Yeah, that's probably true.

Damn, that's better than my apartment.

Grand Theft Auto is in no way realistic. But I do agree about the waste of tax dollars.

Along with the game consoles & computers, etc. that are paid for by the U.K. taxpayers, it's also been revealed (and mentioned briefly in the linked article) that the U.K. government pays more per day to feed the prisoners than they do the patients in NHS hospitals.

What a lovely concept. Give prisoners luxuries that most of their victims can't even begin to afford & feed them better than a law abiding hospital patient.

None of you understand, the prisoner is the States little snowflake... They have nore rights and expectations than your own precious little snowflake!

Bathia_Mapes: What a lovely concept. Give prisoners luxuries that most of their victims can't even begin to afford & feed them better than a law abiding hospital patient.

You don't know what they're in there for.

But I do agree about the waste of tax dollars.

It's a waste of tax dollars until you figure out how much in-prison "disciplinary actions" cost...which is much higher than you even want to be made aware of...

/IMHO -- all prisons should be turned into factories and they should be supervised workers...producing enough to pay for the prison with all excess going to restitution for the vicitms... If you become too much of a tax burden by being unwilling to work -- so-long....

Bathia_Mapes: What a lovely concept. Give prisoners luxuries that most of their victims can't even begin to afford & feed them better than a law abiding hospital patient.

I really think we need to bring back chain gangs and the like. There's enough manual labor work out there that needs to be done. For the majority of prisoners, there's NO REASON why they can't do it.

Make them farm workers, road workers, something like that. It'll teach them skills that they can use once they get out of prison AND it'll help get things built.

The only thing a prisoners should be doing in their cells is pondering the actions that got them there.

BobtheFascist: The only thing a prisoners should be doing in their cells is pondering the actions that got them there.

And raping those who fark deems rapists.

I really think we need to bring back chain gangs and the like. There's enough manual labor work out there that needs to be done. For the majority of prisoners, there's NO REASON why they can't do it.

Make them farm workers, road workers, something like that. It'll teach them skills that they can use once they get out of prison AND it'll help get things built.

Apparently forcing incarcerated people to work is against "civil rights". But the alternative is allowing these idiots to bankrupt our states... Which we are apparently willing stand for...

kidsizedcoffin: And raping those who fark deems rapists rapeworthy.

SpaceyCat: Make them farm workers, road workers, something like that. It'll teach them skills that they can use once they get out of prison AND it'll help get things built.

I couldn't agree more.

BobtheFascist: The only thing a prisoners should be doing in their cells is pondering the actions that got them there.

See above for permitted activities.

Neurochemist: Apparently forcing incarcerated people to work is against "civil rights". But the alternative is allowing these idiots to bankrupt our states... Which we are apparently willing stand for...

Damn liberals. Well then working should get you access to privileges: activities, snacks, visits, etc. Not working should get you a bare cell and no frills. Maybe they could just "encourage" it more?

Since it seems that Michigan gets new license plates every year now, someone must be busy in Jackson.

I'm posting this from my PS3 in prison so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

Sounds to me like they're preparing them for the real world - numbed by video games.

BobtheFascist: The only thing a prisoners should be doing in their cells is pondering the actions that got them there.

What about having to do really large jigsaw puzzles with tiny pieces where the pictures are of magic eye artwork?

Yep, lets make those people who committed non-violent offenses like smoking the evil weed work their behinds off. Let's make a prison system just like China, maybe we can make some money off of these sub-human inmates.

I say, we throw anyone in who eats to much fatty food as well, or smokes in public, or who dare talk bad about our government!

Prison isn't a place for people to be rehabilitated! It's a god-damn American institution for profit!

Modern Britain for you... inmates get lots of food, heating, and luxuries. Regular law-abiding people can't even afford the basics, and forget luxuries, they're taxed at silly levels so that they can pay for prisoners. Am I the only one who thinks hard working people should be able to afford playstations and prisoners should be working to pay back society since they're living high on the hog?

<b><a target="_blank" href="http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3778274&IDComment=43046 236#c43046236">Chunes</a>:</b> <i>Damn, that's better than my apartment.</i>

STATE OF THE ART. I wonder if there's a NES around the corner.

submitter: "Offenders should be learning and preparing for the world of work [crime], not idly playing Grand Theft Auto and preparing to return to crime [fight]."

FTFY.

I don't have a softly softly approach to law and order, speed cameras aside I'm slightly to the right of Ghenghis Khan, but bored prisoners are dangerous prisoners, and dangerous prisoners are expensive prisoners. £200k is a drop in the ocean of the prison service budget.

I see no problem with prisoners allowed to have some basic things like that. Give them something to keep them busy so they stay out of fights and other trouble.

I'd like to see some sort of work system where they have to earn such things and have to behave to keep them though.

FunkOut: BobtheFascist: The only thing a prisoners should be doing in their cells is pondering the actions that got them there.

What about having to do really large jigsaw puzzles with tiny pieces where the pictures are of magic eye artwork?

And have another Attica on our hands? My God man, think of the consequences.

You guys are all nuts. I'd rather have prisoners stabbing fake thugs then real thugs.

Consoles? No PC games? Okay, that's pretty close to torture. Carry on.

Lots43: You guys are all nuts. I'd rather have prisoners stabbing fake thugs then real thugs.

Yeah, stab 'em all, one group and then the next.

Thought; did the prisoners EARN the machines? I'd have no problems if prisoners can buy the game system using credit built by doing chores/chain gang tasks. That's exactly the kind of stuff they need to be learning.

And anyone who seriously thinks prisoners deserve nothing whatsoever is crazy. Throwing con into a bare prison for twenty three hours a day just melts their brain and turns them even more crazy. It may not make the conservatives happy, but prisoners NEEEED some entertainment.

Bathia_Mapes
Along with the game consoles & computers, etc. that are paid for by the U.K. taxpayers, it's also been revealed (and mentioned briefly in the linked article) that the U.K. government pays more per day to feed the prisoners than they do the patients in NHS hospitals.

Cash is not indicative of nutritive value.

Chunes: Damn, that's better than my apartment.

Who do I have to stab to get a place like that?

Oh, come on, people. They're giving them PSOnes and Xboxes. Might as well give them a donkey kong watch. It's not like they're getting fully-loaded Alienware systems or Wiis or anything actually good. It is, after all, prison.
I mean, really. Being confined to PSOne? Horrible fate.

evilbryan: Yep, lets make those people who committed non-violent offenses like smoking the evil weed work their behinds off. Let's make a prison system just like China, maybe we can make some money off of these sub-human inmates.

I say, we throw anyone in who eats to much fatty food as well, or smokes in public, or who dare talk bad about our government!

Prison isn't a place for people to be rehabilitated! It's a god-damn American institution for profit!

Why does it matter what they went in for? It's just manual labour. What, is a little bit of hard work going to hurt a pot-smoker?

Labour, making prisoners work IS rehabiliation, dumbass. If nothing else, teaching them a work ethic that they can take with them out of prison, instead of, "Oh, I'm broke, let's go knock over a 7-11".

Hell, I'd have no problem paying tax dollars to offer incentives for work above "standard" - in other words, letting the convicted make money while in jail if they prove industrious.

oh my god dj4aces: Grand Theft Auto is in no way realistic. But I do agree about the waste of tax dollars pounds.

liberalish: Damn liberals. Well then working should get you access to privileges: activities, snacks, visits, etc. Not working should get you a bare cell and no frills. Maybe they could just "encourage" it more?

I don't look at it that way. You break the law -- you cause society to monitor you -- you carry the bill.

If you and I stop working, we stop being able to purchase food and we starve to death. But that isn't happening in America.

In America, our logic works like this: We need to feed them and provide them shelter to stop them from becoming larger burdens on our system (through crime). We also feed them because the thought of people starving to death is so sad... And we also feed them because there are a few who are down on their luck and might actually make it out and back into society...

IMHO, a government like this is riddled with inefficiency.... If you are too lazy to do what it takes to survive, you die. If you cause tax-payers to have to monitor you .... and you are too lazy to work to cover the costs... you are choosing suicide.

FarkinNortherner: I don't have a softly softly approach to law and order, speed cameras aside I'm slightly to the right of Ghenghis Khan, ...

So aside from crimes that you know you will continue to commit on a regular basis, you support a tough system of law and order?

And all the pot smokers want it legalized...and this law keeps me from making super-big profits...

How about everything is fair and just, instead of tough and politically expedient?

The criticism of prison labor is that it is, in effect, legal slavery. This is especially poignant when private companies benefit from said labor. It benefits the company for more criminals to exist, which doesn't exactly encourage society to cut down on criminality.

It's my opinion that people in prison should have access to television, but not gaming consoles. Television can serve a purpose to keep those in prison in touch with the shared reality of society.

However, it does serve the purposes of society to keep excessive mindless entertainment out of the hands of criminals while at the same time providing good educational materials and opportunities. Boredom has a good way of pushing one into practical education, such as woodworking and electronics.

Neurochemist: liberalish: Damn liberals. Well then working should get you access to privileges: activities, snacks, visits, etc. Not working should get you a bare cell and no frills. Maybe they could just "encourage" it more?

I don't look at it that way. You break the law -- you cause society to monitor you -- you carry the bill.

If you and I stop working, we stop being able to purchase food and we starve to death. But that isn't happening in America.

In America, our logic works like this: We need to feed them and provide them shelter to stop them from becoming larger burdens on our system (through crime). We also feed them because the thought of people starving to death is so sad... And we also feed them because there are a few who are down on their luck and might actually make it out and back into society...

IMHO, a government like this is riddled with inefficiency.... If you are too lazy to do what it takes to survive, you die. If you cause tax-payers to have to monitor you .... and you are too lazy to work to cover the costs... you are choosing suicide.

We're not going to let people die, in prison or out. We have decided as a society against that. There are other ways of punishing an ill-behaving inmate that letting them starve in the cold. Otherwise, I generally agree with you. I said the privileges part because you said that there were civil rights laws or something preventing mandatory work hours. I'm all for some form of mandatory work. My only rules would be: Make it useful, no breaking rocks just because it's something to do; no profit for private enterprise, there is always going to be something to do for the state and anything that can be abused for profit will be abused; Quality performance can earn extra bonuses, there needs to be incentives, like the real world.

Most prisoners would jump at the chance to not be bored all day (I've done a public health project in a fairly large county jail, so that gives me some experience, I guess. They all said they were bored out of their minds most of the time.).

OMG everything is farked up, I almost wish I was in prison playing video games!

liberalish: My only rules would be: Make it useful, no breaking rocks just because it's something to do; no profit for private enterprise, there is always going to be something to do for the state and anything that can be abused for profit will be abused; Quality performance can earn extra bonuses, there needs to be incentives, like the real world.

This.

FTA-"However, from October, 18-rated titles will be banned in prisons altogether and the use of consoles will be restricted to only the best behaved prisoners or those on suicide watch."


WTF, for those on suicide watch. Let them take their selves out,so no more money will be spent on these criminals.

FlameDuck: OMG everything is farked up, I almost wish I was in prison playing video games!

but in fairness, it's a playstation 1

I'd rather have them playing video games and getting fat & lazy then working out all the time and getting stronger & better able to commit crimes.

SnarfVader: then than

Hmmm... Spend a few hundred on a playstation or spend thousands trying to control shanking and gang-rape, I wonder which one is better?

Let them have their consoles if it keeps them docile.

SnarfVader: I'd rather have them playing video games and getting fat & lazy then working out all the time and getting stronger & better able to commit crimes.

But video games could lead to hardened criminal thumbs.

Bad_Seed: Hmmm... Spend a few hundred on a playstation or spend thousands trying to control shanking and gang-rape, I wonder which one is better?

Let them have their consoles if it keeps them docile.

Playstation 1's shanking and gang-rape controllers are bulky and non-responsive. Sony's made incredible improvements on later models. You haven't shanked and gang-raped until you've done it on a PS 3.

liberalish: So aside from crimes that you know you will continue to commit on a regular basis, you support a tough system of law and order?

Yes, I'm perfectly happy to admit hypocrisy on that point, although speeding is not a serious offence in the eyes of the law (SP30s cannot be passed to a higher court) nor is it imprisonable.

And all the pot smokers want it legalized...and this law keeps me from making super-big profits...

Pot smoking has been effectively decriminalised.

How about everything is fair and just, instead of tough and politically expedient?

A tough prison regime is fair and just.

Danger Avoid Death:

Playstation 1's shanking and gang-rape controllers are bulky and non-responsive. Sony's made incredible improvements on later models. You haven't shanked and gang-raped until you've done it on a PS 3.

IT'S JAIL! Let them stick with there 10 year old shanking technology.

SpaceyCat: I really think we need to bring back chain gangs and the like. There's enough manual labor work out there that needs to be done. For the majority of prisoners, there's NO REASON why they can't do it.

Make them farm workers, road workers, something like that. It'll teach them skills that they can use once they get out of prison AND it'll help get things built.

Approves:



/hotlinked as it was commanded for us to do in the Bible

massagehammer: The criticism of prison labor is that it is, in effect, legal slavery. This is especially poignant when private companies benefit from said labor.

THIS THIS THIS. The fact that prisons are run for profit makes many, many things about them morally questionable to reprehensible. shiatty food? Buying rotten meat = profits. 24-hour lockdown that makes people crazy? Cheaper that way = more profits. Corrupt, incompetent guards? Sloppy screening = profit!

Forced labour in private prisons would be tantamount to Fascist concentration camps, regardless of why the cons are in there.

liberalish:
My only rules would be: Make it useful, no breaking rocks just because it's something to do; no profit for private enterprise, there is always going to be something to do for the state and anything that can be abused for profit will be abused; Quality performance can earn extra bonuses, there needs to be incentives, like the real world.

Yeah, like that. You can't rehabilitate everyone, but if you convince a % that working is a legitimate way to get ahead, that's great.

FarkinNortherner: A tough prison regime is fair and just.

No regime in the history of regimes has been fair or just. Regimes are funny like that.