The Government should stop building prisons and invest in treatment for addicts and effective health and social care, campaigners have said.On June 12 , the prison population in England and Wales was 83,001 - a 38% increase since the Government came to power in 1997, and that at the end of April, 82 out of the 140 prisons in England and Wales were officially overcrowded.On arrival in local prisons, 70-80% of prisoners test positive for Class A drugs.In almost half of violent crimes (48%) the victim believed the offender or offenders to be under the influence of alcohol. A survey by the Ministry of Justice found that more than a quarter of newly sentenced prisoners reported a long-standing physical disorder or disability.More than half of all elderly prisoners suffered from a mental disorder.
Juliet Lyon, director of the Trust, said: "it is cruel and inhumane to imprison people who are mentally ill or suffer from profound learning disabilities, so why are ministers still hell bent on pouring public money into prison building when they should be investing in treatment for addicts and effective health and social care instead? Ever-growing numbers of sick people recycled around a bleak prison system is not the way to do it. It's time to stop mindless prison building and cut crime by sensibly improving public health."
SOYMB goes further , it is time to stop crime by removing the cause of crime - the private property system needs abolishing !
For all the 200 years of reform, prisons, like the poor, are still with us. Prison is an indictment of the capitalist system. Prison means punishment, generally punishment for the infraction of property laws. In the more exceptional cases of punishment for personal crimes, it results in the further alienation of already psychologically damaged individuals, who need treatment not punishment. Socialism means the abolition, not just of nasty jails, but of all places of punishment.
Attempts to explain the increase in the prison population are soon confronted with the fact that the property rights of capitalism make for a huge cobweb of repression and denial of access to human resources.
Prisons were originally conceived as places of "reform" and rehabilitation--in America they are often still referred to as "correctional" facilities--but for political and economic reasons the ethos rapidly changed to one of punishment and segregation. If, on the other hand, prisons are intended to rehabilitate offenders and reduce the incidence of crime, evidence shows they clearly do not work. Firstly, statistics reveal that once sent to prison, a person is far more likely to re-offend; and secondly, despite more people being imprisoned than ever before, the crime problem shows no signs of diminishing.
What, then, does the convict learn from the experience of imprisonment? For many the harsh lesson is that society is prepared to pay thousands of pounds to punish you, but not even a small fraction of that amount is forthcoming to prevent you turning to crime in the first place; in other words, punishing the poor for nothing more than their shortage of money. It is unlikely that many prisoners emerge from the experience with a more positive attitude to the iniquitous socio-economic system which first condemns them to a life of poverty, and then, when temptation gets the better of them, condemns them again to be punished. It's no wonder that prison does little to discourage crime.
Conspicuous inequality is what leads the poor to try to obtain a little more by any means available. If politicians wanted to reduce crime within capitalism, they would establish a system to counsel, aid and attempt to rehabilitate offenders--alas, not politically popular and not many votes in it. If they were serious about eradicating crime, they would identify and attempt to remove the causes of crime. This, however, would raise questions about why we need private property, money, privilege, etc.--not likely to be tackled by most politicians, as the one thing they agree on is the continuance and support of a social system in which a minority owns most of the wealth and exploits the rest of us to maintain it.
"While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." - Eugene Debs
We're born in a prison
Raised in a prison
Sent to a prison called school
We cry in a prison
We love in a prison
We dream in a prison like fools
We workin' a prison
And hate in a prison
And die in a prison as a rule
We live in a prison
Among judges and wardens
And wait for no reason for you
We laugh in a prison
Go through all four seasons
And die with no vision of truth
John Lennon
INCARCERATING PEOPLE "FOR PROFIT" IS IN A WORD....WRONG!
ReplyDeleteEven if one does not ask or pretends not to see the rope and the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing solemnly at attention in the middle of the room, it remains apparent that the mere presence of a private “for profit” driven prison business in our country undermines the U.S Constitution and subsequently the credibility of the American criminal justice system. In fact, until all private prisons in America have been abolished and outlawed, “the promise” of fairness and justice at every level of this country’s judicial system will remain unattainable. We must restore the principles and the vacant promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to "job-out" its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the correctional and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect. There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicism, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.
My hope is that you will support the National Public Service Council to Abolish Private Prisons (NPSCTAPP) with a show of solidarity by signing "The Single Voice Petition"
http://www.petitiononline.com/gufree2/petition.html
Please visit our website for further information: http://www.npsctapp.blogspot.com
–Ahma Daeus
"Practicing Humanity Without A License"...
A lot of penal reformers raged against the privatising of prisons, on the grounds that it was immoral to make profit out of punishing people by locking them up. Yet many of these same reformers could be relied on to denounce the shortcomings – the brutality, the primitive facilities, the aimlessness and corruption – of STATE prisons.
ReplyDeleteThe number of women deliberately harming themselves in prison has almost doubled in five years – despite repeated government promises to improve conditions in women's jails.Officials recorded 12,560 cases of women prisoners injuring themselves
ReplyDeleteAlthough women make up just five per cent of the prison population in England and Wales, they account for more than half of all self-harming incidents
Many of the women in prison have been convicted of minor crimes, but suffer high levels of mental illness and drug abuse.
Trust, said: "Women injure themselves repeatedly in prison because they are mostly in a terrible state: poor, scared and ill, hurting from painful separation from their children, and detoxing from drugs and drink."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/epidemic-of-selfharm-sweeps-womens-jails-1721544.html