Prisoners have the right to safety, whatever their crime

9-5-2010 United Kingdom:

Prison Officers at Grendon prison are cynically blaming budget cuts for the death of a sex offender this week. According to the warders, the cuts have ‘put pressure’ on the system. That cynicism is bad enough but it pales into insignificance when compared with the vitriol that was poured out on BBC Radio 5 live by participants in the phone-in dealing with this incident.

Predictably, the people calling the program had nearly all had some personal experience of being abused. Their words betrayed their lust for vengeance and revenge rather than justice, a trait that is regularly encouraged by tabloid newspapers in order to sell more of their obnoxious copy.

The number of convicted sex offenders in the UK doubles every 5 years. Very few re-offend. The percentage of violent offenders who re-offend is 65%. Apparently, it is OK to bash people on the head and leave them as vegetables for the rest of their life just so long as you are not a ‘nonce’.

So be it. If that is the society that people want in this country then allow all the skull-crushing, maiming thugs out of prison after short sentences in order that they can seriously injure more people whilst, in the interests of public protection, you incarcerate more and more people who are probably not going to re-offend anyway.

Don’t forget too that it is apparently OK to allow sex offenders to be killed in prison. After all, that is what civilized people want, isn’t it? ..Opinion of: Andromeda