Slashdot Mirror
UK Bans Sending Books To Prisoners
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Alan Travis and Mark Tran report in The Guardian that new rules introduced by the justice secretary in the UK ban anyone sending in books to prisoners It's part of a new earned-incentives and privileges scheme, which allows better-behaved prisoners to get better access to funds to buy their own books. But members of Britain's literary establishment have combined to condemn Justice Secretary Chris Grayling's ban on sending books to prisoners. 'While we understand that prisons must be able to apply incentives to reward good behavior by prisoners, we do not believe that education and reading should be part of that policy,' says a letter signed by more than 80 leading authors. 'Books represent a lifeline behind bars, a way of nourishing the mind and filling the many hours that prisoners spend locked in their cells. In an environment with no internet access and only limited library facilities, books become all the more important.' Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokesman says the prime minister backs the ban on receiving books and entirely supports Grayling, whose department imposed the ban to preserve a rigid system of rewards and punishments for prisoners and said there was no need for prisoners to be sent books as prisoners could borrow from prison libraries and keep some reading material in their cells. However a former prisoner told the Guardian that although libraries existed, access could be severely restricted, particularly in closed prisons. 'I've been in places where prisoners only get 20 minutes a week to visit the library and change books.'"
If you're in prison, that's it, you're in prison. But lets re-evaluate who goes to prison shall we? Imprisoning people doesn't seem to be helping with various societal and criminal issues.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"Please, sir, I want some more"
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
I guess it's more important to keep the slaves in check, and the ministers looking good to the far right, than it is to rehabilitate the prisoners.
I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot. England & Wales does not equal the UK. This ban does not apply to Scotland where the prison service is a devolved body. Sending books to prisoners is only banned in PART of the UK.
If they spent the same on education as they did on locking people up per year then maybe you wouldn't have to lock so many people up.
Withholding access to the television, perhaps (gasp!) forcing some prisoners to read, might be a better behavior modification tool.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
There are already prison libraries with books in them - the prisoners can read those all they like.
How about using cigarettes and booze as carrots? You'd still have to limit where and when they are consumed. But think of how many guys would not kill for a cig.
LONDON: In a bid to cut the growing number of unwanted teen pregnancies in the UK, schools have been advised to provide free morning-after pills and condoms to teenage girls.
According to new guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), under-25s should be able to access emergency contraception more readily, including pills and the IUD (intrauterine device, or coil).
Although under-18 conception rates have fallen, England still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, said a statement by NICE.
Improving contraceptive services will help ensure young people get the support they need and reduce unwanted pregnancies.
NICE has advised commissioners of services in England to give all young people access to contraception and advice at convenient locations so no-one is denied services because of where they live.
"It is really important that sexual health services offering information and advice can be found in places where young people have access to them," Professor Mike Kelly, director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE said.
"Evidence clearly shows that the availability of contraception reduces the rate of unwanted pregnancies. Local planners and providers of services must make sure that what they offer is right for their area," said Kelly.
According to the guidelines, young women should be informed that an intrauterine device is a more effective form of emergency contraception than the oral method and can also be used on an ongoing basis.
Young women should have timely access to emergency contraception using an intrauterine device, NICE said.
"Young people often find contraceptive services and advice difficult to locate. This can be for a number of reasons. They may not know where services are, who provides them or when they are open," Kelly added.
"They can also be wrongly worried that information they give may not be treated confidentially. For that reason, this guidance focuses on ensuring they receive culturally sensitive, confidential, non-judgemental and empathic advice and support tailored to their individual needs," said Kelly.
Many of the recommendations made in the new guidance from NICE will cost nothing to implement. They look at existing services to ensure everything is being done to give all young people the support and advice they need.
The new guidance focuses on helping those up to the age of 25. It is aimed at those who have responsibility for contraceptive services.
This includes the National Health Service (NHS), local authorities and those working in education, and the wider public, private, voluntary and community sectors, NICE said.
To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, a sane society would either kill them or let them have their books.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
selective reading not just for prisons anymore
The UK has a problem with Islamic extremist gangs in prisons. Printed material from external well-wishers and visitors is a huge contributory factor. This problem is far, far worse than any right-ring white gangs in US jails.
For example at the high security prison near Evesham, there is a large gang who slash the faces of anyone who refuses to convert to their brand of Islam. This isn't widely acknowledged by the prisons service, but it leaks out through staff such as prison nurses, who have to deal with the end results.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Logically people who like to read are far more capable of controlling their behaviour and people who don't like to read are far less capable of controlling their behaviour (it comes with being willing to sit in one place and focusing concentration on a inactive pursuit). So this whole thing makes pretty much no sense at all. Seems much more like an attack on intellectual types to force cooperation not only upon them but on their associates outside of prison. So nothing to do with illegal activity within the prison but more to do with coming up with legal ways of making the prisoners suffer in order to extort cooperation from the prisoner and the prisoners friends and family. This all stinks of falling down the stairs, sexual abuse by other prisoners, extended arbitrary solitary confinement and other hide able tortures to force compliance and turncoat behaviour.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Can we please not forget that miscarriages of justice can and do happen, and that people do go to prisons for crimes they didn't commit.
If I wanted to learn something from a book, such as Tadashi Ozawa's "How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 1 - 5" for example, and I was told no because it's "not government approved," I'd be taking this to a Human Rights tribunial.
Human beings are allowed a right to an education, you know.
That said, another fascist policy from an evergrowing fascist country.
It doesn't surprise me that the British populace think this is a good thing. The people of the UK are genocidal maniacs, after all. They're honestly no different than most people inside of a prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Stages_of_genocide.2C_influences_leading_to_genocide.2C_and_efforts_to_prevent_it (2 and 6 are a stretch, though.)
Now apply this to people who're pedophiles or have been accused of being a pedophile and it more or less rings true. (Esp. with the death of the guy who took photos of kids vandalizing his property because he was accused of being one.)
And for the Benefit of the British, Pedophiles != Ephebophiles != Child molesters. Stop synonimizing them as the same thing, they're all different.
why,so that they can organise jobs from inside or intimidate witness's? what the hell do they need net for,they already have pay phones in prisons,what more do they need to communicate?
They are still allowed 12 books in their cell, so the arguments about denying access to rehabilitatory materials seem like (the knee-jerk UK leftish Slashdot reaction to anything this government does - though obviously trying to filter the internet is stupid) a straw-man to me.
Given the comment below about Islamic gangs it is probably about restricting the materials read. If this counts as some kind of censorship, then it seems to me to be an acceptable form, provided it is limited to prisons.
The Daily Mail is that way ---->
Don't worry, idiots like yourself get lost and wind up here all of the time.
ex cons are a very rare breed.it usualy means that they managed to get away with enough cash to last a decent amount of time or they fell in with a women who keeps them straight. most prisoners do repeat sentences time after time. they dont learn or in my experience cannot be arsed,they find it hard work trying to actualy think. why do you think that in prisons that offer education schemes the uptake is so low and that of those who start very few complete them and when they do,in comparison with outsiders figures,prisoners do badly on average marks and passes. remembering that there is always a very small number of people in prison who will use every oppurtunity to educate themselves.
You can't have books but here's some free breast implants so you can diddle around.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I've never been to prison, so I can't say how things work inside with any sort of authority. However, I did go to a very crappy British boarding school which I suspect was surprisingly like prison. The thing at school was that you couldn't have anything of value, unless it fit into your pockets (and even then it was still at risk). You were guaranteed to have anything stolen from you - be it a pencil, a ruler, a calculator, a text book, a tie, shirt, food, porn - anything. The thing is, in such an environment, literally anything has some value, and so it becomes a target for theft.
If books become a privilege, you can bet they become theft-worthy and so those with the privilege effectively lose it pretty quickly. In that sense, books differ from (communal) television or ping-ping tables or whatnot because whilst communal things can be restricted or withdrawn, only the authorities can do so. Books get withdrawn because you put it down for a second and didn't maintain visual contact with it.
I'm somewhat surprised that Ministers (who often have been to boarding schools) would think this was such a good idea ;-)
What about writing your own books?
One way to limit face slashings in prison might be to ban or limit access to knives. But, you know, "Islam." Down with books.
It's nice to see politicians from other countries trying to set a new standard of idiocy, and making ours in North America look okay by comparison.
This serves no sane purpose whatsoever. Books are good. We *want* people reading more. Yes, even prisoners. What do you want them doing with their time if they're not reading? Nothing better will be done instead.
This is the hair-brained scheme of some morons who got into power and don't have the slightest idea of what they're doing. It will accomplish absolutely nothing useful in dealing with crime.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
To the prisoners making pencils out of toilet paper and writing their own underground novels, which are then sold for packs of cigarettes.
Return to the Daily Mail or Fox News or wherever you came from. Please learn the English language before returning.
What are you, some kind of sex-crazed Communist? Just tell boys to take cold showers and girls to keep their legs together and the cognitive dissonance problem from having to think of our adolescent children as sexually active beings will go away.
Keep them ignorant and docile, I say. And bring back the lash...
When I was an inmate in a US state prison, Dept of Corrections, I was able to get any book i wanted through interlibrary loan.
Years later I volunteered at a books for prisoners program run by anarchist, squatter, commune type kids in another state, (Louisana). They would get letters requesting specific books, none of which they had in their commune. I recall an inmate requesting a book on horticulture, or botony; but getting a middle school life-science textbook because that was the closest match. I suggested they refocus their efforts on getting their state to impliment interlibrary loan with the prisons. They didnt care. Perhaps if i didnt shower, or wear untattered clothes that fit me, they would have listened and really made a difference.
Who cares about the victims? Let's all wring our hands over the prisoners...
Tell you what. All those who think prisoners are actually 'victims' can SEPARATE from the rest of us (the majority) and form your own 'prisoner friendly' country, we'll give up a piece of our country for you to live in, with your prisoner-friends, and we can all laugh when they destroy your country from within, while we live crime free lives...
There, that wasn't difficult was it?
Maybe restrict the types of books they're allowed from inside? Instructional/education books, textbooks, and classic literature (stuff with educational value) would be OK, but the latest paperback of X could be earned.
that if a prisoner misbehaves he, or she, may lose their reading privileges for a period of time. How can anyone argue against that completely reasonable policy?
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
It's not fair that prisoners get to read paper books that don't report the amount of time spent researching topics into the indelible event log of recorded history, while free and ignorant law-abiding citizens get their interests tracked and logged under the premise of protecting copyrights and giving convenience.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
What if a prisoner wants to write his/her own book?
Prisons and books do have some conflicts. The idea that drugs like LSD can be placed on a page and be licked by inmates has been around for a while. There are also issues with prisoners setting paper on fire and throwing it from their cells. The end result is that if reading material is allowed it must be shipped directly from the publisher thus making reading unaffordable for inmates. Much of this is simply administrative nonsense and a way to justify wanting more employees in a prison system. There is also lingering belief that prisons are supposed to apply punishments beyond simply setting an inmate aside from society which is also nonsense. We have never authorized a prison system to be unpleasant in any way. There has been no recognition of the fact that some mental illnesses cause inmates to constantly break any rules that they can. If we do confront the fact that some really mentally ill people are inmates then we would sort of be obligated to provide real care for them and that is expensive. It also would enrage some of the rabid dog members of the public who want convicts tortured or killed in prisons. Long prison sentences may be the only effective way to limit crimes but many inmates want to improve themselves and boredom, insulting conditions and a life that resembles boot camp is exactly the wrong thing to provide as is bad diet and inadequate medical care.
then only criminals who are criminals will get books
Bedwetting bullshit. If you go to prison, you're going to try and make friends with people like you to keep the resizing of your asshole to a minimum. And there's no shortage of crazy christian proselytizing in prison, or violent gangs of wasps, but ZOMG MOOOSLIMS!
But if you really want to complain about fundamentalist Islam, start with the nearest mirror. Because it's either directly supported by western imperialism (Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria) or in direct backlash to western imperialism (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan.) But hey, anything that allows you to point your finger at somebody else.
Wow. Maybe you should try reading a few of these books yourself.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Prison is also about rehabilitation, or at least it's meant to be.
Malarkey. I don't think a single serious legal scholar today believes prisons are about rehabilitation.
Prison is about punishment. That's it. It's a way of hurting someone. This serves three purposes--politics, retribution, and disincentivization. Politically, overcriminalization lets politicians swear they're tough on crime. Retributively, prisons punish in order to hurt the person who did something bad. Finally, the fact that they are punishment disincentivizes criminal behavior.
Funny, I don't remember them banning paper books outside of prisons...
Wait a second... did I miss the announcement that paper books would be banned outside prisons?
If this is the alternative, I am glad to be liberal scum...
What the fuck is a fucking wet pillock?
Is that like a douche nozzle or a used tampon? If it is I agree.
Can't the disinformation crowd Cowards at least get some fake identities for us to pick on? I know, you're trying to bore us into submission, but even you must get tired of it sometimes.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.