What are prisoners rights?
Should they be relaxing in their cells watching TV and get 3 square meals a day. If you ignore the fact that they don't have freedom to piss off to the local take away, It sounds like my Brother in laws life. where is the punishment? Where is the reason to stay out of jail.
The constitution says we may not throw prisoners to the lions, It does not say they may not be made to do a full days work. Who remembers back in the 70's when we had teams of convicts cleaning roads?
Then a convict was made to work. Every convict had a job. TV is a priviledge which should be revoked.
There should be 3 grades of prisons and 4 grades of punishment,
Grade 1. Very low level crime, traffic offenses, littering, etc. This grade of criminal and yes speedsters are criminals should be fined according to means and given minimum mandatory public service sentences. Yes both not either or. My reasoning for this is you give a a big buck fella a R20 000 fine, he smirks pays and goes but make him do community service for 150 hours and you will change his attitude smartly. Anyone caught paying another too fulfill their service obligations is an immediate upgrade to Grade 2.
Grade 2 Low level crime. first time offenders non violent crimes only. These people should be allowed to work away from the prison. hired to farmers, municipalities and the like for the cost of feeding them and paying for their accommodation. Immediately we have a situation where these people can be housed in an open prison environment. They also cover their own costs. Prisons such as these could be privatised and run as businesses. These prisoners would be treated as trusted members of society that have fallen off the wagon. Given a chance to redeem themselves and learn skills while working. It is my opinion that these offenders would never receive a sentence of more than 6 months. Any escapees would be automattically be regarded as second offenders.
Grade 3 Low Level second offenders. Non Violent crimes. These people would have been sentenced to two to five years. All second offenders would be housed in a more traditional type cell block and made to work within the prison. Workshops manufacturing goods which can be sold to cover the costs of housing these prisoners. Once again giving these people an opportunity to redeem themselves and learn skills. They would daily go to a place of work and be productive.
Grade 4 Violent and third time offenders should be given a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence. Work should be of the type considered hard labour. These prisoners should be doing very hard manual labour. They should have nothing more than the essentials for survival. The prison experience should be as unpleasnt as possible. They should be learning here that this is not where they want to be. They should be housed in high security camps which may be mobile. Tented accommodation was good enough for the military and should not be discounted for this grade of prisoner. Camps should be moved to where people are needed for hard backbreaking labour.
Should they be relaxing in their cells watching TV and get 3 square meals a day. If you ignore the fact that they don't have freedom to piss off to the local take away, It sounds like my Brother in laws life. where is the punishment? Where is the reason to stay out of jail.
The constitution says we may not throw prisoners to the lions, It does not say they may not be made to do a full days work. Who remembers back in the 70's when we had teams of convicts cleaning roads?
Then a convict was made to work. Every convict had a job. TV is a priviledge which should be revoked.
There should be 3 grades of prisons and 4 grades of punishment,
Grade 1. Very low level crime, traffic offenses, littering, etc. This grade of criminal and yes speedsters are criminals should be fined according to means and given minimum mandatory public service sentences. Yes both not either or. My reasoning for this is you give a a big buck fella a R20 000 fine, he smirks pays and goes but make him do community service for 150 hours and you will change his attitude smartly. Anyone caught paying another too fulfill their service obligations is an immediate upgrade to Grade 2.
Grade 2 Low level crime. first time offenders non violent crimes only. These people should be allowed to work away from the prison. hired to farmers, municipalities and the like for the cost of feeding them and paying for their accommodation. Immediately we have a situation where these people can be housed in an open prison environment. They also cover their own costs. Prisons such as these could be privatised and run as businesses. These prisoners would be treated as trusted members of society that have fallen off the wagon. Given a chance to redeem themselves and learn skills while working. It is my opinion that these offenders would never receive a sentence of more than 6 months. Any escapees would be automattically be regarded as second offenders.
Grade 3 Low Level second offenders. Non Violent crimes. These people would have been sentenced to two to five years. All second offenders would be housed in a more traditional type cell block and made to work within the prison. Workshops manufacturing goods which can be sold to cover the costs of housing these prisoners. Once again giving these people an opportunity to redeem themselves and learn skills. They would daily go to a place of work and be productive.
Grade 4 Violent and third time offenders should be given a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence. Work should be of the type considered hard labour. These prisoners should be doing very hard manual labour. They should have nothing more than the essentials for survival. The prison experience should be as unpleasnt as possible. They should be learning here that this is not where they want to be. They should be housed in high security camps which may be mobile. Tented accommodation was good enough for the military and should not be discounted for this grade of prisoner. Camps should be moved to where people are needed for hard backbreaking labour.
Comments
I think the ideas are great - the system needs to be upgraded though to cope with the supervision aspect of it (again, most of our justice system seems fraught with criminality itself). Many more competant and honest staffers would need to be found and the job made an attractive career proposition.
Obviously prisoners are by definition generally an unruly, violent and deceitful bunch. For the higher grades you refer to, the systems to curb escape attempts, production of weaponry etc. are light years away from what we have now where even our most secure facilites seem to have open doors.