Something's not quite right here
I was listening to the radio the other day, I know, right !, and they were discussing some criminal in prison who's apparently reformed during his last two years in prison. He was convicted over some gang related killing ( I think, I'm not really a paying attention to the news sort of person ) but in the last two years he hasn't been involved in any violent incidents in the prison, he's furthered his education, gotten into fitness and has even taken part in the prison pantomime. Admittedly this is where I tuned in properly because the thought of convicts doing a pantomime made me chuckle. Then it for me thinking, this is supposed to be our prison system and its kind of a bit of a joke.
A lot of people who go into prison later go on to reoffend and for them prison can be
A social networking opportunity, a way to hone those skills. But then there's some
Who do reform or at Least have the opportunity to do so. So from what I gather many prisons allow mobile phones
Or at least don't do enough to ensure prisoners don't have access to them
, they have TVs and sometimes game consoles. They have libraries and prisoners can do courses and now they do pantomimes! Seriously and this is punishment how exactly ? now my understanding of the prison system is that it's supposed to be a deprivation of your
Freedom and I know there is violence and drug problems and so on but it seems to me that there might be a few too
Many perks.
Clearly our prison system isn't working, they are always talking about overcrowding and we'll soon reach a stage where we have more criminals than we know what to do With and what's the
Plan then? Michel Foucault, the late French philosopher, talked quite extensively on crime and punishment and one of the more interesting points he made is that while our prison systems have been proven to not work that one of the biggest problems we are facing is that
people don't know how to think about the crime and punishment without thinking about prison and I think this is true.
We are stuck with this system that isn't working because our society doesn't know how to deal with criminals in any other way.
And while this flawed system remains unchanged I have to wonder when a men's prison does a pantomime like Cinderella who plays the women's roles because I think that's something I'd like to see
A lot of people who go into prison later go on to reoffend and for them prison can be
A social networking opportunity, a way to hone those skills. But then there's some
Who do reform or at Least have the opportunity to do so. So from what I gather many prisons allow mobile phones
Or at least don't do enough to ensure prisoners don't have access to them
, they have TVs and sometimes game consoles. They have libraries and prisoners can do courses and now they do pantomimes! Seriously and this is punishment how exactly ? now my understanding of the prison system is that it's supposed to be a deprivation of your
Freedom and I know there is violence and drug problems and so on but it seems to me that there might be a few too
Many perks.
Clearly our prison system isn't working, they are always talking about overcrowding and we'll soon reach a stage where we have more criminals than we know what to do With and what's the
Plan then? Michel Foucault, the late French philosopher, talked quite extensively on crime and punishment and one of the more interesting points he made is that while our prison systems have been proven to not work that one of the biggest problems we are facing is that
people don't know how to think about the crime and punishment without thinking about prison and I think this is true.
We are stuck with this system that isn't working because our society doesn't know how to deal with criminals in any other way.
And while this flawed system remains unchanged I have to wonder when a men's prison does a pantomime like Cinderella who plays the women's roles because I think that's something I'd like to see
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