h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Personally I'd draw the line inside prison pretty much at the point I'd draw it outside.
If someone is having a transient depressive episode, I'd intervene in their suciide attempts and try and get them some treatment.
If, depsite mental health treatment, someone is in a chronic state where they will try again and again to kill themselves, there seems to be a point where society has the right to consider its efforts are better spent on other people.
Possibly where the person is a prisoner on a whole life tarrif, who can't face what they've done (or other people's reactions to what they have done) the threshold for saying "To hell with them - let them get on with it" should be a little lower than for other people.

I can see some possible extra value in striving to keep someone alive until a trial, or if they have useful information (where bodies are buried, etc), but keeping someone alive just to be able to punish them seems a waste of time and money.

No. We don't assist suicides in prison - ever.

Most suicide attempts are made by women on remand for relatively minor offences. Being locked in a cell for the first time, facing up to the shame and ignominy, it is easy to see why some people may well feel their life is not worth living. But they're wrong. Thousands of people have a criminal record, but they've gone on to live full, productive and "good" lives. For them, the sharp shock of prison has worked.

But that's not who we're really talking about, is it? We're talking about the people for whom there is no hope of rehabilitation, who are guilty of the worst crimes against society. But the answer is still a resounding "No!". Their punishment is the thirty year sentence (or whatever). If they get so ill that they have to be kept alive to serve their sentence, so be it.

Btw, I really object to the earlier description of prison staff being sadistic. Rubbish. It's a job, that's all.

I do know an old trick that is used sometimes when someone goes into hungerstrike.

When I worked in prison I saw a guard entering a prison cell at a fridayafternoon and say; "well, I am going to say farewell".

"Why" ?! the boy suddenly said.
"Well, I don't think you are going to make it until monday".

The boy suddenly said himself on the list of menus.............

"Possibly where the person is a prisoner on a whole life tarrif, who can't face what they've done (or other people's reactions to what they have done) the threshold for saying "To hell with them - let them get on with it" should be a little lower than for other people.

Hmm so we have a death sentence by the back door. Somonne doing a long stretch for a crime most other prisoners and th guards think of as "worse" than the rest can be cajolled into taking their own life?What about if the reactions you say a pisoner may not be able to deal with are in themselves illegal? Dont forget that despite what they may say a lot of the people in jail are actually criminals

Besides this already happens and I dont think legalising it is a good idea in the same way that bare knuckle fighting should stay illegal, it happens but if it happened openlyand more so more people would get damaged by it.


SWL while you are objecting to my description of prison guards feel free to also object to some of my other descrptions.

Rock music...loud
Dogs....four legged
Water...blue
...yummy

Now I know that my descriptions arent accurate for EVRY instance but thing is they are right for the most part.

one love

Don't you think that "staffed by people with a shocking propensity for sadism " is a bit of a sweeping generalisation then?

Apart from watching far too many movies, where do you get this gem from? Do the Prison Service recruit from "Sadists 'R Us"?

I've actually toured quite a few theatre productions to prisons and always found that the warders & the inmates had a "live & let live" attitude.

The first show I stage-managed got off to a ropey start. 400 inmates at Perth Prison, the lights go down and the opening line of Cabaret rings out - "Don't sit there alone in your room all day, life is a cabaret"

I think a mention of the Stanford Experiment is worth telling about here. It was a group of volunteers (mostly university students, I believe) who took part in a simulated prison environment as either prisoners or guards. Within a very short time they had to close it down as the behaviour of the 'guards' became reprehensible.

This, I think, indicates that real-life prison guards are not monsters and have the required training to perform their jobs well. Meanwhile, it's a very unnatural institutional arrangement that not only might attract those who have 'issues' about power and control, but the institution itself might even create these 'issues' in people who would otherwise not show them because they wouldn't have the opportunity.

It's a bit like why many people become shrinks. I read a very scary article once in (I think) The Atlantic called 'Who Heals The Healers?' The gist of it being that there are many psychiatrists out there who are probably 'crazier' than their patients are. *shudder*

Here's a link giving some info about the Stanford Experiment.

"What happens when you put good people in an evil place?"
http://www.prisonexp.org/

And also one from Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment


az

Re: your , SWL - oh dear!

It's no wonder that Johnny Cash was such a hit when he played at prisons in the US, though no doubt some prisoners watching a performance of Cabaret might also see the black humour about maybe even not having enough space in their cell to 'sit around all day' due to overcrowding.


az

>>"Hmm so we have a death sentence by the back door. Somonne doing a long stretch for a crime most other prisoners and th guards think of as "worse" than the rest can be cajolled into taking their own life?"

No. In a situation where one could view suicide as a rational choice for an individual (where they find their chronically situation intolerable) I think it's fair to put less effort into supervision and suicide prevention than one might for someone who seems to have more chance of recovery from depression and more to look forward to or contribute, and to direct resources to where they seem liley to do the most good.

>>"What about if the reactions you say a pisoner may not be able to deal with are in themselves illegal?"
I wasn't solely talking about what people say or do in prison. If someone knows that millions of people think they are scum and deserve a painful death, I imagine that even in a neutral prison environment they may come to think they'd be better off dead if they actually face up to what they have done.

There's a *vast* difference between encouraging someone to commit suicide and refraining from expending great efforts in stopping them.

>>"Besides this already happens and I dont think legalising it is a good idea in the same way that bare knuckle fighting should stay illegal, it happens but if it happened openlyand more so more people would get damaged by it."
I wasn't talking about *legalising* anything, merely not going to extremes to prevent people killing themselves.

Sorry potty, I thought you meant draw the line to mena where we should legally draw the line having re-read your post I can see it means your own personal choices.

Still that is what happens, and in a lot of ways the illegal intimidation that goes on inside and outside of jails drives offenders to taking a volutary death sentence.

Under our democratic system death penalties are outlawed but mob rule and individual bitterness does its best to subvert this.



SWL..my as you put it sweeping generalisation is based largely on confessions staright from the horse's mouth. Not watching films...so sorry to undermine your well thought out rebutal of my assertions.

Even so - it doesn't seem likely (to me) that you have had that confession "straight from the horses mouth" from all, or even most of the people that staff prisons.

I'm not doubting that there are some people in the prison service who fit your description, but to say that it is "staffed by people with a shocking propensity for sadism " seems a bit over the top.

So we cant go around saying children like sweets till we have met most of them and asked?

IM sorry but I am truly shocked by the appetite for violence that Ive seen in and been told of by people who actually work in prisons. Maybe its just the two areas that I know prison workers from Clackmanshire and the West Midlands that are this way. Or perhaps its a fairly safe bet that extrpolating this evidence will give a fairly accurate picture.

OK I know its only person I knew who ever quit left the service because of...feeling unhappy with the brutal way that prisoners were treated.

The others I know who stayed on till retirement...all of them like hurting people...true they mostly keep it for work but they dont seem like the average person to me.

It is the only evidence Im using but if people want to show it as wrong Im willing to look at their anecdotes or accept verifiable findings.

Um... post 26 anybody?

az

"So we cant go around saying children like sweets till we have met most of them and asked?" That's not the same thing at all imho.

If it so happens that all of the white South African people I have met have been racists, does that justify me in assuming, or more importantly stating publicly, that ALL white South African people are racists?

I'm not saying you're wrong (and I know you didn't say that everyone in the prison service is a sadist), I neither work in the prison service nor know anyone who does/has - just that to me it seems like a generalisation open to doubt.

Apart from the fact, that we may all have a propensity to sadism, if the circumstances were right to bring it out.

The Stanford experiment is fairly useless as an experiment as the devisor of the experiment took an active role in it he had too much control or input in to the results also the results were recorded subjectively rahter than by unbiased observers.

what I can say is that I wont guess if being a prison guard exasperates the sadisitc tendancies of people or people are drawn to the job becasue their saistic tendancies make it appealing to them but as far as I ve seen the sadisitc tendancies of prison guards are manifest. Im not saying their nasty people I dont see everything they do and I dont see everything that other people do. Ive seen both nuturing and vindictive nasty teachers.

What I cant and wont back track on is the fact that of the people I know and the people who work in prisons i find the prisons workers to show a tendancy for sadistic behaviour above the general level.

So, why do you think people choose to become prison guards?

Rather than, say, accountants or lawyers?

Less training involved? Good pay? Fab benefits and a decent retirement fund? Great opportunity to behave like a sadistic so-and-so?


az

I, for one, am not asking you to backtrack.

All I was pointing out is that what you have said in that last post seems fair enough to me. The way the initial statement came across (again to me) doesn't.

Surely for there have to be SOME Mr. Barrowcloughs to offset the Napper Wainwrights?

Well it has been shown that paedophiles do seek out work with children, that like with my prison guard assertion does not mean that all people who work with children are paedphiles or that all paedophiles seek work with children. Just that when questioned some did choose that work specifically because of the acess it gave them to children.

I dont think that being a prison guard makes you violent more than other similar jobs such as police officer, concierge or social worker but given a cultural heritage where people have a popular image of whip weilding ogres throwing peolpe into dungeons people who have a certain mindsets have an idea where they might fit in well or find a release for their urges.

I know it doesnt sound PC but gay hair dressers, black footballers, women nurses megolomanic politicians. Im not sure if the choice of proffesion is down to one factor or another but its sure as hell that there is a dispropotionate representaion within these profession/personal profiles.

Can you stand up when you talk pleaee Blicky - your voice is being muffled by the chair.

You're talking complete and utter rubbish, bilge, tripe, balderdash. Instead of talking to horses, try speaking to people who know what they're talking about.

What does EVERY prisoner have in common? They all have lawyers. Given that prisoners are known to have tried suing over food, slopping out, access to Sky TV, letters, etc etc etc, what prison officer in his right mind would leave themselves open to litigation?

Prisoners have free access to welfare officers and social workers - where are the masses of reports about institutional sadism?

Your comment is the most asinine piece of twaddle I have ever read on HooToo (and that's saying something).

I've seen you make stupid posts before, does that make *all* of your posts stupid?

Like totally crazy shrinks!

az