Homes Not Jails march with anti bin tax campaigners to Mountjoy Prison tonight

by matt Mon Sep 22, 2003 13:23

So we just let all the criminals out to roam the streets?? What an excellent idea. I'm sure the warm hearted anarchists of Dublin will be pleased to put them all up in their homes. One good thing that might emerge from the incarcaretion of Higgins is that he will realise the differences between political prisoners of the type he has condemned over the past 30 years, and the scum who live off already beleaguered working class communities.

by ¡@! - warm casa Mon Sep 22, 2003 13:36

and along the way the difference between economically motivated petty crime and scumbag crime, and just by chance the difference between economical criminalisation and scumbag crime.
For verily indeed, the prisons are filled with the innocent.
-First thing you learn.
Everyone is innocent inside.
So what percentage of inmates did the scumbag crime? What percentage of inmates are murderers, paedophiles, rapists, and gruesome monsters?
& what percentage of inmates are problem drug users, forgotten poor, bintax protesters?

I recommend visiting Benetton.
Colors magazine issue 50.
http://www.benetton.com/colors/
you navigate through the "archives" and click on 50.

I don't recommend being an inmate.
You _·_really learn_·_ the difference between criminals then.

by matt Mon Sep 22, 2003 14:34

Are they really?? Do you not think that there is any difference between say Joe Higgins or Clare Daly or Bobby Sands or Nelson Mandela (just to pick some random examples of people who were imprisoned becasue of their POLITICS) and the scumbag who breaks into your granny's to get enough money to buy heroin? Not to mention the real scum who run the drugs business. Cop on. And don't give me that crap about knowing what it is like being incarcarated... those who do know that the crims are every much the enemy as the screws and cops

by Anonymous Mon Sep 22, 2003 15:59

Prisons should be about rehabilitation & education - not punishment. Instead it is really on the latter that is exercised.

People should at least come out better people than when they go in. Instead it is the reverse.

The current capitalist prison system is not working.

by matt Mon Sep 22, 2003 16:17

Of course prisons are to punish people. That's been the whole point of them ever since humans began to incarcarate other human beings, and that didn't start with the industrial revolution! Some people deserve to be punished you know. Or do you really think that it is possible to make a better person out of Himmler or Fred West?And even if it was, why should they be given the opportunity after stealing that right from their INNOCENT victims. And what's more, the socialist states, including those which continue to survive, have imprisoned by far the biggest proportion of their populations than any other societies in human history.

by Anonymous Mon Sep 22, 2003 17:55

Don't have time to go into it now Matt - but the prison system has been working really well hasn't it? Crime and violent crime, for the last few centuries has been on the up, and up, and up, and up, and up......

Since Lennon was shot dead in 1980, there has been over 600,000 murders in the U.S. alone!! That is a staggering & horrific figure and number of lives lost.

The "innocent" victims as you put it are really being protected by our current system, aren't they.

Regards.

by matt Mon Sep 22, 2003 18:10

I don't dispute what you say, and certainly am not defending the system as it is. Merely pointing out that there is no evidence that there is a better alternative to locking up the most violent and dangerous, whatever the causes of their dangerous natures. Am also somewhat dubious about distinguishing between "capitalist" and any other prison systems as the evidence from the socialist states would prove that they are/were equally as dysfunctional. Besides, I was not really attacking you as the object of my criticism was the original post which is evidence of extreme naievity regarding the sort of people who are in Mountjoy. Don't know about you, but I am quite happy to think that most of them are safely locked up! Certainly they ought to be given every opportunity of accessing education and treatement while there, but don't lets glamourise the sort of people who make so many peoples already difficult lives so much worse.

by Law abiding taxpayer Mon Sep 22, 2003 18:47

I pay my tax like most people in Ireland; including by bin tax. I see the bin tax as great success in reducing landfill and waste in Ireland. I think that the Fingal scheme is perhaps one of the better models; where you only pay for what you through away. Thus for those living in Fingal this gives them the chance to save money by recycling their waste.

I applude the jailing of tax cheats

by Jake Mon Sep 22, 2003 18:52

Matt,

I think it could be argued that it is the 'State' system or should I say authoritative systems that are keen on prisons.

There was a recent reference around here to a speech made by the governer of Mountjoy, saying 75% of his immates comes from just 3 or 4 deprived areas of Dublin. That kinda of shows that it is very much related to social conditions.

It's not that I would or will feel sorry for someone who may mug me for example or even assault me, but at least I recognise that rampant crime is a symptom of a sick system.

You were saying prisons are for punishment. Maybe so, but surely they are for rehabilitation also. There is not a shred of evidence that they do this.

The logic for punishment is that when you are punished, you are discouraged from doing whatever crime it is again. But a lot of crime research shows that there is a very low correlation between these two. So then we come on to the issue; is the punishment for deterenance or revenge? Again if someone assaulted me, I'm sure I would want immediate revenge to strike back, but would have to admit, if putting the offender in prison only makes problems worse. Then what's the point of revenge? And in the present system, there is little or no scope for victims and offenders to come together and try and sort things out outside the court system. Offenders do not see the damage or injury that they cause because they are rarely faced with it. It's not a simple issue, of the offenders realizing the harm either. It's more like if 100 soldiers go to war, at least 30% of more will come back suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. You won't know on the way out who it will affect, but it still strikes. Smashed communities are the same. They produce a lot of angry people, but that doesn't mean everybody will be.

I hate to harp on, but if we live in a society and we do, that allows economic inequalities to get so great then the very mechanism built in that transfers wealth from the bottom to the top is going to produce problems and it does.

And on socialist systems that had lots of prisons, I would then to think that most of them were directly political and political prisoners are almost always because authority doesn't like what these people say. Mind you I stand to be corrected on this.

So let's fix the system and focus on rehabilitation and the reasons for crime.

Sure there are people who are really dangerous, perhaps due to some mental instability or something, but I would hazard a guess, that they make up only a relatively small percentage.

I think anyone reading this would have to agree, that putting youngish people in prison, only wrecks their lives even more and leads to more problems, particularly if they have families at home, due to the knock on effects there.

Finally it is worth mentioning that the present government have severly cut-back on rehabilitation programs for prisons, especially for young people. They have also cut-back on a scheme that tried to tackle young kids mitching off school. Apparently there were a number of groups, which cost about 20,000 a year and catered for 10 or 20 young kids per group. There is a very strong correlation between kids who quit school early and ending up in a life of crime. To keep one person in jail costs about 70,000+ per year. So this idea of cutting back on the school thing is just plainly nuts and wrong.

You will find time and time again, that every assumption the general public is fed by the powers-that-be about prisons is false in reality. And when you look at the reality more and more, the argument that prisons are there as a threat to us all to not challenge the system, fits the observed facts much closer. And it works like this: if I decide not to work, I fall into the poverty trap. From there a continuing refusal to work with the system, is a very short distance to prison.

And a word on drugs. There are only really bad drug problems in areas that are deprived and could be a potential melting pot for a challenge to the system. The great thing about smashed communities from the State's point of view, is that it's easy to keep them smashed.

Check out the articles in the related link, because they are really worth reading.

by pat c Wed Sep 24, 2003 12:32

A Bleak Peek at Hard Time


By Julia Scheeres
02:00 AM Sep. 24, 2003 PT Wired

The camera pans around the stark cell, zooming in on the narrow bunk, the metal toilet, the heavy black bars. The only way out of these cramped confines is a trip next door, to the inevitable appointment with "Old Sparky" or the lethal-injection gurney.

Welcome to the virtual tour of Tennessee's Deathwatch ward, where prisoners are transferred three days before they are executed. Feel free to wander about the other wings of the state's maximum security prison, including the isolation cells on death row and the gloomy recreation yard. Note the five coils of razor wire topping the fences along the prison's perimeter and how difficult it would be to escape. Feel relieved that this is merely a virtual visit, and resolve never, ever, to do anything that could result in a real-life stay.

Low Rates and Bankruptcy for All
That's the message prison officials in Tennessee and other states are sending out as they launch Internet tours of their hard-core penal institutions in hopes of dissuading youngsters from choosing a life of crime.

The behind-the-bars glimpses don't show any prisoners in their state-mandated habitats, but do feature the inmates' sparse accommodations.

"I think this (virtual tour) serves as a great example to young people who may be on the verge of traveling down the wrong path," said Tennessee Correction Commissioner Quenton White. "Everyone should see inside of a prison at least once. It's an image you'll never forget."

The Florida Department of Corrections website tour features a typical 6-by-9 cell on death row -- with the standard accoutrements of metal bunk, toilet and sink -- and views of an open dormitory and prison compound at unnamed facilities.

Visitors can peruse photos of the 366 individuals on Florida's death row roster and read the inmates' criminal histories, including that of 23-year-old Rossiny St. Clair, who was only 17 when he was convicted for fatally shooting a man in a gang-related crime.

The site includes high-resolution images of the state's new electric chair and lethal-injection system. Other pages are designed to dispel common misconceptions about prison life, including rumors that inmates lounge around in air-conditioned cells watching cable television.

"It is another way to get the message out to people that this is someplace they do not want to be," Spencer Mann, a state investigator, told the local press shortly after the virtual tour was launched.

The homepage of Georgia's Department of Corrections urges visitors to "See our 360 (degree) virtual prison tour now!" and includes a slamming cell-door sound effect, as well as panoramic peeks inside the inmates' communal shower area and the prison kitchen.

The inside of Virginia's "super maximum security prison" looks unsurprisingly similar to the other state facilities: lots of walls, bars and uncomfortable-looking furniture, and not a lot of windows.

The site for Texas -- another state with a robust prison population, including 448 people waiting to be executed -- does not include a virtual prison tour, but does include condemned inmates' last statements and final meal requests. (One inmate asked for -- and was given -- "Six pieces of French toast with syrup, jelly, butter, six barbecued spare ribs, six pieces of well burned bacon, four scrambled eggs, five well cooked sausage patties, french fries with catsup, three slices of cheese, two pieces of yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing, and four cartons of milk.")

Other random tidbits of interest on the Texas site include the chemical composition of an $86 lethal injection and an online catalog of inmate-manufactured products ranging from men's underwear to leather belts.

Although there's no way to determine if young people are indeed logging onto the prison sites and consequently swearing off a life of crime, the virtual tours do have a following among some inmates' friends and family.

"I have looked at the virtual tour many times to try and capture what my loved one goes through," said Bella, a frequent poster at Prison Talk Online, whose husband is serving a seven-year sentence for burglary at Florida's Hardee Correctional Institution.

Other posters to the 8,000-member Internet support group for the partners and friends of prisoners suggested that adolescents would best be deterred from making unlawful choices by watching one of the scores of documentaries that feature the crude reality of life behind bars.

"How can a sanitized tour of an 'empty' prison achieve what these films haven't?" wrote Rose Hall, whose fiancé was convicted of murder in 1984 and is serving a life sentence at the Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. "It seems more like a PR job for prisons to me."