Inside job - profiteering from cheap labour in UK prisons

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QFT


QFT


I have to say, I have no patience whatsoever for rapists, and they should be hung by the balls in a vat of boiling hydrochloric acid.


QFT


No, we need to do the most for ALL. NOT most, ALL. ALL. NOBODY gets left out.

Prisoners overwhelmingly come from extremely disadvantaged and/or abusive backgrounds. Many can not read, or have trouble articulating. ASD related disorders like dyslexia, PDD etc are rife and one documentary on autism on the BBC recently suggested that 1 in 3 prisoners suffer from related disorders.

In the USA, TERMINALLY ILL medical cannabis users are extradited from canada to die in jail. I suppose they 'had their crack at life and blew it'? Blacks and women recieve harsher sentencing. Did they act more 'stupidly'?

Bollocks. Its easy to laud yourself as an honest, 'decent' citizen when youve never been hungry

"you don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue
if you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too"
- Judas Priest

Assassin - whats QFT. latin?

Quoted For Truth.

All? We cannot help all within any system. Helping all is an impossibility because every time we make a short-sighted attempt to help somebody we end up hurting something. Certainly I agree with prevention but .

You may be right that these people are messed up but what do we do? Do we pay out billions to rehabilitate these people and in the process hurt the economy, stifle progress, let ourselves fall behind in foreign competition and reduce the quality of life of every money earning person? People are responsible for themselves no matter the circumstances; certainly we should try to give these people opportunities and try to prevent crimes from being done to them, however, the government is not a babysitter, it is an organization for the continued success of the majority of people in the nation. Also, the harsher punishment for blacks and women is not a property of the system, it is created by human bias which exists in all systems.

You are right, it is easy to laud yourself as an honest decent citizen if you are not hungry. That is why you should try to avoid being hungry. The best way to avoid hunger is to get a job of some form and to avoid poor financial decisions. Considering that there are enough jobs to go around for teenagers and the like then there should be enough jobs to go around for adults. If these adults are physically fit enough then they can join the armed services and get employment and the opportunity to go to a college using the GI bill. For people willing to work for it, there is the opportunity to succeed. This does seem cold but the problem is economics, by failing to advance while we can we end up doing more damage to ourselves in the long run.

Give prisoners the option to work but it will be a lower pay then minimum wage.
With the money earned from working they can buy limited items.

Well, I am not sure that I agree with making it an option but I can definitely see giving them some of the money sort of as a reward. If we could only make a way to incentize them and force them to work..... I know, prisons provide some services so we simply make the prisoners pay for them. So a prisoner might have to pay a fee to get a book or buy a prison library monthly pass or something. We force them to work by making everything at a prison "pay to play" and we give them incentive by making it so they have to work more or harder in order to get more goodies. We could also reward any service that helps prison guards and stuff like that and possibly fine prisoners too for stuff that is harmful. That would be a good system if it would work, it might make prisons more useful for rehabilitation purposes and reduce prison costs.

Nobody has any more right to equal treatment than anyone else. If everyone cant be helped, then nobody should be. Its the only fair way.



Yes. A few days ago, I managed to interpret the phrase "all for one and one for all", and I have to say, this interpretation of it DOES make sense, and I agree with it. When individual people need help, it is the duty - and original purpose - of society to do so.



Nobodys saying they shoudnt have the OPTION to work. SO long as thats what it is. I will NEVER stand for forced labour of any kind.



The only services prisons provide are very basic ones, like food, water and sanity. Leaving them to starve or go crazy if they dont work is ALSO not an option.

There is no such thing as equal treatment. We are all treated differently because we are all different. There is also no such thing as fairness and guess what? That simplistic view of fairness is not how the world works. Let's just say that there are 4 people on an island and there is only enough food for 3. Well, it is just stupid to have everyone die because they can't support the 4th person so therefore someone or some group decides to remove the 4th person so that people will still do fine. 1 death is a better outcome than 4. In society, most decisions really come down to hurting to help; only children are helped by schools but old people still have to pay taxes to build and support schools.

The original purpose of society is to help the most people out of the group that band together. No individual really matters too much, so long as the greater whole of the group does fine. People did not form societies for altruistic goals, we did it to survive other societies and to maximize our ability to survive. If one person is screwed then the others will only help if they think it is in their best interest to do so or if it is in the group's best interest to do so because of the fact that people often feel attached to their group. In other words if an individual in society screws himself over to some extent and the group thinks it is in their best interest to help then they do, if they don't then they don't.

Well, we could deny them food. They don't have the right to choose anyway, but passive aggressions and incentives could work and might work better than outright slavery. I was just thinking that we just give them no entertainment of any form and let them suffer from incredible boredom and give them crappy beds and the like. Guess what though? To force them to work by denying services is totally fair. It is how society itself works, he who does no work in society does not eat either. It is not denying freedom at all really, normal citizens abide by the same rules, they just live in a less controlled setting. Make them work for their food, then they can work for extra luxuries which could include reading material, leisure activities, toys, better jobs, any non bad thing that would be practical I suppose (no drugs, violent things stuff like that). Those who don't work at all would of course die by their own choosing.

Its possible for sumat to be different without being better or worse, you know.


I never said it was. But it never will be so long people think like that.


Depends on your philosophical outlook. What more right to life did the 3 have than the other 1? Who decides who dies? Those with strength? Thats fair? How will they live with his/her death on their consciences?


Um, if I were you, Id find a few arguments to support your OWN point of view lol rather than mine ^_^;;


So, if a society allows people to die, its obviously a faliure >.<


Thats something else that needs to change. People have to be attatched to their ideals, NOT the institutions that may or may not support them. People can sometimes be wrong about these institutions - quite often actaully. Look at Britain under Cromwell. The Soviet Union under Stalin. America under Bush.


What I meant by a right to sanity was a right to KEEPING that sanity. This would take it from them.


So long as, beyond the basics needed to survive, they have, say, a new book to read every month, contact with other prisoners/relatives and friends from outside, a change of scenery now and again, I dont see TOO much wrong with making them work for "luxuries" beyond that.

It is possible but there are too many variables for different treatment to necessarily be equal. In fact, even attempts at equal treatment are unequal. Equal treatment should not exist anyway, the hardest working kids and the most talented kids should receive the most in reward and the weaker ones should receive more aid. However, when people leave into the adult world the gloves are removed and the stronger get more than the weaker simply because the stronger are more valuable than the weaker. After all, stronger people create more and do more for society than weaker people, however, weakness in many people is due to their own folly rather than inability and the use of incentives and disincentives can bring these people back into the fold.

Perhaps that simplistic view of the world never should be. Inequality is natural. Certainly we should not have caste systems or become racist or sexist or anything but meritocratic instead.

Well, in the situation with 3 killing the 1 assuming that they are all equal I would say that nobody has any right to kill the 1. However, technically, I am not sure that there are really any rights, there are social contracts and agreements of that nature but not really any rights. The decision on who dies is taken by the individual or group that actually acts to kill the 1. Fairness is only a human concept, there is what is best and there is what is not best. Whether that is fair or not is not really a consideration, although the most satisfaction for all players in the decision is. Living with the guilt of murder can be done, it is done through emotional repression and manipulation and such. It might be a hard thing but it is still better that the 1 died than all 4.

Right, I did not consider the example of elderly paying taxes a support of your ideas because it was against your idea that we should either try to benefit all or none. I am not a person who thinks all taxes are evil only that they should be reduced where it is possible.

If a society allows most of its people to die then it is a failure. Societies must do the most for the most. There is no responsibility to everyone, only a responsibility to the majority. A society that allows people to die is not a failure because society is for a collective benefit. Society is for the benefit of the many.

Nationalism is a powerful force that allows for nations to become strong. It can prevent loss of resources or internal betrayal and is something that every nation should foster. Ideals are worthless and immaterial, a nation is valuable and is a source of protection if one makes/keeps oneself worthy of such. Also, America under Bush is not such a bad thing. I would not call it a good thing but it is not even comparable to Stalin under Russia.

Prisoners have no rights, if they go insane because they choose to defy us then that is their business. The goal is to force them to do as we want and to conform to our desires, the kindnesses shown to them should be conditional, just as societal kindnesses are. I think that what you are offering prisoners as what they deserve to have is too kind. They should not get a change of scenary, a free book per month, visitation or anything like that. Heck, what you are giving these prisoners for free sounds like a pretty decent living, if I had that I might just rob banks to stay in jail. Prison is meant to be PUNISHMENT, it is not supposed to be kind, it is supposed to be brutal and it needs to force change. What you offer prisoners is the right to avoid punishment and even rehabilitation for that matter as being given a book every month, visitation and a change of scenary sounds actually pretty good. Maybe not a luxury resort but still it sounds too good to be effective. I might be willing to give particularly good prisoners nice priveleges but only because my idea of incentives is to force conformity and reward it.

That dosent make it right not to make the effort.


And now try and justify saying that the most talented kids should recieve more reward than the less talented ones without sounding like a Nazi.


Nobody disputes this. How, exactly, is it right?


So... discrimination against stupid people? Still discrimination.


There are objective rights, there are certain things it goes without saying that you are entitled to, only people often ignore them.

[quote=Awesomelyglorious"]Fairness is only a human concept[/quote]
No, fairness is a cosmological concept. Even if there were no people, certain things would be fair and certain things wouldnt.

[quote"Awesomelyglorious"]Living with the guilt of murder can be done, it is done through emotional repression and manipulation and such[/quote]
Many people would prefer to have died than to become emotionally repressed.


But it is in favour of my ideas that the entire purpose of a society is to benefit each individual within that society.


Erm... no.


For now. Only because the electoral system is still in place. Stalin didnt have that sort of thing to bother him. Short of armed uprising, the people had no method of removing him from office.


So what makes your word so important? What makes people who defy it worthy of forced insanity?


But it IS meant to be humane.


Its still a lot worse than outside, where they could choose their own books, and get new ones more often, go wherever they want and see whoever they want.

Well, if making the effort would be both ineffective and inefficient then it should not be done.

More talented kids deserve more reward to make sure that they do not feel slighted. All that is required to reward them is to reward them based upon their work and rewarding people for working sounds entirely fair. In the current system hard workers and talented individuals are given high grades which lead to scholarships and acceptances into good colleges which lead to good careers and so on and so forth. We must continue to reward them for doing well and continue to challenge them so that they do not feel disincentized and stop being so successful. Giving more incentives to successful students may also encourage more hard work among the student population because these students would also want rewards.

This is right because if we refuse to reward people for their abilities and strengths then they feel less willing to work. Rewards make people feel special and they make them feel like there is a relationship between how hard they work and what they get. Besides, by producing more they actually help society more. It is important that we don't lose the abilities of the best people in our society due to lack of incentives, heck, if we don't give them proper incentives then a foreign market would and we would have to build a wall to keep our people from leaving.

Meritocracy is not discrimination it is rewarding based upon ability. There is no question that we would give leadership of any enterprise to our best minds. Also, if they are to lead us then we must also give them good incentive to do so so that they are not pulled towards an easier job. So therefore out of pragmatism we must be somewhat meritocratic because the best and the brightest do not have to take the most important jobs but we want them to and have to give them incentive to get them to do so.

There are no objective rights, rights are a human creation only given life by modern systems. The belief in objective rights is based on internal bias towards such a belief but is not founded upon evidence to support that claim. The same is true of fairness, man invented the word fair. Animals do not give each other rights or fairness but instead compete ferociously so the concepts do not exist in nature but instead are human constructs. Many might but that would be impractical for them to some extent, feelings of guilt can be overcome besides when hunger strikes many people would go for the option that would allow for them to live. Most creatures choose death over life in most situations.

Well, society is usually to the benefit of the people that live in society. The purpose of society is to help out the majority of people in a society though, there is usually one group that benefits the least from the many compromises that have to be made. However, I don't think that there are very many people in society that would be better off without it and if they were then they could probably go off into the wilderness and try their luck.

Well, a large percent of people are not angry at Bush and there is no proof of people who have been removed or of purges. Besides, Bush is leaving in less than 4 years, a statement that could never be known to be true under Stalin. There is no comparison, only a nutjob could truly believe that there is an actual comparison. I will admit that the exaggeration may show your disapproval of the man but it is only an exaggeration.

Society's word is important. I am not forcing insanity on anyone, I am giving them an option to do what we want or to suffer the consequences. Most people would prefer doing what we want over insanity and the ones that wouldn't would probably be too hard to reform anyway due to their stubborn nature.

Prison is meant to punish, it may or may not be humane. Prison has a duty to fulfill and should do what it needs to do by any means necessary. If allowing harsh corporal punishment into our prison systems would make them more effective then it would need to be done.

No it isn't. Your system means that the prisoners don't have to worry about work, about financial situations or anything. It is by far better than the real world. Certainly there is little freedom but there is no responsibility either and many people out there would sacrifice freedom for less responsibility. Really, a few months in your proposed jail, although something I would not want due to my ambitions, really does not sound that bad. It sounds like a place where I could relax and read a nice book and have a few visits from relatives every once and a while and heck, the occasional change in scenary makes the deal sweeter. If you call that sort of prison a punishment then you don't know what punishment is or should be because giving prisoners an easy life where they have that much freedom is not going to lead to reform and it won't fix their problems and it won't help society out much either when it comes to the taxpayer's pocketbook.

Mabey, but rewarding them for having more ability dosent, not when that means people with less ability get slighted.


...and between how good they are at what they do and what they get. Less talented people dont deserve less than more talented people.


Sure, for those with the ability. What about those without?


Well, yeh, but that dosent mean the lifestile of our not-so-grate minds shoudnt be as good as that of our best.


Yeh, unless hes allowed to succeed in abolishing political opposition, so that he becomes the only choice (much like what Hitler did, he had elections, only he was the only candidate, so that people were voting either for him or for anarchy, which was much less of a choice).

Well, it is more important for society that the people with more ability and who are able to accomplish more and do it better are not slighted rather than to keep from slighting those with less ability. By treating everyone the same in that regard we disincentize the best and brightest because they feel unappreciated for their success. Nobody/almost nobody is going to try to do better or work harder if they know that there will be no reward for success. Considering that the success of our nation is built upon the backs of the ambitious who often work seeking reward we must continue to reward to make sure that these people continue their hard work. Talented people would put in even less work if they did not get a reward for what they did do, I have seen many people with good talent underperforming because they did not feel it was important, fortunately I have seen many many more that did do well because they did realize that there would be reward.

Actually the lifestyle of our great minds will have to be better than that of our less great minds if only to keep those minds. There is a competitive job market out there, if we do not pay our great minds well then other countries might give them a great lifestyle or they may simply choose not to do the work that they are capable of and pick the easiest job available.

George Bush cannot get the office of president ever again. The constitution forbids this due to a constitutional ammendment that took place after FDR. Bush is no dictator, he might not be one of our best presidents but we have seen worse people in that office and still remained strong. Bush is not similar to Hitler at all, Hitler for 1 was a better speaker and 2 openly discussed policies of ethnic cleansing and world domination and 3 Hitler was a racist and a complete extremist. Bush speaks like Bush, Bush does not openly speak of world domination and has never spoken of ethnic cleansing any time that I can ever recall, our military currently lacks the strength/will to dominate the world anyway, Bush has never openly expressed racism and even though he tends strongly towards the right he does not actually reach the required insanity in policy or action to become an extremist.

What if YOU were the one that was to die?

What do you think about that now, clever clogs!!