A much better piece on prison’s and rights, thanks Neil.

“Prison should always be a place for punishment”

*as*, not *for*, surely?

Excellent piece though. While it’s not the main point, charging the girls in the Bhandari case with manslaughter was an outrage – even though littering is illegal, the point of manslaughter laws is clearly not so that I can be sent to jail if someone slips on a banana skin I drop, and the girls’ actions were scarcely worse than littering…

Neil, something here just doesn’t add up.

There are many people who suffer abuse and don’t end up on Heroin- its not an excuse and it can’t have been the only thing that was going on. I find it really hard to believe that a mother who supposedly faught so hard for her daughter after she died would not fight to keep her safe from the abuse and get her treatment for the mental illness she developed.

For me, this story has nothing to do with prison reform and more to do with how do we get people to stop having children they cannot afford and don’t know how (or aren’t mentally well enough) to look after. It is these kids who develop mental illness who then end up in prison because there is noone to look after them.

I think that poor man paid enough taxes to ensure that he doesn’t need to be accosted by desperate beggars who choose a lifestyle they too cannot afford.

Her death to me is not a tragedy, she is much better off dead then a junkie prostitute working for an abusive pimp. The real tragedy is that people such as the author cannot see what the real problem is so that we can try and come up with a solution.

john b two girls commit an act which leads to someone to having a heart attack. They then leave that person to die and do not even call for an ambulance . That is a very similar act to pushing someone who then falls over ,hitting their head and dies and the attacker having made no attempt to call an ambulance. I do not read anything about sympathy for the family of the man who had the heart attack and was left to die. How was it that the Mother allowed her daughter to be continually sexually abused throughout her childhood? Was the daughter taken into care?

Lee – Thanks.

johnb:

*as*, not *for*, surely?

Yeah. No matter how many times I proof-read, there’s always something I miss.

Lilliput & Charlie:

I don’t have answers to all the questions you’re asking specific to this case, but if you’re interested, I took the details about Sarah Campbell’s life & death from these two articles: http://tinyurl.com/cc84zu, http://tinyurl.com/avjwm2

Thanks Charlie, I completely forgot the impact of their actions on the victim’s family members.

Excellent point.

Great post Neil.

“There are many people who suffer abuse and don’t end up on Heroin- its not an excuse and it can’t have been the only thing that was going on.”

many people also don’t die when they get hit by cars, depending on how you define many, it doesn’t lessen the link between getting hit by a car and significantly higher risk of death. The fact is that physical abuse greatly increases the risk of drug or alcohol abuse

“Her death to me is not a tragedy, she is much better off dead then a junkie prostitute working for an abusive pimp.”

Nice…but then given your belief that it’s ok to shell innocent civilians in Gaza I’m not surprised at your blasé feelings towards the deaths of people different to you.

“two girls commit an act which leads to someone to having a heart attack”

Barely. If the bloke’s heart is sufficiently weak that ‘having a beggar be a bit mean to him’ is something that can trigger a fatal heart attack, then he’s not long for this world – his next attempt at driving in rush hour, or trying to catch a train when the weather’s a bit ropey, will be at least as stressful…

Beyond that, Lee’s right and you’re both appalling.

the girls’ actions were scarcely worse than littering…

What?!

I could say exactly the same thing to you about your blase attitude to the death of Mr Amrit Bhandari .

“Nice…but then given your belief that it’s ok to shell innocent civilians in Gaza I’m not surprised at your blasé feelings towards the deaths of people different to you.”

And from your previous comments on prisons I can see that you don’t have any feelings for innocent victims of crime. You value the rights of the perpetrators over the rights of the innocent – just like you value the rights of Hamas to throw rockets at Israel rather then the rights of innocent Israelis to live lives free of fear.

Let’s not bring Gaza into this – please ,

Rather than try to help the man they had literally frightened to death, the girls took his briefcase and wallet, and fled.

Yep – just like dropping litter.

The obvious point that leaps out at me is that heroin use or even addiction need not be associated with crime. It just is right now under our current legal system. This is particularly relevant to this case as I read recently (http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/10/totalitarians.html) that 70 per cent of female heroin addicts have been sexually abused. There is a theory that opiate use is actually a reasonable form of self-medication when dealing with the immense trauma of having suffered extreme levels of abuse. Then the government decides that these self-medicating individuals are “addicts” and need treatment, and most definitely should not get their next “fix”, leading to the usual problems of prohibiting markets (artificially high costs, leading to violence and desperation).

So I think prison reform is beside the point and is probably a minor player in these events. The big thing is the fact that the government has decided that it knows best what people should be putting in their bodies. Which, in many cases, it doesn’t. It uses relatively common sense generalisation about what is good for people, but doesn’t really deal with individuals. Which is why individuals should be best left to choose for themselves. And that goes for heroin users (whether addicts or not) too.

john b . The girls undertook an action which caused someone to collapse. The criminals had the presence of mind to steal from the victime but not call an ambulance. To me that is act which has led to someone’s death . Though I am sure they did not intend to commit murder, once the victim had fallen to the ground and they did not call an ambulance their actions caused a death and they are guilty of manslaughter.

John b , you have no idea how long this man could have lived. You appear to claim an infallible ability to judge someone’s life span.

“I could say exactly the same thing to you about your blase attitude to the death of Mr Amrit Bhandari .”

Sorry, at what point did I say that he deserved to die? Pick the right argument, lest you look like a complete gibbering idiot.

“You value the rights of the perpetrators over the rights of the innocent”

I value the rights of the criminals, where those rights don’t conflict with the rights of the public or the victims, as the same as the rights of the innocent…primarily because once that criminal has done their time reduction of those rights over time will cause them an impact on their rights once they are a free member of society again.

Can you argue something without taking a slight aspect of what I’ve said then adding your own bullshit to it to make it fit your view? Or is it so impossible in your world to actually start making complex distinctions outside of a moronic black and white stance on everything? Right now you lack any credibility of being anything other than the level of a tabloid journalist, taking facts and completely and falsely bending them to your agenda. It’s pathetic.

So I think prison reform is beside the point and is probably a minor player in these events. The big thing is the fact that the government has decided that it knows best what people should be putting in their bodies. Which, in many cases, it doesn’t. It uses relatively common sense generalisation about what is good for people, but doesn’t really deal with individuals. Which is why individuals should be best left to choose for themselves. And that goes for heroin users (whether addicts or not) too.

Well, I think prison reform is necessary just on its own terms and would remain so even if no illegal substances existed, but you’re certainly correct that a saner attitude to drugs would reduce the burden on the system.

a saner attitude to drugs would reduce the burden on the system

Amen

Though I fear not in our lifetime…

Nick – that’s an excellent point about drug usage among abused women. Didn’t know it was that high.

Neil R – excellent article mate

“I could say exactly the same thing to you about your blase attitude to the death of Mr Amrit Bhandari .”

Sorry, at what point did I say that he deserved to die? Pick the right argument, lest you look like a complete gibbering idiot.

Lee, sorry – I think its a bit of the pot kettle black thing, if you just look at the above – where did you get from the blase attitude to “deserve to die”?

I’ll say it simpler Lee, so that you can understand me:

I don’t believe in the “Doing time ” concept of prison. I don’t believe as a concept that it works at all. Its not punishment enough (you agree) , its not a detterant ( you also agree) and its not rehabilitation ( we differ because 40% reoffending is good enough for you but not me).

Finally I think prison is a system which makes society pay twice – which is why it will never work.

Is that any better?

Charlie@14, it’s hardly crazy soothsaying to suggest that someone who suffers a fatal heart attack from a minor verbal assault wasn’t in the best of shapes to start with.

LP@19, so what, we sterilise the poor and hang everyone who’s ever caught for any crime? Or do you have some kind of constructive solution?

Lee, sorry – I think its a bit of the pot kettle black thing, if you just look at the above – where did you get from the blase attitude to “deserve to die”?

this bit…here…

“Her death to me is not a tragedy, she is much better off dead then a junkie prostitute working for an abusive pimp.”

( we differ because 40% reoffending is good enough for you but not me).

Again, look at your trying to assume my opinions from thin air! I don’t think 40% is good enough, I don’t think 0.00001% is good enough. We should obviously aspire to 0%. Is 0% achievable? Almost certainly not. Is a situation of 40% reoffending proof of, as you put it, prisons being completely worthless? Again, almost certainly not.

“Her death to me is not a tragedy, she is much better off dead then a junkie prostitute working for an abusive pimp.”

Lee, how do you get from me writing her death wasn’t a tragedy to me thinking she deserved to die? Please Lee, you can’t be serious? And you’re calling me an idiot?

He didn’t accuse you of wanting her to die, he said you were being blasé about it. Stop inventing what people are saying, and argue (if you can) with what they are actually saying.

In 2002 Amrit Bhandari was walking through the centre of Chester when two women asked him for money. He refused, but the beggars persisted and one threatened to accuse the 72-year-old of rape if he didn’t hand something over.

Which is exactly why the procedural and evidential standards in rape cases should be the same as any other criminal case.

Sarah’s short life was one filled with horrors few of us can imagine; sexually abused throughout her childhood and raped at 15, she became clinically depressed, sought escape through drugs and, by the age of 16, was enslaved by an addiction to heroin.

I have suffered from depression, as have numbers of my friends. Neither I nor they became criminals as a result.

Similarly I know loads of people who do drugs, both legal and illegal. Non of these people have turned to crime to fund their habit.

Just one day into her three year sentence, Sarah swallowed a lethal quantity of prescription drugs. She was eighteen years old.

Good. One less scumbag in the world.

one of the most enduring lies told about those of us who urge reform of the prison system is that we’re soft on criminals and ignorant of the victims

Indeed it is utter bollocks. If all the people who say prison is like a holiday camp really believed it, they’d break the law in order to go to prison.

This week, the Prison Reform Trust announced that thousands of inmates who should be receiving specialised mental health or social care are instead being ‘diverted’ into prisons which can’t provide the help they need.

It makes sense to try to rehabilitate prisoners. Though that’s not always going to be successful.

In the report, the trust claims that because of a chronically overstretched system, many courts are dumping the mentally ill in prisons

I would imagine that many (if not most) prisoners have mental health issues. Many also are illiterate and have issues to do with lack of education and/or low intelligence.

(In the long term, society could probably cut offending by discouraging stupid people from breeding; though that’s another issue.)

What UKLiberty said, Blasé doesn’t mean joyous or thankful.

“I have suffered from depression, as have numbers of my friends. Neither I nor they became criminals as a result.”

Where did you get this? Anecdotes-R-us? If so, it’s faulty, you should get a refund.

@25 Lee Griffin,

Of course what I said was anecdotal. So was the original article.

If you have a serious point, I suggest you either make it, or shut up and thereby stop wasting everyone’s time.

Hmmm, let’s see…Original article with anecdote to support the factual view….versus your anecdote that flies in the face of the factual view….

Lee, where are the facts exactly? We started this discussion by saying something here just doesn’t add up?

“If you have a serious point, I suggest you either make it, or shut up and thereby stop wasting everyone’s time.”

I hear you!

“I hear you!”

Hilarious irony!

@27 Lee Griffin: Hmmm, let’s see…Original article with anecdote to support the factual view….versus your anecdote that flies in the face of the factual view….

You seem to be saying that people who suffer from depression are more likely to become criminals than people who don’t suffer from depression.

Is there evidence for that view? If so, show us it.

You seem to be saying that people who suffer from depression are more likely to become criminals than people who don’t suffer from depression.

This is either a misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation. Lee was objecting to the insinuation that, having suffered depression yourself and avoided both heroin addiction and the crime which often comes as a result, you’re therefore have the moral authority to proclaim satisfaction that this ‘scumbag’ died a preventable death. Quite apart from the fact that most of us like to read rather more than 50 words before deciding whether someone’s death should be welcomed, and setting aside the knowledge that depression and drug addiction weren’t the only bad things to happen in Sarah Campbell’s short life, your statement is also troubling in light of this:

It makes sense to try to rehabilitate prisoners. Though that’s not always going to be successful.

There are prisoners who are irredeemable scumbags who’ll be in and out of jail for their entire lives, and then there are people who aren’t inherently bad, but get on the wrong track, do some deplorable things, but can, with the right help, be rehabilitated. Why is it ‘good’ that Sarah Campbell, after all she’d been through, never had the opportunity to redeem herself?

Neil: I’ve been surprised by how completely mad some of my client’s are. Sometimes it’s impossible to give legal advice. I had one guy who ran over a policeman believing him to be a test-crash-dummy and was on Belmarsh for a year before we got him into Broadmore. Heaven knows what it was like sharing a cell with him. He was about 40% aware of reality, but mostly just babbled about test-crash-dummies and all kinds of hallucinigenic rubbish. The police officer today walks with a limp and sets of metal detecting alarms where ever he goes.

Nick: Government provides addicts with rehabilitation courses. These courses aim to help the addict learn why they take drugs and that’s how they kick the habit. Drug Testing and Treatment Orders give addicts the choice of going to jail or taking part in a program. Its ludicrous to suggest they should self-medicate with heroin. That’s just replacing one problem with a far worse one.

“Its ludicrous to suggest they should self-medicate with heroin. That’s just replacing one problem with a far worse one.”

I dunno, dan. It seems rather less ludicrous to me than threatening vulnerable individuals with either jail or compliance with programmes with fairly dubious outcomes. And people can function with well-controlled heroin use. I mean plenty of the great and the good in the Victorian era were regular opiate users. I am not saying it doesn’t have loads of problems associated with it , just that the problems do not amount to what you have when the criminal law is involved. State institutions are just not in the best position to judge, which is why it should offer options but without threats.

@31 Niel: Lee was objecting to the insinuation that, having suffered depression yourself and avoided both heroin addiction and the crime which often comes as a result, you’re therefore have the moral authority to proclaim satisfaction that this ’scumbag’ died a preventable death.

That’s nonsense; I wasn’t saying that at all. If you or Lee thought I was, then I you are reading into what I said far more than I said. For the avoidance of of misunderstanding, here is what I think:

1. people who’ve had depression are probably about as likely as anyone else to commit crimes.

2. I do not claim to have any special moral authority.

3. the idea that people who’ve had depression thereby get moral authority is silly. It’s part of the Cult of Victimhood which suggests that because someone’s a victim they get a special moral virtue out of it.

4. I think “scumbag” is a reasonable description for those who rob and kill old people.

5. During Sarah Campbell’s life it is probably that her interactions with others were taken as a whole, of a negative nature, i.e. producing negative utility for others. I also think that in the future, her interactions with the rest of society would probably be the same. Therefore society is better off with her dead.

Quite apart from the fact that most of us like to read rather more than 50 words before deciding whether someone’s death should be welcomed

I am capable of coming to a conclusion based on 50 words. Of course, any such conclusion will inevitably be a provisional conclusion, capable of being modified with more evidence. (If the same is not true for anyone else, BTW, then they are an irrational person). The only things I know about Sarah Campbell are what’s in this article; if I had more information it’s entirely possible I owuld come to different conclusions.

Why is it ‘good’ that Sarah Campbell, after all she’d been through, never had the opportunity to redeem herself?

I’ve highlighted the words “after all she’d been through” because they seem to highlight some of your thought processes. I get the impression that you think everyone has a moral bank account as it were that gets topped up when something nasty happens to one, and which gets spent when one does nasty things to others. (Is this, roughly, what you think?)

I regard this way of thinking as part of the Cult of Victimhood and I disapprove of it. If someone does something bad to me, that is equally bad for me regardless of whether they’ve had a shitty life or not. And therefore whether they’ve had a shitty life is not a factor I’d use in reasoning bout the issue.

Now, if there is evidence that rehabilitation works better on criminals who’ve had an unpleasant childhood, that would suggest to me that society should care more about rehabilitating those criminals than criminals in general. I’ve no idea if such evidence exists.

(Incidently in terms of moral philosophy I’m basically a utilitarian — I suspect that soem of the difference between yours an my viewpoints may be accounted for if you are not a utilitarian. Your comments?)

@33 Nick: And people can function with well-controlled heroin use. I mean plenty of the great and the good in the Victorian era were regular opiate users. I am not saying it doesn’t have loads of problems associated with it , just that the problems do not amount to what you have when the criminal law is involved.

I think most of the problems with heroin use are due to it being illegal. Heroin addicts should get a free supply from the state. This would cost less than nothing as it would be more than paid for in the reduced crimes they would commit. I understand there are plenty of farmers in Afghanistan who would be happy to sell us the stuff.

Of course, this will never happen because it goes against the moronic War On Drugs rhetoric the politicians have been spouting for the last few decades.

“You seem to be saying that people who suffer from depression are more likely to become criminals than people who don’t suffer from depression.

Is there evidence for that view? If so, show us it.”

I was more saying that people that suffer from depression are more likely to fall in to drug abuse or similar, and that increases the risk of criminality. Do you still need evidence for that, I was fairly certain it was common knowledge by now?

Cabalamat,

Well, I suppose that if you think I’ve done violence to your position, it’s only fair that you do violence to mine.

I don’t believe – and have not said – that the woman in question gained any kind of moral virtue as a result of being a victim. I do think that suffering several traumas at such a formative stage in her development will have had a detrimental impact on her mental health, and on her behaviour in society. From the links I’ve included both in the piece and higher up this thread, it seems certainly appears that these traumas weren’t successfully addressed, and I think the heavy & prolonged dependence on drugs can arguably be sourced back to these incidents. There’s also the issue of her friendship group, and the extent to which that might’ve enabled this behaviour. In my view, the moment she became addicted to heroin was the moment she was lost as a rational member of civic society, and I see the crime she committed in that context. Just to be clear, I’m not excusing it; merely seeking to explain it. And the reason I want to explain and understand is only because I like to think that problems have solutions.

All of which is, in a way, besides the point. Whether or not you think she was a scumbag, or her death is to be welcomed, the fact remains that it shouldn’t have happened. She was a known self-harmer, she’d tried to take her life once before whilst on remand, and she eventually became the first of six suicides at Styal in a 12 month period (a fact which spooked the government so much that it ordered an enquiry). The point of the original post (and it works better when read in the context of all the other things I’ve written about prison reform) was to say that there are specific things wrong with the prison system which either put prisoners themselves at risk, or put the rest of us at risk when they’re eventually released.

As for whether or not I’m a utilitarian; well, I like to make a point of not rejecting any theory out of hand. No theory of ethics, philosophy or society is infallible, and I enjoy reading lots of different takes on practical issues. Sharpens the mind, and whatnot. That said, I am a sociologist by education, and I think it’s fair to say that we’ve never had a very cosy relationship with your lot. If you had to pin me down, I’d say I was a social constructionist, but with too much of a promiscuous streak to go out and get the tattoo. Make of that what you will.

“a fact which spooked the government so much that it ordered an enquiry). ”

what did they find?

How would her mother have felt if this never happened and the known self harmer succeeded in killing herself on the street? I think she’s blaming the prison system because its easier then blaming herself.

I’m not denying at all that there needs to be prison reform – but this particular case has nothing to do with the prison system at all but rather the paltry mental health service. We need to remember that suicide is a symptom of mental illness and therefore if there is a successful suicide attempt we shouldn’t blame anyone. Its like someone having a heart attack – most of the times you save them but sometimes you don’t – and thats just life.

“I think most of the problems with heroin use are due to it being illegal. Heroin addicts should get a free supply from the state. This would cost less than nothing as it would be more than paid for in the reduced crimes they would commit. I understand there are plenty of farmers in Afghanistan who would be happy to sell us the stuff.”

I agree but why get the state involved where if it were legal, it could be available for pennies a dose from pharmacists.