Why shouldn't prisoners be allowed access to mobile phones?
Andrew Neilson writes an alarm which should be a wake up call for all those who believe in free speech here.
Just like with the issue of convicted prisoners and the vote, Parliament has not debated the issue of whether prisoners should be allowed access to mobile phones and yet there is an attempt to make it a criminal offence for prisoners to possess a mobile phone with a sentence of up to 2 years in prison.
Given that it cost the taxpayers £40,000 per prison place per year, is it really sensible to fine the taxpayers £80,000 just because somebody is in possession of a mobile phone?
UPDATE: I have just answered my own question posed in the headline
I have just answered my own question...
When the person in question is other than a prisoner, for example, prison officer! The relevant section of the Prison Act 1952 differentiates between any person and a prisoner.
3 comments:
The way I see it is, if they reduced the cost of prison calls, in order to have a proper conversation with their families, then they might just see a reduction in mobiles. I know there is a bit of humming and arring about prisoners using phones for outside criminal activites, but I do know lots of them use their mobiles to purely speak to their families.
For a parent to be able to phone a child on the eve of, say, his or her GCSEs is the sort of thing that enables parents to parent and families to stay together. For two parents to be able to discuss a crisis of some sort as it is unfolding serves the same end. You can easily think of thousands of examples.
For this to be prevented on the grounds that some would misuse it overlooks the fact that the prison regime does very little to cut reoffending: those inside are freed at the end of their sentence ... to pick up where they left off.
Does the value of mobile phone contact outweigh the impact of misuse? Of course it does.
Could access to a mobile phone be used as an incentive or 'privilege'? Why not? Is it a luxury item? No. It is a means of enabling a person to attend to his or her responsibilities. I once taught that Fathers Inside (or whatever it's called) course. How much more effective it would have been to have slung those men a mobile and told them: 'It's the missus. Sort it.'
Charles: I have just answered my own question...
When the person in question is other than a prisoner, for example, prison officer! The relevant section of the Prison Act 1952 differentiates between any person and a prisoner.
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