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Criminals need to feel the fear
Chronicle deputy editor, April 3, 2009
For the last three weeks I have been watching a fascinating documentary series focusing on the notorious women's prison Holloway and the undesirables who call it home.
I watched it in a state of ever increasing despair, anger and agitation.
Not at the conditions in which the inmates are forced to live but, well yes actually, at the conditions in which the inmates are 'forced' to live.
The place seemed like a holiday camp. The women imprisoned there, many of whom are serving sentences for violent crimes, were having a whale of a time.
They have a gym, a swimming pool, a beauty salon, TVs in their rooms and all sorts of other goodies.
The prisoners were let out of their cells for something like ten hours a day and seemed to be given licence to wander wherever they liked within the complex before being locked up again for the night.
I got the distinct impression, and indeed many of the prisoners said themselves, that they have it far better in there than they would on the outside.
Yet all through the series there seemed to be an underlying tone of trying to gain our sympathy for these poor maligned individuals who have been thrown at the mercy of 'the system'.
Although it may just have been the director trying to be ironic. Well I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for these people at all, regardless of what hardships they may have suffered in their lives.
A pregnant women afraid her baby would be taken away when it was born. Tough, should have thought about that before you handcuffed someone to a bed and then battered him senseless.
A teenager with an insatiable appetite for setting fire to things because she wasn't getting her own way and who wanted us to feel sorry for her for the 'hard time' she was serving.
Tough, should have thought about that before you got your lighter out.
To be fair there were a couple of self-confessed 'hoodrats' in there who were determined to go straight when they got out, and had no intention of going back to prison.
But the vast majority of them seemed to be making the most of their 'punishment' with parties in their cells and generally having quite a good time.
Some were determined to get themselves back there following their release as they know they are going to be looked after, with one particular case finding herself back in court on the very same day she was released.
Prisons are supposed to be a punishment, not somewhere to live the high life.
What I saw on that show was a bunch of lowlifes generally taking the mick out of you the taxpayer and, worse, the victims of their crimes.
Criminals need to be punished for their crimes, not treated as though they are some kind of victim themselves.
They need to fear the prospect of going to prison in the first place – and while they are being handed sentences in cushy little numbers like Holloway that fear will never exist.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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