No no no no no NO!
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Fron the sun web-site today:
EXCLUSIVE
Arcade for caged yobs
By NICK PARKER
VIOLENT yobs at Britain’s biggest youth detention centre have been given their own amusement arcade.
The thugs — caged for murder, rape and robbery — have been treated to FOUR full-sized arcade game consoles.
Inmates at Feltham Young Offenders Centre in West London are also provided with a bank of Sony PlayStations and a library of 50 of the latest games.
New pool tables, table-tennis tables, table football and a brand new 32-inch stereo widescreen TV have also been installed in two refurbished units.
Officers even deliver ice creams and bedtime drinks to the yobs, who have rooms decked out with trendy IKEA furniture. A source at Feltham said last night: “They can’t believe their luck when they walk in here.
“They’d pay £1-a-go for these games at an arcade but at Feltham it’s all free.”
Bosses ordered extra hi-tech treats after allocating two sections of the centre’s B-wing for younger inmates, aged 15 and up.
The units — called Swallow and Quail — each contain 30 youngsters. Both have two full-sized arcade games. Inmates take it in turns for free goes on the machines, which have had their coin slot mechanisms deactivated.
A computerised hockey game is among the most popular in the units and queues form to play it during association periods.
The source added: “They have their own comfortable rooms kitted out with IKEA furniture and a 14-inch colour TV. Our most infuriating task of the day is taking them their bedtime treats, like chocolates and ice creams.
“Rather than thanks, we just get mockery, abuse and comments like ‘Hurry up Jeeves.’
“Whenever they lose their rag, the first thing they throw at their cell wall is their TV.
“It’s galling to see the smiles on their faces when they get a brand new TV in its box after causing the damage. God only knows what kind of lesson that teaches them.”
A Home Office spokesman said last night: “It is true we have installed a range of activities including stand-up arcade style games for juveniles at Feltham.
“Research has shown that giving them a routine including recreation helps to normalise their behaviour and rehabilitate them.”
Don't start by asking whether rehabilitation actually works - start by asking if punishment actually works.. and if so what sort of punishment.. I doubt locking a scrote up with other scrotes in a YOI does much good at all..
Make 'em work.
From the New York Times:
www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/national/27INMA.html
Make 'em work.
From the New York Times:
www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/national/27INMA.html
Towns With Odd Jobs Galore Turn to Inmates
ZACHARY, La. — For generations, convicts have made license plates or gone out, sometimes in chains, to clean roads and clear ditches. But in recent years struggling rural communities like this one have relied more and more on inmates to do jobs that public employees once did: tending cemeteries, cleaning courthouse restrooms, moving furniture, renovating municipal buildings and even running errands for the police.
In flat and timeworn Louisiana towns near the Mississippi around Zachary, crews from the Dixon Correctional Institute in nearby Jackson set up tables and tents for fairs and charity events, groom the grounds of Lions Clubs, make repairs at museums and string up Christmas lights on Main Street. In nearby Slaughter, they have replaced the metal roof on the municipal building and stripped and waxed floors at the First Baptist Church. At the elementary school, they dug a goldfish pond and planted azaleas.
Here in Zachary, a swampy town of 11,275 people, a group of inmates come into town with an unarmed guard about 20 days a month. They mow the baseball field and cemetery, and they have restored two historic Victorian homes. Now, a dozen inmates, called Crew 12, are laying a sidewalk for a museum that was once the town hall.
In the last few years, the use of prisoners for manual labor has increased around the country, particularly in the South and Southwest where it not only fills the desperate demand for inexpensive laborers, but also helps prisons relieve overcrowding and supplement their budgets.
A Justice Department survey showed that 124,000 inmates in state prisons, or 10.4 percent of the total state prison population, and 45,000 local inmates, or about 7 percent of those in jails nationally, were working off the premises in 2000, the most recent year for which figures were available.
"There's more and more of it," said Carl Wicklund, executive director of the American Probation and Parole Association in Lexington, Ky. "The offender needs to be doing something to prepare himself for release and be seen repairing something broken in the community."
Officials in California, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, for example, say they are putting more inmates to work outside prison walls. Georgia, said Mike Light, spokesman for the State Department of Corrections, plans to double the number of prisoners doing community work.
In Minnesota last year, 17,073 inmates in state prisons, almost twice the number of six years ago, were enrolled in "sentencing to service" programs in which they live in county jails and do local jobs.
Oklahoma has more than 1,000 inmates assigned to local work centers around the state, mostly in western towns with waning populations. The Legislature is considering raising the 100-bed limit on the centers and letting drug offenders join the program.
Not everyone agrees that the rise in inmate workers is an entirely positive trend.
"It's a way to get nasty work done for free," said Malcolm C. Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research group in Washington.
But as a form of restorative justice, Mr. Young said, "it's doing something constructive and it gives something back to the community."
In some state capitals, including Baton Rouge, La., prisoners maintain governors' mansions and do most of the cleaning and heavy lifting chores in state offices and museums. But it is in hundreds of small towns where they stand out most.
In Louisiana, the economic downturn's effect on state and local budgets has been the driving force behind the use of prison labor. By employing inmates that the state pays 4 cents to 20 cents an hour, towns like Zachary can deliver many public services they would otherwise do without.
In this part of the state, most workers come from Dixon, a medium security prison with 1,470 inmates.
"I love it out here," said Timothy Holland, 27, a member of Crew 12 who was working on the sidewalk project.
Mr. Holland said he was sent to prison at age 20 for selling cocaine, was sentenced to 15 years and should be eligible for parole in two.
"It's hard work," he said, "but you get a better peace of mind. You get adjusted back to society."
The men have become a familiar part of Zachary, working from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. about five days a week.
Fears are few, largely because townspeople know that the inmates chosen for the assignments are nearing the ends of their sentences and are unlikely to do anything to jeopardize their release. The workers are carefully screened. Sex offenders are automatically ruled out. Instead of the meager wages, many take payment in "good time" reductions in their sentences.
People gain satisfaction seeing inmates clean up their towns.
"Politically, people want to see inmates work," said John A. Womack, the mayor of Zachary.
Corrections officials also argue that the programs help prepare inmates for life and work after they serve their time. "I think we have to accept the fact that people are going to be released," said James M. LeBlanc, the warden of Dixon.
Nationwide, inmate labor sometimes arouses resentment from unions and local contractors. Towns around Dixon pay only for Crew 12's guard and for its transportation, which works out to $2.50 an hour for each man, or less than half the minimum wage, which is $5.15 an hour. In Slaughter, population 1,011, Mayor Barbara Bourgeois pays the state $2,500 a year for weekly visits from Crew 12.
Mayor Womack of Zachary said that competent workers willing to do menial labor were hard to find. His most likely alternative to Crew 12, he said, would be Mexican migrants.
Last year in Clinton, La., Sheriff Talmadge Bunch began a work-release program for state prisoners with six months to two years left in their jail time. Sheriff Bunch finds them jobs in private businesses that pay them $6 to $10 an hour. Participants live at the jail, but they wear whatever they want and pay taxes. Though they are driven to and from their jobs, they are left to work on their own, without a guard.
Each inmate pays the sheriff half his wages up to $120 a week for room, board and transportation, and the state pays the sheriff $18.25 a day to keep him.
"It generates $600,000 a year for us," said Paul Perkins, the deputy sheriff — more than twice what the East Feliciana Parish budget provides the Sheriff's Department.
Officials of these towns cannot cite many cases of inmates' causing trouble, Mayor Womack said. The only unsettling episode occurred a year or two ago when a newly released work crew member asked a city employee for a ride home. The employee refused, so the former inmate found a solution in a city parking lot. Later, someone in New Orleans called the mayor's office.
"They wanted to know if we were missing a city truck," Mr. Womack said.
There are links to studies, reports, artiicles, papers etc on just about every social issue under the sun here -> www.ncpa.org/iss
On Punishment & Rehabilitation: www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/crime33.html
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Friday 29th November 10:43
On Punishment & Rehabilitation: www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/crime33.html
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Friday 29th November 10:43
They are kids....
Kids need stimulation of some kind and TV and games is most suitable.
You cant just lock them up for 2 years one there own then expect them to come out well behaved.
It seems the views on this site are getting more political day by day.
- So what if a load of kids are playing arcade games.
Big deal.
Kids need stimulation of some kind and TV and games is most suitable.
You cant just lock them up for 2 years one there own then expect them to come out well behaved.
It seems the views on this site are getting more political day by day.
- So what if a load of kids are playing arcade games. Big deal.
I agree with you up to a point Sam, but there's nothing to suggest taht anythying to tackle the core problem is being done - so it doesn't help for us to see that ££££ are being spent on video-games for them.
If they need stimulation, get them playing sports - rugby, hockey, football, basketball etc - get their agression out, build a bit of character etc.. video games don't do this - they merely fuel the fantasies of minds clearly not-properly developed hitherto.
If they need stimulation, get them playing sports - rugby, hockey, football, basketball etc - get their agression out, build a bit of character etc.. video games don't do this - they merely fuel the fantasies of minds clearly not-properly developed hitherto.
samn01 said: They are kids....
Really? They are murderers, rapists, and thieves. Which part of your childhood involved those activities?
Kids need stimulation of some kind and TV and games is most suitable.
o.k. teach them to read, write and understand society. Stimulating, and empowering. Do arcade games do that?
You cant just lock them up for 2 years one there own then expect them to come out well behaved.
So, playing games, and wasting time on unproductive activities will equip them for a productive life in society, will it?
It seems the views on this site are getting more political day by day.
your statements are what, exactly?
Big deal.
Hmm... I'm sure you'll feel the same, when your car window gets smashed, or your girlfriend beaten up, raped and robbed?
I too have nothing against them playing games, but would, like Carzee, like to see more team sports, open air etc but as for 
FFS, they break a telly then they can have another after doing 200 hours work. Take the piss out of the screws, no supper for a week, it's really not that hard
Our most infuriating task of the day is taking them their bedtime treats, like chocolates and ice creams.
“Rather than thanks, we just get mockery, abuse and comments like ‘Hurry up Jeeves.’
“Whenever they lose their rag, the first thing they throw at their cell wall is their TV.
“It’s galling to see the smiles on their faces when they get a brand new TV in its box after causing the damage. God only knows what kind of lesson that teaches them.”
samn01 said: They are kids....
Kids need stimulation of some kind and TV and games is most suitable.
What a load of bollox!!! TV and games as a way to socialise pond life
Unless you are joking that is...
You cant just lock them up for 2 years one there own then expect them to come out well behaved.
Agreed, but you can get them to work and contribute something to society.
It seems the views on this site are getting more political day by day.
No-one forces to you to read any of these posts!
Big deal.
These kids are convicts! Chances are many of them woudl not be afraid to take you on, nick your car, TV, or whatever. And please no "it's not their fault, if they are like this". The point is how can we get them to contribute something.
I agree Carzee but you can't have them playing sports all day / in the rain etc.
Rather than have them causing trouble, computer games keep them occupied.
It just seems that any time a story of any sort about criminals / unemployed / refugees etc comes up and it is not to say they have all been locked up and the key thrown away, all these victor meldrews come out to say "I don't believe it".
I imagine none of them have ever broken the law in any way; none of them have kids and if they did it would be impossible for them to break the law in any way - or course.
We were all teenagers once and most were wild in some way shape of form*. Some just take things further than others, accepted too far but we can’t just write them off. If a PH member’s child was involved in some kid of incident I.E out drinking with mates, ends up in a scrap, police called end up also scraping with said kids. Goes to court kid gets 2-4 months jail time. How many off you would be saying lock them up and throw away the key? Feed them just bread and water? - Answer none.
Any way, I am in the minority obviously so I shall keep my views to my self in future.
*Most of us are no longer as wild (bar Mungo).
Rather than have them causing trouble, computer games keep them occupied.
It just seems that any time a story of any sort about criminals / unemployed / refugees etc comes up and it is not to say they have all been locked up and the key thrown away, all these victor meldrews come out to say "I don't believe it".
I imagine none of them have ever broken the law in any way; none of them have kids and if they did it would be impossible for them to break the law in any way - or course.
We were all teenagers once and most were wild in some way shape of form*. Some just take things further than others, accepted too far but we can’t just write them off. If a PH member’s child was involved in some kid of incident I.E out drinking with mates, ends up in a scrap, police called end up also scraping with said kids. Goes to court kid gets 2-4 months jail time. How many off you would be saying lock them up and throw away the key? Feed them just bread and water? - Answer none.
Any way, I am in the minority obviously so I shall keep my views to my self in future.
*Most of us are no longer as wild (bar Mungo).
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