Brainwashed

Brainwashed

By: Paul Sullivan - InsideTime

Paul Sullivan challenges vote-seeking rhetoric from politicians and considers the public are brainwashed by tabloid scaremongers.

‘The public must decide’. ‘We will consult with victims’. ‘We will follow the public’s wishes’. Aren’t you becoming utterly sick and tired of that wimpish, vote-seeking rhetoric from our politicians?

‘The public are sick of prisoners living a life of Reilly’, shout the tabloids. Tell me; how many members of the public, who are supposed to hold this view, have any idea of what really goes on in a prison? I would suggest the answer is very few; watching a few episodes of ‘Porridge’ or ‘Bad Girls’ is hardly qualification.

In June, the tabloids were full of the story of a terrible paedophile (why are they always paedophiles – are there any other prisoners?) who got legal aid to argue against his denial of proper toilet facilities at Albany. The public can leave their comments on-line and one poor lady asked why prisoners should have a right to toilets. One really does wonder what type of mushroom people like this eat?

The public are brainwashed by tabloid scaremongering to believe certain things and then the self-same tabloids rely on the opinions of their brainwashed readers to demand, sometimes insane, changes.

Recently, figures came out showing that prisoners released on parole had committed a few murders and rapes. I do not say ‘a few’ to demean the seriousness of the crimes but because it was, literally, a few. We have headlines an inch high proclaiming the failures of the system, demanding prisoners aren’t ‘released early’ (ie given parole or released at their LDR). Of course, what these articles don’t point out is that these crimes were committed by a very small number of the tens of thousands released – so are, technically, insignificant.

A person under the supervision of the London Probation Service committed a terrible murder. The news is full of it, heads are hung, and a senior official resigns. Why? They supervise thousands of people every week; they are hopelessly overworked because of funding cuts and targets: they cannot hold every client’s hand 24 hours a day. Is it only me who can see, in the real world: of course there are going to be occasional failures? Yes, you learn from them; but why is nobody from the Probation Service standing up and fighting their corner?

Another recent change which Labour must think will win them some votes, because I cannot see any other reason why supposedly sane people would suggest it, is the allowing of alleged victims to present a ‘victim statement’ to parole hearings. The Parole Board themselves told me that they are irrelevant because a decision to release or not is based solely on considered risk and not whether the alleged victim was upset at being mugged. It is not disingenuous and demeaning of alleged victims to make them think they can extract that last bit of revenge when they are, in fact, superfluous to the decision.

We can all recount the horrified articles that surface every Christmas declaring prisoners to be getting a sumptuous feast of turkey and the rest; and how it is disgraceful that pensioners are starving. Yes it is awful that the government wastes millions jailing a large number of people unnecessarily, to try to win the Justice Vote, whilst depriving pensioners of sufficient funds to eat and keep warm. We all know, of course, that the turkey feast is actually one slice or reconstituted foul (not fowl), that is nearly as transparent as the cell windows: and most prisoners know exactly who the ‘inside-source’ is.

In my view, the way to stop people committing further crime is by allowing them to maintain family contact and settle into a steady job and home life on release. Yet, as part of the ‘Justice Vote’ the Government has changed the law, including the Disclosure Rule, to guarantee very few released prisoners can find employment. If I were a thief or a robber, I would need money to live on; if I was prevented from getting a job and earning it I would have no alternative but to go back to my old ways of raising funds.

Now they want some of the country’s greatest child fiction writers to be vetted before they visit schools in case they are paedophiles. Fortunately, these people are fighting back and arguing it to be the nonsense that it really is. The whole idea puts children at greater risk because once someone has ‘passed’ the vetting they are considered 100% safe. Since 99% of all abusers are never caught and have no criminal record, the whole thing is really yet another farcical attempt to win votes.

It goes like this: “We are winning the fight against crime because, although you all know it is not true, the statistics prove crime is falling”. However, out there, in the real world, it is very dangerous. There are muggers, murderers and paedophiles lurking on every corner – only we can save you – vote for us!

At the end of the day, you get out what you put in. Research shows that children put into YOIs are more likely to go into a life of crime than those who are kept out of the detention industry. It’s great misleading the public and playing with statistics to make it look like you are tough and mean but at the end of the day isn’t less crime what the public really want. I would suggest that the public are not the ones best qualified to come up with solutions that might achieve that end.