot better than being in it. That goes for the majority of people, not the minority as the media would have you believe.

[-:Undertaker:-]

nice bed - it's standard
nice facilities - standard
gym - not all
workshops - fundamental aim of our prisons is to reform criminals
game consoles - not always true

..and again, better than what most would get on the outside - many decent working people cant even afford gym membership yet criminals who pay no tax and probably havent ever paid anything much in tax get it free - what kind of a reforming process is that?

The reforming isnt working because we have a swival door system now in prison, you go in (rarely nowadays) then come out, then go back in again so it is obviously not working which is why we need tougher sentences for all variations of criminals.

The media exists to sell and make money, not to inform and educate people. Have you been to prison? No. Why haven't you been to prison? Cos you know that being out of it is a lot better than being in it. That goes for the majority of people, not the minority as the media would have you believe.

The media does exist to inform people whilst also making a profit, the likes of Peter Hitchens and co didnt become journalists to make money - they became journalists because they enjoy writing and putting their views across in which to do so they need to make a living and the paper itself needs money to be able to be printed and circulated. Now I know prison isnt better than my outside and my life, but I also know that for a lot of people that prison is better for them than their usual lives - hence why we have people offending time and time again.

If it was so dreadful and awful, why do they keep re-offending?

[immense]

What do you want them to do? You must agree it's beneficial to try and reform them to try and make Britain safer. Not everyone is educated like us and you have to remember that. They need to have something to channel their enthusiasm into else it'd make our whole prison system pointless. It's not at the moment because it can still reform people as has been shown time and time again.

[-:Undertaker:-]

What do you want them to do? You must agree it's beneficial to try and reform them to try and make Britain safer. Not everyone is educated like us and you have to remember that. They need to have something to channel their enthusiasm into else it'd make our whole prison system pointless. It's not at the moment because it can still reform people as has been shown time and time again.

I want them to serve their sentences whilst having a miserable time reflecting on what they have done. I do not want them playing on consoles, going the gym and lounging around in workshops at the expense of the taxpayer which includes their victims - essentially you have a system where the victims are paying for the criminals to have a good time to channel their 'enthusiasm'. Well I am sorry but if you have an enthusiasm for crime that doesnt mean you deserve special treatment, it means you should be locked away in a simple cell with no entertainment/facilities to take your mind off the boredom and awfulness of the place you deserve to be in because of your crimes.

The prison system is not there to reform (not that its doing that anyway) and give the criminals a good time at the expense of the taxpayer - it is there to protect the general public from the criminal whilst also giving the criminal a hard time to deter them from committing any crimes again.

[Black_Apalachi]

What else are they going to do though, they can't literally be expected to walk around the prison or sit in their cell all day.

That's how I always imagined it.

[Adamm]

4 walls, a hole for pee and poo and a mattress.

anything else and it's not a prison. they're in there for a reason, make them pay. room needs to be about 8ft by 6ft, grey.

too worried about human rights cos we're a PUSHOVER NATION

[Hitman]

4 walls, a hole for pee and poo and a mattress.

anything else and it's not a prison. they're in there for a reason, make them pay. room needs to be about 8ft by 6ft, grey.

too worried about human rights cos we're a PUSHOVER NATION

Exactly.

The other problem with prisons is that the people inside have all done crimes and some will have done big crimes or will have been in the 'game' for a long time. So a petty criminal goes in, conditions aren't too hard for them and they mingle with bigger people who teach them more tricks of the trade. By the time they leave they're armed with loads more information than when they went in! A 'college of crime' as somebody put it.

Wasn't it David Cameron using the statistics '9/10 offenders re-offend when out of prison'? If that's true then the prisoner rehab/reform thing seriously isn't working. You can't force people to change, they have to really want to - I doubt many prisoners want to.

There was this thing my dad heard on the radio about a couple of immigrants (Eastern European I believe, can't remember) and prison conditions in the UK were much better than living conditions in their home country, so the committed crimes just to go to prison. Crazy.

Have your reform centres and try to help them, but they shouldn't have luxuries like TV, McDonalds and game consoles. It's ridiculous.

[Hardstylerz]

...Fix the justice system first, 3 years for making child pornography; sounds like a flawed legal system right there, the guy deserves to be strung up by the balls..

[cocaine]

prisoners should only get basic rights