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Stuff About Prison; abzug [May 1, 2006]
Topic Started: Jun 7 2006, 10:16 PM (7,399 Views)
solitasolano
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The Muppets!
We often chuckle about the "it's not a Swiss finishing school" appearance of the prison experience in Bad Girls as the prison experience here in California is way different. Here's a photo from a recent Washington Post article about the trend in early releases around the US as means to deal with overpopulation in prison. Granted this is a male prison dorm, but even woman immates where some sort of uniform (person clothes sft?) and are usually housed in dormatory type living.

Posted Image

Here's some quotes from the article.

"To ease the overcrowding and save California about $1.1 billion over two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ® has proposed freeing about 22,000 prisoners convicted of nonviolent, nonsexual offenses 20 months earlier than their scheduled release dates. He also wants to place them on unsupervised parole, saving the state the cost of having all parolees assigned to an agent."

"California -- which has the country's worst fiscal crisis, with a potential shortfall of $20 billion -- has seen its prison-related spending swell to $10.4 billion for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. About 170,000 inmates are packed into California's 33 prisons, which were designed to hold 100,000. About 15,000 prisoners are being housed in emergency beds, in converted classrooms and gymnasiums.

Rhode Island's prison population peaked and its 4,000-inmate prison capacity was exceeded in recent years, prompting a lawsuit and a court settlement. "The soaring inmate census has created a crisis here," said Ashbel T. Wall, the state's corrections director. "We've been busting the budget continuously. . . . Our prisons have been packed."


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Just Another Mad Bad Fan
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I thought this was rather an interesting item regarding restorative justice in The Sunday Times, from the perspective of both the perpetrator and the victim. Thoughts of Helen's efforts with Shaz and Mrs Foster sprang to mind. (Sorry, it's a bit long!)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/c...icle3907255.ece
From The Sunday Times
May 11, 2008

How restorative justice turned my life around.
Crime was a way of life for Peter Woolf - until he met two of his victims. Seeing their pain, the tough guy crumpled. He tells how their friendship turned his life round.
THE VILLAIN
That day, I was wandering around a square in north London full of smart houses. After going all the way round, I picked one at random.
Walking casually up to the black door, I pushed the top and bottom to check how many locks it had. It wobbled a bit – just the one lock, then. Leaning against it, I pushed quickly and hard, and I was in.
At the top of the stairs, I found a bedroom full of bits and pieces that I knew I could sell quickly. Normally this kind of job would take five minutes; but this time I was probably in there for over half an hour. For some reason I sat down on the bed and started picking things up, examining them.
All of a sudden I heard a voice. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” It was a big guy, athletic-looking. I made up a lie, something absurd about being a neighbour.
“Get out of my way,” I said. “I’m going.” As I moved past, he grabbed me and there was some pushing and shoving. He was shouting, I was shouting. We forced each other out into the hall and were swinging away at each other - like a proper John Wayne fight. Then I raced downstairs into the kitchen and pretended to grab something from the counter. “Keep away, I’ve got a knife!”
He still came at me, so I picked up a big metal griddle and hit him over the head with it. There was a horrible crack. Then I picked up a big flowerpot and cracked that over his head as well.
I nearly made it out the door, but he grabbed me. Outside, we were still punching and hitting, and he was shouting for help. I managed to pull away but then two fellas walking past got hold of me and pulled me down, kicking and roughing me up till the police arrived.
I could have escaped, but that would have meant doing something drastic like grabbing a knife in the kitchen. When I was younger, I would have. I’ve hit people with iron bars before, shot people with crossbows, done all sorts.
But I wasn’t prepared to do that any more. I was 45, I felt old. Already, I’d been in hospital a couple of times that year – once with suspected TB, once with pneumonia – and I’d contracted hepatitis C from a dirty needle. I’d woken up too many times in dustbin shelters, covered in frozen urine. I had nothing in my life but an empty space that I was filling with drugs and drink. So I’d steal by day, get wasted by night.
After the burglary, I was sent to Pentonville, where I decided – not for the first time – to stop being an alcoholic and drug addict. Beyond that, I had no ambition, no ideas. Until, one day, I had a visit from a policeman called Kim Smith.
He told me he worked on a programme for victims of crime, giving them the chance to meet the person who’d committed the offence against them and explain what effect the crime had had on their lives. And he wanted me to take part.
I thought: “Yeah, maybe it would be nice to say sorry.” For years I hadn’t cared at all about the people I’d wronged, but I’d recently started to feel remorse after withdrawing cash with some woman’s bank card. I don’t know why. Something inside me was changing. But I didn’t act on it.
There was another reason I agreed to go along with Kim’s idea: to break the monotonous routine. I’ve been in prison for 18 years, off and on, and it’s incredibly boring.
My life of crime, drinking and violence started early. When I was four, I thought I was going to be beaten to death after calling my mum a slag. She picked up a poker and began hitting me – luckily, my sisters Alice and Carol pulled her off me. Years later, while sitting in the back of a police car, I was told that the woman who’d hit me wasn’t actually my mother at all. She was my grandmother. Alice was my mother and Carol was my aunt.
When I was seven, I nicked some money off the mantelpiece. My grandad punched me in the mouth. “When I was your age,” he said, “if I wanted something, I’d go and kick in the shop window and take it.” So, from then on, that’s what I did.
I was happy being a thief. Prison was just a place you had to go to sometimes: I’d go in, do my time, then pick up where I’d left off. I’ve been to every prison in London except Belmarsh, and as far afield as Norwich, the Isle of Wight and Cardiff. After a while I had fewer and fewer mates inside. I just wanted to sit in my cell and smoke drugs, which started to isolate me.
In Pentonville, in 2002, I was ready for change. And that’s when I got the visit from Kim Smith. I couldn’t see any reason not to meet the people I’d stolen from and attacked. Maybe I’d learn something. Then, as the weeks went by, I began to worry. Kim said I should try to get my family’s support because the others would be bringing their families. But my family laughed at me when I phoned them to ask.
It was a Tuesday, about two o’clock, when the screw came to collect me. As we walked down a long corridor, I felt sick and suddenly knew I didn’t want to go through with it.
The screw pointed to the door of the prison library. There were a lot of people in there – all laughing and talking. When Kim led me in, the room fell silent. I remember he pressed his hand down on my shoulder, which relaxed me, encouraged me to lift my head. Sitting opposite was Will, the man I’d fought, and a woman I guessed must be his wife. And beside them was a doctor I’d nicked a laptop from on the same day I’d broken into Will’s home.
Kim introduced everyone and laid out how the session would proceed. I felt lulled into a sense of security. I could do this. It was my turn to speak first. I explained what had driven me to break into their homes. At one point, I started to address Will. I gestured at him and said something like, “When we met . . .”
“Met? Met?” Will exploded and nearly stood up in his chair. He was red with fury, and let me know what he’d felt – not just the physical pain but also the anguish and anger he’d experienced afterwards. He felt he’d failed to protect his wife and their home, and that was why he’d wanted to see who’d done this to him.
Then the doctor spoke. He could barely lift his head. He said that at the time I’d stolen his laptop he’d just broken up with someone and was trying to prove to himself that he could cope on his own. Now he dreaded going home because it felt unsafe. The laptop I’d stolen, which I sold for no more than £20, represented his life’s work because it contained all his research and his notes on patients. I’d taken something that meant a lot to him and treated it as worthless.
He’d found it very hard to come in and confront me, he said – and then he leant forward in his chair and cried.
What had I done? I’d lived my whole life adrift from people, in my own little bubble, and suddenly the anger and pain of these two men forced its way into me. I’d done this to them – me. It hurt.
Kim turned to me and asked me to respond. Everyone stared. My throat closed. I couldn’t speak. I felt very hot, then very cold. Tears rushed into my eyes. Somehow, I managed to say I was sorry, that I wasn’t going to do it again, that I was no longer taking drugs or drinking. Then I stopped. I sat there and – me, the tough guy – I shook.
At the end of the session, both Will and the doctor asked me to write to them every six months. They wanted me to tell them how I was putting my life in order. I felt humiliated, humbled. These men I’d harmed were reaching out to me. They seemed to care about me, and they had no reason to do so. And because of that, it counted. I badly wanted Will and the doctor to be proud of me.
Afterwards, I tried telling everyone in prison about my experience. Nobody cared. Being a good guy really doesn’t sit too well with other prisoners. The screws thought I was up to something, or had finally gone crazy. My entire social network was against me.
But I was determined. So I kept in touch with Will and the doctor. Will wrote back; he wanted to know how I felt now that I’d made these momentous changes in my life – conquering my addictions and making plans for my future for the first time. I could have cried when I read his letter. Nobody had ever asked me how I felt, or wanted to hear a truthful answer.
Once the officials realised I was no longer a threat, I was transferred to an open prison. I applied to do a course in counselling, outside the prison, and met a woman on the course called Louise. She told me later that she thought it was brave to introduce myself straight off as a serving prisoner. We got married two years after I came out of prison. All that time, I’d kept in touch with Kim Smith – we talked on the phone and he even started asking me for advice. At the wedding, he was my best man.
When he retired a couple of years ago, I took Louise to his retirement dinner in the Tower of London. We sat at a table with Will and his wife, eating and talking normally. I still find that amazing: from burgling someone’s house and hitting him on the head to sitting at a lovely dinner in the Tower of London with him and his wife – and my own wife, too.
I’m now starting work with the Metropolitan police. I do a lot of work with restorative justice programmes, helping to turn prolific and priority offenders away from crime. Amazingly, Will often does the work with me.
We both firmly believe that it should be a regular tool of the justice system and we’re happy to give up our time. We’re in touch a lot and we meet quite often for a bit of lunch.
I chose the right guy’s house that day.
This is an adapted extract from The Damage Done by Peter Woolf, published by Bantam Press on May 19 at £12.99. Copies can be ordered for £11.69, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585

He turned my home into a scary place
THE VICTIM
William Riley fell into depression after being burgled, but confronting the raider in jail led to a recovery. Now they work together to tackle crime
I do a lot of my work as a venture capitalist from my house in Islington, north London, where I live with my wife and my daughter. I was there at about 5.15 in the afternoon when Peter Woolf broke in. In fact I was just getting my gym stuff together when I saw a guy standing in the corridor on the top floor and thought: “Oh, Christ.”
When I challenged him, he told me he’d heard a noise and come to investigate. He said he was a neighbour. I asked where he lived, and he said: “Number 2.” So I asked where that was – and he pointed the wrong way.
I threw him onto the floor. But I’d only intervened in the first place because I wanted to prevent the house from being messed up, and now I was messing it up myself, sending things flying – so I pulled back.
He ran into the kitchenette and said he had a knife. I pulled down his jacket to immobilise his arms – I’d seen somebody do that on Starsky and Hutch. He grabbed a griddle and hit me on the head with it. I was so pumped up, I hardly noticed. I could see from his eyes that he was heavily drugged. He wasn’t fighting, not really.
I bundled him down a flight of stairs, but then I realised he might fall out of one of the windows, so I released him. He ran down the rest of the stairs and I followed him. On one landing he hit me on the head with a pot, but again I hardly felt it.
As we got outside, I called for help, and two guys passing by laid into him. It was only when the police arrived and said they were calling an ambulance that I realised I had blood running down my head.
Afterwards, every time I got home I felt there was going to be somebody behind the front door. It was upsetting. I didn’t realise it but this was classic depression. Your home is the one place where you should really feel safe.
But I was also curious to find out what had happened to the burglar. When I was called by Kim Smith, a facilitator with the Metropolitan police who was bringing victims to meet offenders, I agreed to come along – as long as it wouldn’t affect the man’s prison sentence.
Pentonville was awful – endless doors and gates and keys. In the prison library we sat round a table and had a laugh because Kim had put out a box of hankies as well as a packet of biscuits. It turned out he knew what he was doing.
The criminal walked in, looking sheepish. However, he soon started talking social-work bollocks, parrot fashion. I was thinking: “This is getting nowhere.” Then he looked at me and said: “When we met . . .” And I lost it.
I said: “We didn’t meet at some cocktail party. You broke into my house and hit me on the head.” And it all came out, everything I was feeling – about how terrible it was not to be able to protect my family. Stuff I hadn’t even told my wife. I hadn’t really known how I felt until it just came out, like water from a fire hydrant.
Afterwards, I was exhausted – but when I got home I knew there wouldn’t be anyone behind my front door.
Then it was the turn of another victim. He was a doctor, and after Peter stole his laptop his world had crumbled. This is what crime can do to you. That’s why people who’ve experienced it talk about BC and AC – before crime and after crime.
Hearing this hit Peter like a bombshell. We could see that. He was gutted. You don’t leave somebody who’s in that kind of state, not unless you’re a shit, so we spent about 10 minutes talking about how to help him. We said we wanted him to write to us every six months and tell us what he was doing. And I told him that if he went back to his old life, he’d be shitting on our goodwill.
People think restorative justice sounds easy, but it’s not. It’s very hard to confront somebody. But I believe you should meet and talk to criminals because that reempowers you. And you realise that the crime wasn’t personal.
On top of everything else, it’s good value. The cost of our meeting with Peter was about £800 – in admin and the wages of the people who put it together. Whereas if he’d carried on his life of crime, Home Office figures suggest it could have cost the taxpayer more than £1.5m over the following five years.
I was so impressed that I got involved in a number of events, talking at seminars and conferences and think tanks. I often do them with Peter – he’s a great guy.
People tell us we’re being soft on crime. So we’ve turned our approach on its head: we’re saying that this isn’t a soft option for criminals – it’s good for victims.
In court, you have a judge at the centre, and the clerks and barristers and solicitors, and the offender. And right up in the gallery is the victim – the person most affected by the crime. In restorative justice, you have the victims in the centre of the room, with their loved ones, talking to the offender and his loved ones. And the victims are saying: “Why did you do it?”
This month I’m helping to launch a charity called Why Me? to represent victims and help them to meet offenders through restorative justice. The charity was my idea and I’m the chairman. Two-thirds of our members are victims; the others are experts.
I believe everybody’s born good and everybody can change. I don’t want to sound like a bleeding-heart liberal, but what are we here for, if not for one another?

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Just Another Mad Bad Fan
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Here is a sad follow-up to the article I posted on the 26 November on page 7 of this thread, regarding Pauline Campbell the prison campaigner whose daughter died of a drugs overdose only hours after entering Styal Prison.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3937269.ece

From The Times
May 16, 2008

Prisons campaigner found dead at her daughter's grave
Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

A woman who began campaigning for better jail conditions after her daughter died of a drug overdose only hours after being imprisoned was found dead near the grave of the teenager yesterday. The body of Pauline Campbell, 60, was discovered near the entrance to Oakhills cemetery in Malpas, Cheshire.

Prison reformers paid tribute to Mrs Campbell, from Whitchurch, Shropshire, whom they described as an inspiring campaigner and a “human being of indescribable bravery”.

Mrs Campbell, a former lecturer, had been arrested 15 times for protesting outside jails in England and Wales where women inmates had died in self-harm incidents. She held 28 demonstrations and was charged five times for her direct action, which included blocking prison vans, but she was never convicted.

Her daughter Sarah, 18, died from a drug overdose in January 2003. She was the third of six women to die at Styal Prison in 12 months. She died just 24 hours after arriving at the prison following her conviction at Mold Crown Court for the manslaughter of a retired civil servant. She had aggressively begged money for drugs from Amrit Bhandari, 72, who was so frightened that he suffered a heart attack and died. She admitted stealing his wallet and using stolen credit cards.

Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “Pauline Campbell campaigned bravely and tirelessly to save other families from having to endure the unbearable pain of losing a child through suicide in prison. Her death makes me so sad. She tried so hard to make a difference.”

Sarah, who became a heroin abuser at 16 and had an abortion before she was 17, was in the segregation unit at the women’s prison but had managed to smuggle in antidepressants.

An inquest found that the prison seemed more concerned with processing prisoners than caring for them, that it had a lack of suitable accommodation for vulnerable prisoners and a lack of structured training for staff.

Mrs Campbell sued the Prison Service under Article Eight of the Human Rights Act. The case was settled out of court in September 2006.

A spokeswoman for Cheshire Police said that a member of the public had discovered the body of a woman lying in the entrance to the graveyard at Malpas. She said that there were no suspicious circumstances.

Earlier this week Mrs Campbell was informed that the Crown Prosecution Service had dropped charges of obstructing the highway at a protest rally that she led outside Styal Prison.

Mrs Campbell told the Manchester Evening News: “This senseless prosecution was a waste of the court’s time, a scandalous waste of public money and an enormous drain on my emotional health.

“Yet another attempt to criminalise and punish me has failed and the CPS and the Attorney-General have met with a barrage of letters complaining about the vindictive nature of the case, demanding to know how the prosecution could be in the public interest. This prosecution has felt like an attack on my reputation.”

She added: “I believe in standing up for principle because it is one of the few ways in which people can make a difference. I refuse to bow to pressure and will stick to my resolve to hold prison death demonstrations outside jails in England when women kill themselves in the so-called care of the State.”
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Just Another Mad Bad Fan
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On the same day the papers are full of the story that there has been a 25% increase in the numbers of crimes being committed by girls. This article from The Independent questions why.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime...med-829235.html

The Big Question: Why are girls committing more crime, and should we be alarmed?

By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Friday, 16 May 2008

Why are we asking this question now?

Anxiety about growing lawlessness among young women was fuelled by figures yesterday from the Youth Justice Board (YJB). It disclosed that the number of offences committed by girls leapt by 25 per cent in just three years, compared with a two per cent fall among boys.

The notion of female delinquents has recently passed into the national consciousness with the comic creations of Little Britain's Vicky Pollard and Lauren Cooper, the surly teenager portrayed by Catherine Tate. But there is a sinister side to the phenomenon of girls aping boys' yobbish behaviour, with a series of reports in recent months of vicious attacks by girls and women. Evidence is mounting that violent crime is spreading to female offenders.

What do the youth crime figures show?

The vast majority of offences are committed by boys, but just over one-fifth of crimes reported to Youth Offending Teams, which deal with children aged between 10 and 17, are committed by girls. The trend is sharply upwards, representing a 25 per cent increase on the 47,358 offences committed by girls in 2003-04. Last year, girls carried out 15,672 violent attacks (a rise of more than 50 per cent over the past three years) and more than one-quarter of all assaults by youngsters. They were also responsible for 19,722 thefts, 5,964 public order offences and 5,748 incidents of criminal damage.

One-hundred-and-eighty girls were convicted of arson, while 954 were found guilty of drugs crimes and 1,463 of drugs crimes.

What happens to them?

A total of 15,835 girls appeared in court last year, of whom 15,375 received bail or community sentences and 460 were sent into custody. Fewer than 10 per cent of the children in custody are girls, although they commit about 20 per cent of offences, suggesting courts are less willing to lock them up or – more likely – they have been convicted of less serious offences.

Currently 207 girls are locked up in young offender institutions, secure training centres or local authority homes, compared with 2,735 boys. The numbers of children of both sexes who are behind bars is increasing, despite appeals to courts by the YJB to use more community sentences.

What recent evidence is there of girls becoming violent?

A girl who received horrific injuries in a bomb blast in Harrow, north-west London, was said to have been living in fear of a girl gang that had already beaten her up and was trying to drive her out of the city. Last night, the explosion was blamed by police on a gas leak, but the episode inadvertently shone a spotlight on violence between young women.

Last month, a massive brawl erupted between rival girl gangs wielding snooker balls in socks in the unlikely setting of Shoreham railway station in West Sussex.

In Northwich, Cheshire, a former policewoman was punched in the face by a teenage girl as she was mobbed by a gang of youngsters. A 15-year-old girl was jailed in March for filming two male friends beating a man to death in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on her mobile phone. The same month, a court heard that a gang of six teenage girls threw stones at a pensioner in Selby, North Yorkshire, forcing her into a busy road and leaving her with a broken nose and black eyes.

Are girls really committing more crime?

It is hard to deny the trend uncovered by the YJB's figures, but the increase might not be as dramatic as it first appears.

First, the number of teenage girls in the population has risen, so the offending rate could be expected to go up – although not, admittedly, by 25 per cent. More significantly, more girls are becoming embroiled in the youth justice system after petty incidents, such as school fights. There is also evidence that many of the theft/handling crimes committed by girls are minor shoplifting offences. Where they might have previously received informal warnings, they are now appearing in youth courts. Paul Cavadino, chief executive of Nacro, the crime reduction charity, said: "Much of the recorded 25 per cent rise is a statistical illusion, reflecting a greater readiness to report minor offences to the police."

Nacro also suspects that more children of both sexes are being given on-the-record reprimands by police because of pressure to hit targets for crime detection.

Elaine Arnull, of London's South Bank University, who has investigated female offending for the YJB, said: "We think the response to girls by agencies – schools, police, other people – has changed, so girls are possibly being prosecuted for offences they weren't being prosecuted for before."

She added: "Most offending by girls, especially violent offending, is of a very low level. It doesn't mean it's insignificant, but it is hair-pulling fights between girls."

The rise could also be seen as evidence that society is becoming less tolerant of behaviour that might once have been seen as high spirits.

Surely drink plays a part?

There is ample evidence in town and city centres at weekends of the phenomenon of "ladettes", groups of teenage girls and young women who become as drunk and unruly as their male contemporaries. Recent police figures suggested that 50 per cent more women were arrested in 2007-08 for being drunk and disorderly than five years ago. In the West Midlands, the number went up from just 59 to 731.

Meanwhile, as many as 29 per cent of schoolgirls admit to binge-drinking, a higher figure than schoolboys. Given the link between extreme alcohol consumption and violence, it is inevitable that more girls are finding themselves with a criminal record. David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said the levels of offending were a "shocking indictment" of the Government's failure to get a grip on crime. He said new licensing laws, and policies which have "driven family breakdown", had contributed to the problem.

Are more girls joining gangs?

Last year, the Metropolitan Police estimated that there were at least 170 youth gangs in London, but only three known to be all-female. There is also anecdotal evidence of the rise of "mixed-sex" gangs in some parts of the country.

However, very little research has been done into the subject and the true extent of gang membership among girls nationally is unknown. But its impact is already being felt in several communities.

Is there a crimewave among girls?

Yes...

* A 25 per cent rise in offences is objective proof of more lawlessness among girls.

* Female binge-drinking is growing, resulting in more violent crime offences.

* There has been a succession of reports about girl violence in all parts of the country.

No...

* Girls commit far fewer crimes than boys – only 20 per cent of the offences committed by children.

* They are being prosecuted for offences that would have previously received an informal warning.

* Drink-fuelled high spirits are hardly a pointer to criminal behaviour in later life.


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richard
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Enhanced
This article in the Independent shows a disaster waiting to happen. Prison overrcrowding has become something that has evolved over the last number of years with the government not forseeing it. If these type prisons are admitted to be overcrowded from word go, this is bound to spell trouble. I'd be interested in views 'the other side of the pond' as I suspect this approach of 'building yourself out of the problem' with large prisons has been tried before.

.....................................................................................................................
*The new generation of "Titan" jails holding more than 2,000 inmates each will be overcrowded from the moment they open, the Ministry of Justice admitted yesterday as it set out detailed plans for the giant prisons. The admission is fresh evidence of the huge pressure on the penal system, with ministers conceding that far more people are being jailed in several parts of the country than there is room to hold them.


Penal reformers warned that attempts by the Government to build its way out of the prison crisis would backfire as the new "super-jails" would struggle to rehabilitate offenders. The first £350m prison, to be opened by 2012, will be situated in the London area, where the demand for space is most acute. It will be followed by further giant jails in the West Midlands and the North-west.

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solitasolano
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The Muppets!
For old times sake...Season 3 riot anybody?

Quote:
 

150 inmates riot at Los Angeles County jail in Castaic
At least one is hospitalized, and a deputy is injured in the brawl at the Pitchess Detention Center.

By Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:00 PM PDT, September 19, 2008

More than 150 inmates were involved in a riot at the Peter Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic this afternoon.

At least one inmate was hospitalized and a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was injured during the brawl, which was reported at 2:35 p.m., authorities said.

A number of ambulances remained on the scene as county Fire Department paramedics continued to evaluate inmates for injuries two hours after the disturbance was reported. The inmate taken to the hospital had complained of chest pains, and the deputy had an injured hand.

Officials said the violence broke out in the East Facility. They did not have any information about the cause.

The jail has been on lockdown since the fight broke out.
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Just Another Mad Bad Fan
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Jailhouse Rock anyone?

This Yahoo news item apparently made the first page of The Sun today - possibly because it will be of interest to about 81 748 of its readers? :)


Prisoners to get £2m radio station

Tuesday, January 20 06:21 am
The Press Association.

A new prison radio station beaming programmes into cells is being rolled out across the country, it has emerged. Prison Service bosses have sanctioned the launch of the station broadcasting to jails across England and Wales at a reported cost of £2 million.

It will see material including messages and "educational programmes" beamed 12 hours a day to around 140 prisons.

The Ministry of Justice said the go-ahead for the operation was given after it was found keeping inmates locked up for longer each day was saving £17 million a year.

Running costs will come from existing budgets, the ministry says, with help also coming from the Prison Radio Association charity.

A Justice Ministry spokesman said: "The new prison core day, which saves the prison service £17 million a year, means prisoners spend more time in their cells.

"The prison service national radio service will allow us to communicate messages and educational programmes to them during this time, and while they are working in the prison. It can also be used to communicate to prisoners in the event of an incident."

Shadow justice minister Edward Garnier said he would prefer prisoners to be working rather than lying on their beds listening to messages.

He told The Sun: "The Government has presided over the worst prison overcrowding in the history of the Prison Service. Now it tries to pretend pumping radio programmes into cells makes everything all right. It would be comic if it were not so tragic."

Data last week showed the prison population in England and Wales was 81,748.
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solitasolano
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The Muppets!
Another reason there will never be a US version of Bad Girls....US prisons today do not translate to 1999 British television version of the incarcerated experience.
Seems like some "wing gov" at a Virgina Women's Prison took it upon themselves to separate the "butch" and masculine looking/dressing inmates from the rest...of course, thereby leaving the lipstick lesbians to mingle at will with the general prison population.
Quote:
 
For more than a year, Virginia's largest women's prison rounded up inmates who had loose-fitting clothes, short hair or otherwise masculine looks, sending them to a unit officers derisively dubbed the "butch wing," prisoners and guards say.

Dozens were moved in an attempt to split up relationships and curb illegal sexual activity at the 1,200-inmate Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, though some straight women were sent to the wing strictly because of their appearance, the inmates and corrections officers said.

Civil rights advocates called the moves unconstitutional punishment for "looking gay." The warden denied that any housing decisions were made based on looks or sexual orientation, and said doing so would be discriminatory. The practice was stopped recently after the Associated Press began questioning it, according to several inmates and one current employee.

Two current guards and one of their former co-workers said targeting masculine-looking inmates was a deliberate strategy by a building manager. Numerous inmates said in letters and interviews that they felt humiliated and stigmatized when guards took them to the separate wing - also referred to by prisoners and guards as the "little boys wing," "locker room wing" or "studs wing."


Can read the rest at the link above. Cheers.
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Jules2
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Oh wow, are you both for me?
The Muppets!
I found this article on the BBC site today. A jailor sentenced to 30 months. 18 months for smuggling in 3 cell phones. And 12 months for misconduct.

As much as we all wanted Helen and Nikki to be even more together, Helen risked a lot by being with Nikki. And while we all know it was love... the eyes of public opinion would not have seen it that way.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england...rts/8358597.stm

(moderators should feel free to move this topic if there is a better thread for it!)


Jules
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