The BBC has revealed that HMP Service has paid out over 2 million pounds in compensation to its inmates this is a gross miss-use of taxpayers money and should be stopped.
Prisoners deserve to be treated fairly, with respect and have access to medical treatment. An external body to make sure it is working properly should regulate this. However they do not have the right to take the prison institution to court. They have forfeited normal rights by committing a crime, they must submit to the prison service.
I am not advocating the mistreatment of prisoners but I feel that ti is morally wrong for a prisoner to come out of prison half a million richer than when he went in. perhaps a better idea is that the if a prisoner is awarded money because of the failings of the system the money should be spent on improvements in that person’s prison not going into his own pocket. The prisoner therefore benefits due to an improved prison environment and the state is not rewarding criminals.
What is even more ridiculous in my opinion is the compensation awarded to heroin users who are forced to go cold turkey inside. Whilst this is a horrendous thing to have to go through it is necessary for the state to take a firm hand and not when, but to completely cute access to drugs in prison. Prisoners must accept that when inside they loose certain rights and it is not for the state to compensate in anyway for that. They need to be fed, safe, healthy and warm with access to rehabilitation, nothing else. If this is not provided for them they have the right to complain but not the right to get rich.
15/06/2007 at 14:27 |
The prisoners who ‘got rich’ also got very severely disabled as a result of the negligence of the prison service. They’ll live with those disabilities for the rest of their lives. The money will no doubt inadequately, compensate them somewhat and pay for care they will now need for the rest of their lives.
15/06/2007 at 16:47 |
Ryan, i feel there is a slight contradiction in your article. So, these prisoners must be fed, kept safe, warm, and provided with access to rehabiltation, but when this provision lacks, they just, what? Deal with it? You say that have a ‘right to complain’, yet they simultaneously have no right to take HM Prison Service to Court. I think you’ll agree, it is unlikely that a lone inmate going to an official complaining, ‘i’m hungry… i need my treatment… so and so keeps hitting me’, is going to achieve a revolution is prison care.
No person, nor instituion, is above the law in this country – This is the bedrock principle of any liberal democracy. Prisoners having their basic human rights abused (as it’s reported, some do), have every right to seek compensation. An inmate being refused rehabilitating treatment for withdrawal from class A drug use, has that same right. In the US, this would surely fall short of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. We have legislation to the same effect here.
We can assume that these prisoners do indeed, belong in prison. But, if the state moves to retract the liberty and freedoms of these individuals, then the sate, by default, assumes responsibility for the welfare of those individuals. If the Prison Service fails to comply with this responsibility, then it should expect to be summoned to a Court. And quite rightly.
15/06/2007 at 19:32 |
‘No person, nor instituion, is above the law in this country – This is the bedrock principle of any liberal democracy’
Surely just ‘a democracy’?
15/06/2007 at 19:49 |
Not so.
A ‘liberal’ democracy suggests a specific emphasis on the rule of law, and the protection of individual liberties. These are not requisites for ‘a democracy’ to be in existence.
15/06/2007 at 21:23 |
As I was taught it and understand it, the rule of law is one of the most important aspects of a ‘democracy’.
15/06/2007 at 23:27 |
i understand this flaw you have empahsised in my argument jack, but i cannot see how we can allow prisoners to gain personal wealth in an instituion of reform and punishment. i do not see why prisoners cannot take the service to court and the money be given to victim support charities and programmes in the prison service. this would go toards atonement for their crimes whilst making sure that their rights are upheld.
15/06/2007 at 23:27 |
sorry above was by Ryan Castle
16/06/2007 at 00:26 |
Ryan, if a Court thought that suffering personal injury should form part of an individuals atonement, then that Court would include it in the sentence passed down. A prisoner, irrespective of the crime he or she has committed, retains the fundamental right of equal protection before the law. Any abuse of that right deserves compensation. Perhaps we disagree…
Joseph, the rule of law is ‘one of the most important’ factors of a democracy… ‘As you understand it’. Of course, we live in a liberal democracy, and so that’s no surprise.
16/06/2007 at 15:27 |
are you saying you can have a democracy where some are above the law?
16/06/2007 at 15:56 |
i think we do, i think tht a prisoner does deserve to be treated well in prison and to have their rights respected. if this fails they have the right to challenege the treatment they have recieved. if a court agrees with them that they have been mistreated by the prison system and awards them money i do not think they should recieve it.
i thiknk this because they have forfieted full rights of a citezen by the fact they are in prison i see no problems with the money going to good causes that pick up the pieces of the victims, who have also had heir fundamental rights abused by an individual.
16/06/2007 at 22:08 |
I must say I am inclined to agree with Ryan that prison is a punishment and should be treated as such. Whilst I agree that prisoners should have basic human rights I draw the line at condoning a compensation culture amongst prisoners. I believe this compensation and blame culture is already out of hand and to award money to convicts is madness. I suppose if I were to moderate my view I would suggest that compensation eligibility should be proportional to the crime that they have committed and been incarcerated for. For example, as an extreme, if the courts give compensation to convicts suspected or implicated in terrorist offences…they could have just funded terrorism! Any way I digress, I agree that prsioners should not automatically be eligible for compensation.
16/06/2007 at 23:50 |
Dan, of course none of us would like to foster a culture of state-funded terrorism (to cite your ‘extreme’ view)… Ergo, the only way to ensure that this does not become the status quo is to ensure a prison service that respects human rights! You agree? Yes?
Easy peasy lemon squuezy!
17/06/2007 at 01:27 |
haha indeed Jack. Human rights does not incorporate compensation. Should the question of “Convict compo” ever arise through fabrication or whatever prisoners, in particular terrorists, and socialists, bit of personal bias there, should catagorically NEVER recieve compensation.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
24/10/2007 at 14:58 |
Hi, I am interested in the picture of the cell… Can you tell me where this picture was taken? If not perhaps the photographer or any info that may help me locate the prison.
Regards
Dyan