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I live in an area that is severly depressed. I've had interactions with people who have told me that they'd rather be in prison than have to worry about keeping food on the table.
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In that case perhaps you chaps should invest in some sort of social security and then the lawabiding people who live in freedom wont be so desperate as to wish themselves in a place where they are likely to experience their first rape within the first 15 minutes of incarceration or where they have to share a tiny cell with no amenities and every single act from their toiletting to their sleep being dictated and observed by people who have power overthem.
I have no idea where people get the idea that prisons are a pleasant or even habitable place to exist in. If the prisons in America are anything like the prisons over here then the inmates are barely skirting a reasonable existence. Given some of the stories I have heard I am inclined to think they are probably marginally worse.
As to the fact they get three square meals a day...the meals in some prisons in the UK simply dont bear thinking about. They look ok on paper but much ofthe food is unfit for human consumption and cases of food poisoning abound.
I do think when people are so desperate as to wish they were in prison they maybe have in mind a prison more akin to a holding jail rather than the large industrial sized penitential facilities which they would actually find themselves in if they committed serious crimes
Imagine sharing a small, cramped and colourless space with four or five guys all of whom are pretty fucked up and desperate people......often spending 22 or 23 hours with them in the cell sharing a toilet with no privacy no release from the relentless boredom. Imagine never being able to make a choice for yourself again. Not the choice to sleepwhen you want or be awake when you want. Not the choice to read what you want or watch the tv channel of your choice. No choice in what you eat , no choice in what you wear no choice in any aspect of your life.
Before I am blown off my feet by the shouting, I know......they are criminals they made their choice and they now have to lie in the prison cot they made for themselves...I dont deny it. Nor do I think this is the best time to start a debate on the merits of prison and whether or not the concept of punishment is useful.....I just think that we would do well to recognise how harsh life in prison actually is.