We Need This Bloke For The New Prison

[La_Dolce_Vita]

LDV - not nearly so simple as just employment. Lonan3 put it extremely well:

Far too often, those problems are either ignored or become the cause of punishments. By the time these kids reach secondary it is, in all but a few cases, too late to do very much to help them because there is already considerable resentment of the 'system' that has let them down so badly.

 

Resentment, disenfranchisment, marginalisation, exclusion, bitterness, hostility....

 

Gifted kids in poor schooling that only caters to the 'average' often fail dismally, becoming withdrawn, restless, 'difficult', etc. to the point of being 'problem children' whose psychological differences present as behavioural problems (ADHD being particularly closely linked with this).

 

There is evidence of neurochemical and neurobiological differences in these children - and that they seek stimulation. (and are very poor at dull boring repetitive mindless tasks). There are all kinds of ways of getting a dopamine fix - some positive, but also others which are not - problem gambling, drug use (particularly amphetamines, cocaine, P), alcohol, thrill seeking behaviours (the buzz of petty crimes sometimes), etc. Drug taking and these other behaviours are linked with psychological differences - e.g. someone with ADHD is 16x more likely to take cocaine (if I remember the study correctly).

 

It is not simply about success in employment - it is about 'social inclusion' i.e. not treating these as outsiders and only heeding the 80%. The 20% who are largely ignored in this way are very highly represented in 80% of the social ills we see - ones that might be brought about by a misguided 'egalitarianism' that insists on treating all people as if they are essentially the same. (no thing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal peoples - Thomas Jefferson). There are differences in thinking styles, learning styles, personality types etc., but we don't really want to acknowledge that these should be taken account of - possibly because uncomfortable that difference suggests inequality (a fallacy which actually increases inequality).

 

Non-average kids from low socio-economic status backgrounds are the most effected and disadvantaged. Hammer round pegs into square holes and the splinters are not just in the individual, but also those around them.

 

I can see what you are saying. It may be said that it is the problem with schooling as a whole because it doesn't cater to the learning needs of children. Children are told what and how to learn. It doesn't seem surprising that there are so many who cannot or refuse to engage in it. We all seek stimulation but modern-day schooling doesn't appear to me to be a stimulating environment or encourages mental stimulation.

 

I agree with your criticisms of schooling and how better schooling can be a channel through which people can better express their potential but I do not see how it is at the heart of the problem of crime. I see it far more as an issue related to the socio-economic status of those in society. Your paragraph in your post seems to highlight this. For instance, I live in Salford which is largely a 'socially deprived' area, whereas the Isle of Man in comparison would appear to have a much lower crime rate. I may be missing something in making this comparison, but the Isle of Man schools do not have a system of schooling that reflects what you advocate or Salford schooling not being as 'responsive' as that in the Isle of Man.

[Skeddan]

Another way one might think of it is in terms of the Victorian type system geared towards churning out a consumer underclass - with the skills need to join the working class and lower middle class labour force. It is also as much a product of socialism as mass-production. Deviant rejects are an outcome if you want 'sameness' and consistency and are imposing this. You don't find deviant rejects in high socio-economic status - individual differences are accommodated and tolerated, and differences in learning styles etc. catered for.

[bluemonday]

Money.

[TurricanII]

Have some of each prison. Remand/convicted the first time = cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Serious first offenders = 70% of sentence in tough prison, last 30% prior to release in cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Repeat offenders = straight to tough prison for full sentence. UK prison population has risen steadily since 1990's (outstripping population increase), only dropping when policy changes allowed softer community sentences and home tagging. can anyone find stats on reoffender percentages over the years? That would perhaps be a good way of deciding if a new approach is needed..

[Albert Tatlock]

can anyone find stats on reoffender percentages over the years?

I suspect some of those who have read the thread have a pretty good chance Though to save you the effort - 67% reoffend in the UK within two years.

[cheeky boy]

Have some of each prison. Remand/convicted the first time = cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Serious first offenders = 70% of sentence in tough prison, last 30% prior to release in cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Repeat offenders = straight to tough prison for full sentence. UK prison population has risen steadily since 1990's (outstripping population increase), only dropping when policy changes allowed softer community sentences and home tagging. can anyone find stats on reoffender percentages over the years? That would perhaps be a good way of deciding if a new approach is needed..

 

 

Sounds very like something I proposed in my 2001 election manifesto

[Albert Tatlock]

Sounds very like something I proposed in my 2001 election manifesto

'Lynch mob politics' - I have to say.

[TurricanII]

'Lynch mob politics' - I have to say.

Hardly a lynch mob if you might get a caution, get bailed or do not get the most severe treatment if on remand, you get a fair trial, legal council, a chance to appeal, probably a chance to appeal to some european level, potentially a fine/community service/suspended sentence if all you did was maybe punch someone's teeth out or steal, probation if you were more naughty, rehabilitation accomodation food and entertainment if you get locked up, early release and tagging possibilities if conviction stands, are then made aware of the consequences of reoffending, are not deported upon release where applicable.. and then are at liberty to choose to reoffend.. ..and then go through the above, getting stuck in a less attractive prison at the end if you don't benefit from one of the softer punishments.

 

Yeah what a hard legal system that would be, obviously designed to be an unachievable vote winner...

[Albert Tatlock]

Have some of each prison. Remand/convicted the first time = cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Serious first offenders = 70% of sentence in tough prison, last 30% prior to release in cushy rehabilitation type of prison. Repeat offenders = straight to tough prison for full sentence. UK prison population has risen steadily since 1990's (outstripping population increase), only dropping when policy changes allowed softer community sentences and home tagging. can anyone find stats on reoffender percentages over the years? That would perhaps be a good way of deciding if a new approach is needed..

 

'Lynch mob politics' - I have to say.

Hardly a lynch mob if you do not get the most severe treatment while on remand, you get a fair trial, legal council, a chance to appeal, probably a chance to appeal to some european level, a fine or community service if all you did was assault somebody or steal, rehabilitation if you get locked up, early release and tagging possibilities if conviction stands, are then made aware of the consequences of reoffending, are not deported upon release where applicable.. and then are at liberty to choose to reoffend.. Yeah what a hard legal system we have.

That's the way things pretty much operate now in the UK - e.g. people are transferred to different categories of prison as they progress their way through their sentence, some are 'released' early, tagged, monitored and have to report daily etc. etc.

 

The key element that is missing in the system at present is the 'rehabilitation' bit you refer to - because with a 67% reoffending rate (within 2 years), the current system clearly isn't working and the majority of people are demonstrably not being rehabilitated. The key to reducing reoffending rates lies in agreeing the approach/resources required to enable the rehabilitation element.

 

But with a public, politicians and a system geared more toward simply punishing offenders, and not geared toward punishment AND rehabilitation - it is not happening. People tend to use the word 'rehabilitation' as though it is some sort of 'magic fairy dust' sprinkled on prisoners, and assume simply "because prisoners have been punished, then they automatically must have been rehabilitated". In other words they associate the words as one and the same thing - when they are not. Punishment does not automatically lead to rehabilitation.

 

This perverse logic then goes on to say "if they have not been rehabilitated enough, obviously they have not been punished severely enough". That's what politicians continually spout, what Joe Public laps up for his sense of justice and payback - whilst in the meantime two thirds of the prison population keep going through the revolving door, nothing gets solved, and everyone loses - whilst new prisoners simply join the queue at the revolving door and add to the already overflowing system.

[Skeddan]

Rehabilitation requires actually understanding the offender. For a start a prison regime will have different outcomes with different people. Some people (roughly speaking your standard respectable fairly conservative type) find a prison sentence a deterrent. For them the harsher the sentence the greater the deterrence. Hence if they think that everyone is alike - and just like them - they see the problem as a straightforward one of 'soft' sentences.

 

However some people are not put off in this way (roughly speaking your non-conformist creative type). To rehabilitate them requires positive reinforcement of good behaviours, not punishment of bad. Punishment can make someone even more resentful and hostile towards 'the system'.

 

Though perhaps misleading, these can be thought of as hero types - robin hood or whatever, but on a crusade against society. Having harsher Gestapo type punishment will not deter or win them over. However these approaches will work with the 90% 'stay-at-homes' who are timid - the kind who would not join the Resistance and who avoids being in harms way. Sometimes these 'timids' do stray - usually caught up under influence of 'bad types' - they are usually easy to rehabilitate.

 

The same rehabilitation strategies will not work with the type of undeterred offenders. These can often be the 'idealistic' type who has become cynical, jaded and angry and resentful at a system which has failed and excluded them - in effect making them into 'anti-heroes' of a sort. (perhaps a bit like orcs in Lord of the Rings who were elves who had been turned into orcs by abuse and torture).

 

The most effective rehabilitation would start with a rehabilitation of schools and the education system as well as social ills that play a huge part in generating these problems in the first place.

[Albert Tatlock]

The most effective rehabilitation would start with a rehabilitation of schools and the education system as well as social ills that play a huge part in generating these problems in the first place.

Whilst I do not agree that this is not an important element of the approach, the fact is, that schools are not currently resourced or equipped (in fact have been stripped of many of the disciplinary type measures such as corporal punishment) enabling them to deal with many unruly elements - mainly thanks to the PC brigade. These are the so called do-gooders who think you can reason with all children, when the plain fact of the matter is this is patently untrue - for the very same reasons why you can rationalise with a reasonably sensible person who has e.g. made a mistake at work, but can't rationalise with a knife wielding mugger or a drunk of the same age, out to take your money by force, or kick the sh1t out of you in the street the same evening. When adults run into difficulty they can call in the law and "hand the problem over to someone else for 'punishment'", when schools run into difficulty - schools have no recourse other than to 'deal with it' or expel.

 

The fact is schools fail many children, and conversely many children fail their schools. Many parents too fail many children in the UK. Schools are about education, not about bringing children up in the world, and simply do not have the facilities, resources and space needed to deal with problem youngsters and take over parental responsibilities. As many parents are failing their children (usually because those parents have themselves failed or not been educated in parental or social responsibilities) - we have to face up to the fact that an alternative to failed parenting is needed.

 

The answer to my mind, to both prison rehabilitation and behavourily-failed pupils is similar - rehabilitation centres.

 

For toe-rag children who have run out of chances these would be properly run and resourced boarding type schools, with all staff vetted (preferably run by educated ex-forces types). They would have to eat, sleep and be educated there for 5 days of the week - picked up on a Monday morning by a bus and taken there (forced to stay there by court order if they took measures to avoid missing the bus etc.). The emphasis of the curriculum would be on social responsibility, self-discipline, anti-bullying, the consequences of actions, teamworking, comradery, physical education, reading, writing and arithmetic etc. - with military style discipline and activities at the core, but providing opportunities to avoid additional physical education or other military type discipline by undertaking social projects. Pupils behaviour would be graded, so that the most unruly were grouped together and those with improved behaviour seen to be treated differently and better and rewarded for their improvement. This stuff works with the majority of people, I have seen it first hand in the military. The latter years at such schools would be all about vocational training, or gearing up improved pupils to get into the course of their choice at college or even university. (All this in conjunction with far better facilities, such as well equipped youth centres, for children in everyday life). At the end of each full year at the school, the opportunity for kids to get out of the school and back to their 'normal' school could be made available (based on improvement).

 

Whilst punishment should of course be a major element and clearly not everyone will be changed, the same basic approach needs to be followed in prisons, otherwise there is little or no chance of turning around any of the 67% that reoffend and end up back inside within two years. The problem is, it just isn't happening - we have too many naive good-doers, too many of the frustrated 'lock em up and throw away the key' brigade - and not enough thinkers to actually do something that could actually make a difference.

[P.K.]

For instance, I live in Salford which is largely a 'socially deprived' area.

Ah yes - Salford. The other week we had a sales tour of a "duplex" overlooking the new Beeb studios. For £5K you could obtain a parking space as well. Bargain!

 

For toe-rag children who have run out of chances these would be properly run and resourced boarding type schools, with all staff vetted (preferably run by educated ex-forces types). They would have to eat, sleep and be educated there for 5 days of the week - picked up on a Monday morning by a bus and taken there (forced to stay there by court order if they took measures to avoid missing the bus etc.). The emphasis of the curriculum would be on social responsibility, self-discipline, anti-bullying, the consequences of actions, teamworking, comradery, physical education, reading, writing and arithmetic etc. - with military style discipline and activities at the core, but providing opportunities to avoid additional physical education or other military type discipline by undertaking social projects. Pupils behaviour would be graded, so that the most unruly were grouped together and those with improved behaviour seen to be treated differently and better and rewarded for their improvement.

It's already been done Albert. They call them STC's and YOI's. Very interesting HMP website here.

 

Interesting from Bazza on the role of schools and so forth:

a throwback to the 1970s turned up in a news report from the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference. Paul McGarr is his name and he’s a teacher from east London. Mr McGarr’s beef wasn’t pay and conditions, the state of our school buildings or his profession’s appalling dereliction of the simple duty of teaching children to read and write. No, what was getting up his nose was the fact that the Army distributed publicity material in schools. Shock horror.

 

Where do we begin with this? It seems to me to be eminently reasonable that the Army might seek to recruit school-leavers from the poorer areas of the country, not because these ill-educated youths are mere cannon fodder, but because six years in uniform will give them the basic life skills, self-discipline and sense of purpose that six years of state education has miserably failed to do. If you doubt me, ask one of them.

According to a teacher I know an ever increasing number of useless parents are turning out an ever increasing number of useless kids that the schools can't teach because they can't discipline them.

 

In a way I'm with Sherriff Joe. It seems there is a hard-core (most likely drug-related) of re-offenders for whom re-habilitation in a conventional sense just leaves untouched. So Joe's backstop position is that he will make their time inside so arduous they will never want to return....

[Albert Tatlock]

For toe-rag children who have run out of chances these would be properly run and resourced boarding type schools, with all staff vetted (preferably run by educated ex-forces types). They would have to eat, sleep and be educated there for 5 days of the week - picked up on a Monday morning by a bus and taken there (forced to stay there by court order if they took measures to avoid missing the bus etc.). The emphasis of the curriculum would be on social responsibility, self-discipline, anti-bullying, the consequences of actions, teamworking, comradery, physical education, reading, writing and arithmetic etc. - with military style discipline and activities at the core, but providing opportunities to avoid additional physical education or other military type discipline by undertaking social projects. Pupils behaviour would be graded, so that the most unruly were grouped together and those with improved behaviour seen to be treated differently and better and rewarded for their improvement.

It's already been done Albert. They call them STC's and YOI's. Very interesting HMP website here.

I'm talking about long before they get to the criminal offending stage.

[P.K.]

Which in this day and age is what? Ten or eleven perhaps? Get real.

[Albert Tatlock]

Which in this day and age is what? Ten or eleven perhaps? Get real.

I mean it - we have to accept that we need a substitute for failed parents, and a more meaningful deterrent for misbeheaviour than exlusion, as well as places where behaviour can be modified and corrected before it's too late and they enter the world of criminality. We also need less benefits handing out to breeding chavs who produce up to 6 or 7 feral kids each.

 

There is a saying "Give me a child for for his first seven years and I'll give you the man" - so why not "take the feral child off a breeding, ignorant chav (with no parenting abilities) for seven years, and the boarding school will mould it into a decent human being"?