should ronnie biggs be freed

Originally Posted by Chris T

Of course they are.

Here's some Government discussion on it, admittedly in the context of the prison population being rather too high:

http://www.publications.parliament.u.../15/15we30.htm

Note liberal use of the words 'punishment' and 'punitive' throughout. The suggestion is that there is too much emphasis on punishment in our system as it is.

I based my statement on the discussion I have had with 2 of my mates that are HM prison officers. Both on High security wings. After a reccent (ish) riot I said to them that the poeple in prison are there as a punishment and they pointed out that yes that should be the case but all their training and documentation relates to rehabilitation and not punishment.

Very interesting document; "Memorandum from Rethinking Crime and Punishment"; I'll have to collect all the references and study what people have to say.

I think it's quite legitimate to ask ourselves what is prison for? At £35,000 per prisoner p.a. and prison building at £60 million maybe the committee members have a point. I always thought rehabilitation is what we should aim at although clearly with some prisoners that is difficult to imagine.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by timewarrior2001

I based my statement on the discussion I have had with 2 of my mates that are HM prison officers. Both on High security wings. After a reccent (ish) riot I said to them that the poeple in prison are there as a punishment and they pointed out that yes that should be the case but all their training and documentation relates to rehabilitation and not punishment.

I'm not in the least surprised to hear that. The last thing you want is to educate prison officers to think their job is to help punish offenders. They are punished simply by being inside a prison, denied their liberty. Once there, the job of the staff is to assist in correcting their behaviour and preparing them for release, not helping to make them feel bad.

[Stuart C]

Originally Posted by Chris T

I'm not in the least surprised to hear that. The last thing you want is to educate prison officers to think their job is to help punish offenders. They are punished simply by being inside a prison, denied their liberty. Once there, the job of the staff is to assist in correcting their behaviour and preparing them for release, not helping to make them feel bad.

It's true... A friend of mine recently started training to become a Prison officer (a fact which he tells everyone loudly, and usually in the middle of a busy pub before swearing us to secrecy as it would be dangerous for outsiders to know), and he said basically what you and TW have said.

On to the original question: Do I think Biggs should be released? I don't know. On the one hand, he is ill, and unlikely to do anything illegal. On the other, if we did, we may be sending a message that all a prisoner has to do to get released is get ill..

[Escapee]

I think generally sentences and punishment are too light in this country, on the other hand Biggs and Co wouldn't of got so hard a sentence if they had stole money from any member of this board.

Make no mistake, their sentences were higher because it was a crime involving state money, we will never know the truth about Jack Mills death because he didn't die as a direct result of the injuries, and there were stories that he was in fact ill before the event. (I'm making no excuses for them coshing him over the head though)

It has never been proved as far as I know, who actually coshed him over the head and we must remember that some members of this board disagree when someone like myself advocates protecting your own property with force, and have indicated that anyone doing this is inviting trouble.

It sounds like Biggs is on his last legs, I would feel differently if he was a serial pedophile, but in this instance I believe it would be better to free him and tag him instead of the tax payer keeping him.

Whats the point in wasting taxpayers money to educate a guy that he's done wrong when he's on his last legs!