Unjust punishment

Unjust punishment

Chris Langham is being bullied in jail: unsurprising in a system where intimidation dominates and the vulnerable suffer.

By Erwin James in Comment is free in the Guardian.

Prison bullies are making Langham's life hell, says wife from This is London.

I wonder what Christine Cartwright, the wife of jailed Chris Langham, thought about paedophiles and how they are treated in prison, and how she thought they should be treated, before this was all brought home to her? There is a argument that Chris Langham is not a paedophile. That is, that he did not actually physically sexually abuse a child. He got sexual pleasure by downloading child pornography from the internet.

I was actually physically sexually abused as a child. And yet, when I ended up in prison I saw how the sex offenders were treated and I did not agree with it and did not join in and sympathised with their predicament. What Christine Cartwright describes as hell is mild compared to what I have seen in the past. However, as Erwin James observes: "Regardless of the level of dreadfulness of his actions however, any abuse that Chris Langham experiences in prison from fellow prisoners or from staff (according to his wife Langham was told to "shut up" after wishing a prison officer a "good morning"), is in fact a great deal more than he deserves".

Erwin James states that he is unsurprised because Langham is in a system where intimidation dominates and the vulnerable suffer. But, isn't that the same by and large in the world outside of prison?

In any event, the article is worth reading and so are many of the comments which follow it.