Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Sue
McNaughton
wandleys.demon.co.uk> gently breathed:>In article <1yeiOmj2Ai$EFw33@
nemesis.as15758.net>, Pyromancer
>
beeching.stormshadow.com> writes>>Neither have I been to Mars, or the bottom of the Atlantic, or the
>>Galapagos islands, nevertheless I know something of all three. Prisons
>>should be about punishment. Punishment should not include being able to
>>watch TV. If people want to watch TV, relax, have a pleasant time -
>>then they shouldn't break the law. Prison should really be about forced
>>labour, think how much work could be done on, for example, the
>>cash-strapped branch lines, if there was free labour available.
>But allow an occasional bite of carrot as well as the stick. One thing
>I would do (as Dictator of the World) is to greatly increase the
>education budget for prisons. And to give some extra incentive to the
>process, allow prisoners to earn privileges - such as being allowed to
>watch telly - for educational achievement (including learning a useful
>craft).
Ok, that makes a lot of sense - perks for showing a willingness to
learn, or to reform (working with anti-drug-use missions to deprived
areas would be something else prisoners could do). But privileges, not
"rights".
Can we share the dictator of the world thing - like the rotating EU
presidency? I have this plan for improved public transport you see, 14
coach locomotive hauled trains of neo-Mk1s running at 10 minute
frequencies on main routes, with a return to steam on all the most
scenic lines... :-)
>I recall with amusement my sons' days at prep school. Corporal
>punishment at the school was The Slipper, which was not actually
>formally abolished until the time they were there but (in the way of
>these things) had not actually been used for some time previously. It
>had been replaced, for the boarders, by something which many of them
>regarded as a much more cruel and unusual punishment - television
>deprivation! (Known as 'Off TV'.) I remember one son cheering when he
>was moved to another dorm, which meant he was no longer in with one of
>the school's star delinquents (this, I may add, is a cathedral choir
>school, and the star delinquents were almost invariably choristers!)
>which meant he now had a chance of occasionally watching an episode of
>'Neighbours'! (I digress.)
No idea if he was a delinquent or not, but ISTR Bruce Dickinson of Iron
Maiden was a choirboy at Winchester Cathedral School. Hence all the
references to the classics in Maiden's songs (not to mention the first
verse of "Revalations" being lifted in it's entirety from the CoE hymn
book).
But (back to topic), if TV depravation is acceptable for disciplining
children, then it should most certainly be acceptable for prisons.
