Some real news maybe ?

[Pabmusic]

One thing I learnt many years ago when I used to sometimes work in prisons
is that the people one meets in there, far from being totally different to the rest of us that some would have us believe
are, for the most part, quite ordinary and often articulate and "likeable"

I used to do projects at one time with people in for life who would often be the most well read and intellectual people one could meet in spite of the reason why they were there in the first place !

which is not to say that prison is full of lovely people, it's not, it's horrible, it smells, it's full of criminals and it's oppressive etc

BUT

There is a certain smugness sometimes that one picks up often from politicians going on about "hard working families" etc etc which implies that somehow there are good people and there are bad people and that's that. The world is much more nuanced.

A really good post. Criminal justice matters are always publicly discussed in the most simplistic terms.

I have never been inside a prison(so I am grateful for the insight MrGG) or the house of commons, but they sound like they might be very similar...

Whereas I have been inside almost every prison in England and Wales, a couple in Scotland, and ones in the USA, France, the Netherlands, Roumania, Albania and the Philippines. They differ markedly, of course, but what can be said of British prisons is that they're generally clean, if shabby, and rather like hospitals. They smell worst at unlock in the morning, or if a drain becomes blocked. Mr GG's comments are spot-on. It is not the physical conditions as much as the enforced contact with hundreds of others, paradoxically with the mental isolation, that causes problems.

[scottycelt]

I agree with Mr GG about 'good people and bad people'. In reality, I suspect all of us are a mixture to varying degrees.

Even the deceased person whose memory the media and politicians are currently tearing to pieces and predictably calling a 'monster' for his alleged lifetime criminal activities also did quite a bit of 'good', from all accounts.

Mr McKinnon does not strike me as a particularly 'bad' person ... he was just very silly as clever and intelligent people sometimes are.

The human condition is indeed complicated and even the Queen, Pope, Editor of the Sun and Prime Minister David Cameron and the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband can sometimes, I'm sure, do 'bad' things ... and, of course, that Nick Clegg goes without saying.

More shockingly, often even I have been discovered to have done 'bad' things on occasion ... and hence that's a very 'good' point to abruptly end this post!