Don’t get me wrong, I:
Don’t think prison should be a ’soft’ option
Think that people are in prison to be punished
Don’t think that people in prison should have luxuries that others can’t necessarily afford
Think that people in prison should do useful work to minimise (or ideally entirely offset) the cost of keeping them in prison

But I am still kind of in agreement on the ‘inhumane’ thing. Anyone that forces people to watch Newt Gingrich has to be classed as inhumane… plus I also think that while prison should be about punishment, it should also be about rehabilitation: get people to consider the impact of their crimes on others, and equip them with the skills to perform a useful function in society when they get out again.

Don’t forget Amnesty International’s concerns about ill-treatment.

Don’t forget some of the negative sides of the scheme (taken from Wikipedia):

Charles Agster, a mentally handicapped man who was killed in the County Jail shortly after being arrested on misdemeanor loitering charges
Death of Scott Norberg … evidence suggests detention officers shocked Norberg several times with a stun-gun. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, Norberg was already handcuffed and face down when officers dragged him from his cell and placed him in a restraint chair with a towel covering his face
Brian Crenshaw was a blind inmate allegedly beaten into a coma by guards working under Arpaio … who later died in hospital
Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for possession of marijuana and criminal trespass. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured

I won’t be passing it on.

I think the barbarous, inhumane treatment meted out to prisoner’s in Joe’s regime is not one we should be celebrating. I don’t think we should just unquestioningly swallow the spin dished out by the Sheriff’s office (as above).

The problem with all of this is that people go too far. The treatment listed in the post is reasonable, designed to put people off wanting to re-offend in order to get a cushy life at no cost. OK, I’m not sure I agree with no protection from the heat but I do agree with the no frills approach and saving taxpayer money by not providing luxuries.

Rehabilitation is fine but you tend to get the do-gooders pushing everything in completely the opposite direction to Joe and you end up with H.M.P. Ritz.

It needs a balance and that’s not what we have at the moment.

I’d be interested to see the stats on re-offending from that jail.

Last thing 42 days detention for terrorist suspects…. with councils now using anti terrorists survellance laws to catch people who let their dogs crap on the footpath how long would it be before people who complain about public transport just get carted off to do their time.