Who wants to go to Prison?
National News (New Zealand Herald)
Prisoners play X-Box, Playstation on taxpayer
Prisoners are being provided with taxpayer-funded X-Box and PlayStation consoles as a "reward for good behaviour".
Just weeks after revealing flat-screen televisions were fixtures in some New Zealand prisons, the Corrections Department has confirmed that games consoles and "sports and motor racing-themed titles" had been bought out of operational funding and were available for use by inmates in prisons around the country.
In a bid to stem public outcry over the provision of games consoles for inmates, Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor has stepped in and ordered them to be removed until a national policy is developed around their use. However, Acting General Manager Public Prisons Service Paul Monk said the consoles could be reintroduced once guidelines were established.
National's law and order spokesman Simon Power has demanded O'Connor explain to taxpayers why "precious funds" are being spent on "expensive toys for prisoners".
"Corrections' admission that some prisons have bought PlayStations and X-Boxes out of operational funding is unbelievable," he said......................
The use of games consoles is just one of many privileges offered to the nearly 8000 inmates in the country's 19 public prisons. Prisoners are also being rewarded with trips to the beach, telephone calls, movies, CDs and electronic equipment.
The latest furore comes just months after Corrections was forced to fend off criticism over the installation of under-floor heating in Northland, Auckland Women's, Springhill and Otago prisons - plus claims that a prostitute had been found with an inmate in Wellington's Rimutaka prison. Monk said most of the consoles were located in youth units but some had also been available to older prisoners.
posted by Kevin @ 7:13 PM
5 Comments:
I think you need to have a good think about what the purpose is of the prison institution.
I find it a sick blemish on society that our solution to the problem of crime is to lock people in a 6/8 cell for sometimes decades.
The BBC has recently reported on the issue in America of trying juvenile criminals for 'felony murder.' Boys as young as 14 who were with someone when they commit a murder are put into a penetentiary for life without chance of parole.
Is that inhumane? Yes, yes it is. So when i see criticism of so-called 'luxuries' in prison, i know that
a) the criticism probably comes from someone who doesnt understand what prison means to the prisoner ( I doubt many people do.)
and,
b) the criticism comes from someone who doesnt believe that 'rehabilitation' can ever align with 'doing something fun.' I don't understand that line of reasoning. Its not just about punishment, its about education for the criminal. Do we reform someone by treating them like an animal? If you think thats a good idea, then vote for ACT.
No one's talking about treating them like an animal. But prison is somewhere you DON'T want to be IN.
I know of senior people who try hardout to save money for heating their homes. I know friends who work to buy things like Playstations or Xboxes. Instead of purchasing these 'luxuries' why not offer more educational/rehab programs for the inmates?
PS: You can't compare the prisons in US to the ones in NZ. Well..you can..but I think the prisons here are larger than 6/8
I don't think prisoners should have free reign to do whatever they want inside a prison.
But I would be interested to know exactly what 'underfloor heating' constituted, for that prison. The media has a well-established ability to embelish a story to make it more 'interesting.' For example, does a prison cell have a fireplace? Does a prison cell have a gas heater? I know my house does. Is underfloor heating actually simply THE heating system in that prison, rather than additional to the fancy established heating system. Just because its 'underfloor' doesnt mean its first class, fancy, and 'more heating than we have.' It's a pretty simple argument to make, that it would be inhumane to keep a prisoner in a cold cell.
I dont think prisons in the US are generic, and neither are the ones here. But i was comparing to highlight the fact that whatever 'luxuries' a prisoner may have, or percieved to have, the fact remains he or she spends 18 hours a day locked in a room without family, without friends, without access to the outside world. Thats not to neglect whatever crime it is they have committed (and some have committed some heinous crimes.)
I know of literally billions of people trying to get clean water and food. Does the fact that they cant' access those things mean we should supply them with food, before we supply prisoners?
I guess to me it just comes down to not seeing prisons as simply a way to treat people as minimally or cruely as we can (not that you do, but for example the ACT party has policy along that line) and also, I think that being locked away from society in a hostile place for years is an illegitimate, archaic, and certainly ineffective way of solving the problem of crime. Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but if an XBOX can help a prisoner get through that, and maybe not end up out of prison a bigger thug than when he went in, then its fine with me.
I'd rather have my freedom than an xbox and underfloor heating. Im not buying the spin from right-wing politicians that prison is a breeze. ITs not. It might be corrupt, and ineffective, but thats a fundamental problem, I think.
Try out tumeke.blogspot.com for a running commentary on prison life from our own national icon, Tim Selwyn.
Oh, and the other thing. The assumption that if prison is a really bad place to be, then people won't commit the crimes that land them there, is blatantly wrong. The US still puts people to death for crimes. And i think the site www.deathpenaltyinfo.org demonstrates that states with the death penatly as punishment for first degree murder have a higher rate of homicide than other states. Thsoe people spend 20-30 years in prison appealing before they are executed. Obviously the deterrent theory is pretty flawed.
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