'TEA PLEASE MR PRISON OFFICER'
Today I was having a bit of a tidy-up after the weekend, I noticed that one of the newspapers I had brought on Saturday remained unread. ( I wish now I had left it unread as my blood is boiling, no pun intended. ) With dismay I read this article which I will briefly or not briefly outline.A convicted criminal has won the right to keep a flask of hot tea in his cell at night after the prisons ombudsman declared that it was good for his health and he deserved " decent treatment ".
The prisoner had complained ( if you please ! )that it was unfair that he was not allowed to make a hot drink at night. ( boo bloody hoo..convicted??? )
He then took his complaint to the prison governor who ( rightly) refused this request . So the prisoner took his case to Nigel Newcomen CBE, The newly appointed Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who agreed that refusal of this request was in breach of the rules on how prisoners should be held. ( once again , convicted prisoner ? Is the message getting through , obviously not ! )
The National Offender Management Service has now accepted the recommendation and agreed that prisoners should be provided with tea-making facilities at night if they request them .( why not go one step further and have a bell so prison officers can take there favourite biscuit requests! )
Critics within the prison service have complained that this has gone too far in supporting those who have been convicted of serious crime.
Mr Newcomen explained his reasoning behind his decision granting the convicted inmate the right to enjoy a cup of tea at night. " He complained (the prisoner) that he was unable to make himself a hot drink when he was locked up overnight" ( my heart bleeds !!! )
Mr Newcomen said that the prison should provide prisoners with vacuum flasks ( this gets better )or in-cell " kettles " for this purpose. I'm sure Mr Newcomen would soon change his decision if he were a prison officer who opened the cell door and had a jug of scolding water thrown in his face . I worked with young offenders on and off for almost twenty years and left this work eight years ago because of so called politically correct decisions like this,made by individuals who are clueless and more interested in figures and success stories, which are few, I'm sorry to disappoint , a lot of the ground level staff do great work but are moulded by this wide spectrum of "rights" which is a very fine line and more often than not taken out of context.
In another case , Mr Newcomen CBE explained how he tried to help a "category A" prisoner ( could be a murderer, paedophile etc ) who was in jail a long way from home ( all say Arhhhh! ) and it was difficult for his family to visit him as they lived 250 miles away. Mr Newcomen was satisfied with the "allocation" of the prisoner to that high-security prison. But he had become concerned that the financial help scheme for the family to visit was not generous enough. He recommended that the financial help be increased , but this was rejected as being too costly. ( someone has sense then !)
A prison source said : " It's all very well to be a friend to the prisoner , but surely it's hardly a human right to have a cup of tea at night. Prisoners are not meant to be in hotel rooms with room service, they are there to be punished. " (Never a more true word spoken. )
Finally what about the victims of these prisoners crimes, the pensioner who is to afraid to make a drink for themselves at night after being a victim of burglary and assaulted , The woman who was raped in her own home , the person who was disabled through one of these crimes let alone the families of someone taken from them by one of these convicted prisoners or the child who was sexually or physically abused the list goes on.
" The victim's have rights to , one being that the perpetrator of the crime against them is being punished !"
Please feel free to make comments on this blog as I wish to look into this further or if you've had direct experience regarding this subject.
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