Payments for prison 'cold turkey'

[Fivehundred]

So are prisoners who are denied the opportunity to steal cars or break into people's houses by being locked up also going to be compensated? Last time I heard drugs were still illegal or did I miss something?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6142416.stm

 

[Hellcat]

Made me so angry hearing this on the way home.

Cold Turkey is a horrible thing to go through... oh diddums.. So is having your house burgaled, your car broken into, or being beaten up, mugged.. I don't see victims of crimes being compensated. GRRR

 

[GhostWKD]

one messed up world we live in

 

[Helz]

I agree with the opinions above, these scum chose to take drugs in the first place, they have violated the rights of others and deserve no 'human' rights themselves because they're animals, not human Never mind not getting drugs, they can hang themselves for all I care.

Sooner the government gets rid of this stoopid human rights act the better IMO.

 

[Fivehundred]

I agree with the opinions above, these scum chose to take drugs in the first place, they have violated the rights of others and deserve no 'human' rights themselves because they're animals, not human Never mind not getting drugs, they can hang themselves for all I care.

Sooner the government gets rid of this stoopid human rights act the better IMO.

I don't mind the human rights bit, but it really annoys me that everyone seems to have rights but no responsibilities.

And how can it be a right to do something that is illegal? If you carry that through to its logical extreme you could argue that if someone is unable to stop themselves from offending say against children or women then their rights are denied if they are stopped from doing so by locking them up.

Human rights should be about protecting the majority from unreasonable laws or unfair treatment.

 

[jug]

no one is saying they have the right to take heroin, all they are saying is they have the right to medical care when in prison. going cold turkey is well known to be a very harsh way to quid the brown, forcing another human being to do it against their will is not something you can realistically justify in a court of law. they will argue that they should at least be given access to medication such as methadone, as they would outside prison.

personally i think they should be given heroin, and lots of it, the sooner they kill themselves the better. my taxes would be better spent buying super strong smack than prison food.

its a lack of funding that is the issue here, if the prison service could afford it they would happily give all inmates any medical care they need, including heroin addicts, but they cant afford it. our prison service is so underfunded that they cant afford to keep the prisioners in conditions that are required by EU law. whether or not you think they deserve these rights is another issue completely, the fact we cant meet the requirements is worrying.

a lack of funding is also the reason why so many people are given community service and probation instead of going to prison, and why so many are released early even though the chance of reoffending is almost a certainty. so i dont really care about a few smack heads going cold turkey, i dont think anyone does, but think about the implicaitons, if the prison service cant even afford methodone they must be having a bloody hard time, which means we arent getting the service we think we are, or that we're paying for.

according to the news last night, the prison service budget was drastically cut which is blamed for the lack of funding. i dont care why or who's fault it is, i want to know what they're going to do about it and i want assurances that dangerous criminals will be locked up and kept in prison as long as they pose a threat to society. i dont want to see crime getting worse on our street because we cant afford to lock people up.

if we didnt build the millenium dome, if we didnt go to iraq (twice ), if just a tiny amount of common sense was applied, we could save billions and billions, but instead we have a stuggling infrastructure. the hospitals, schools, prisons, and every other aspect of our country seems to be underfunded and badly managed. thats bloody worrying, and i think more to blame for the problems we have in society than any amount of people taking heroin in prison.

what is sick is the idea that inmates will be given compensation when we already have such a limited cashflow. the money they get paid could have paid for methadone and avoided this whole issue. how bloody daft. lets spend a tenner to save a pound, thats really going to help!

 

[faster4_tec]

but instead we have a stuggling infrastructure. the hospitals, schools, prisons, and every other aspect of our country seems to be underfunded and badly managed.

your forgetting we do have some of the best services in the world.
they COULD be a LOT better, but they never will be. nothing can be perfect.


I agree though, that considering the amount of tax we are paying (well I'm a student so I just pay tax on stuff I buy) we aren't getting a great deal.
and I think a lot of that is down to governent doing things with teh budget that not nessacerily the majority agree with.

don't get me started on iraq, poor sods, although some enjoy and embrace it, good for them.

the millenium dome made more news when it was empty that it did when it was full.
ANd I never went and saw it

 

[jug]

your forgetting we do have some of the best services in the world.

A level economics, and 2 years of an economics degree, has taught me that we dont have some of the best services in the world. far from it, we struggle to keep up with most of the EU.

 

[Hellcat]

Might not be a very nice way to come down but it won't kill them. Only drug that going cold turkey from after an adiction is... alcohol.

Let them suffer, least we have them trapped Make it another reason not to go to prison. Should arrest people for doing illegal drugs and make them go cold turkey. They might think twice about going back to drugs after being forced to come off it.

 

[jug]

from what i've read and heard from people who've done time, the unoffical stance of the prison service is to turn a blind eye to drug use because it keeps violence down and makes the prisoners more manageable.

 

[custard]

i woulds like to know the full details here.surely prisons have medical services in place for methodone dispencing?
supposedly £3.5K each,must be nice.
custard sits at home as he has no cash to do anything else..........................

 

[jug]

surely prisons have medical services in place for methodone dispencing?

according to the bbc news last night the prison service budget was cut by millions compared to what was originally pledged, so they had to make cuts all over the place, including medical care for prisoners. they couldnt afford to pay for any treatment for the heroin addicts in question so they were left to go cold turkey. the prison service said if it was possible they would have supplied methadone, and they dont intentionally force inmates to go cold turkey, only when medical supplies are not available.

 

[custard]

fair enough then,just like all of us then when moneys tight we have to suffer/do without.
custard with the broken tooth awaiting the cash to go to the dentist

 

[Morritt]

sure, lose 25% of our income before we get it, we all struggle to pay our taxes when it comes round, and the levels of tax on some things is ridiculously high. but thats not the point here.

but does this mean we have to force someone behind bars to go cold turkey? no, not really, if they were free then they would be offered drugs coucelling and services, and we have the same duty to them behind bars, the only way to stop people reoffending is to make them into better people, punish them and they will only hate society and have a grudge for the system. education is the key.

i think the aim of our prison service is to educate prisoners, get them skills they can use in the real world doing real jobs, not sitting in a cell all day thnking about what they can get up to as soon as they are 1/2 way through theur sentance and automatically let out. once that person is out of prison, hopefully willingly drug free they need more support to go out and look for a job, contribute to society and better themselves, its the only way society can grow, pouring money into catching the same people, locking them up at great expense ... not good.

 

[jug]

the main problem with rehabilitation is that it doesnt work for the majority of people. i've been rehabilitated in the past, i had to see 2 councillors twice a week to talk about life and crap in general (they produced court reports), and enrol at college, and try to get a job, and keep out of trouble, all to show i'd made changes in my life and shouldnt go to jail, but i was constantly reoffending during and after my "successful rehabilitation", it made no difference at all. it was only deemed successful because i didnt get caught again, and that was only because i got lucky, not because rehabilitation had helped me to change my life like the court reports said. when i stopped reoffending it was because i chose to, not because rehabilitation made it easier to stop or made me want to stop.

in countries with lower crime rates you see stricter laws and more severe punishment, not effective rehabilitation. we cant support strict laws and severe punishment because we havent got the resources.

if i thought i would have gone to jail for a long time, i never would have committed any of the crimes i did, but i knew the legal system was soft in the UK and i could get away with it. if you consider the attitude of persistent offenders, they see jail as a soft option, its hardly severe punishment. why should they bother giving up a life of crime? there's no incentive. rehabilitation isnt going to change their minds.

when i lived in dubai you could leave your car keys in the ignition, my friend's dad did exactly that for all the years i knew him, and no one stole it because they knew that if they did they would be in serious trouble. my neighbour had some jewellery stolen from her home (only theft i ever heard of in 13 years), and the police caught the thief, he committed suicide in prison before it even went to court because he knew that was better than spending the rest of his life in a dubai prison. if criminals had a similar fear of the UK legal system i can guarantee we would have far less crime.