Prison visit TikToks

I'm a volunteer Appropriate Adult for young people who are arrested with no parent/carer available to be with them while they are interviewed/processed. Most are county lines drug dealers who have been coerced, trapped by debt and/or trafficked by some seriously scary adults. We are taking about 12/13/14 yr old kids who are missing from home and education and no-one is really looking for them. I don't doubt some will end up in prison, but not through choice.

@Againstmachine you sound so so ignorant.

Tbh, though, I've probs got a fairly unconventional view. I was a bid manager before moving into construction and spent a brief stint at a medium sized law firm.

I'll take a rough edged but friendly bloke over a rich pompous old pig any day. The first might well give you a black eye if you slapped his gf's bum but I find this much less offensive than the sexist old guys I worked with who knew how to play the game and would never end up in jail but seemed to think that all women were there to make them coffees and cater to their great importance.

I think it's a pretty deep subject tbh.

I know plenty of good men who would possibly end up in jail if somebody, for instance, sexually abused their daughter and they got their hands on the perpetrator.

There have also been men who have gone to jail for putting their beloved partner out of her misery after lots of suffering/terminal illness and the NHS refusing to allow her to go with dignity (admittedly probs not this age group).

Then there's men's vastly greater strength which means that despite women being more likely to physically lash out they don't tend to get into the same trouble because they're not strong enough to break jaws/fracture cheekbones etc like men are.

I know a fair few examples working in the building sector and encountering a lot of young working class lads. One guy I know used to sell weed. He was on a not particularly great salary with three kids and a partner that refused to work. He said he struggled to stay afloat without the extra income.

Also had a driver's mate who was in his early 20s. Unlike a lot of the other young lads he always turned up on time and always worked damn hard. Never moaned about having to stop out and do extra work etc. Lovely guy who didn't seem to have a vindictive bone in his body (maybe not the sharpest tool in the box without being nasty) but he defo had a bit of a temper if somebody was unjustly rude to him.

After a few months of working together he mentioned that he had a criminal record for GBH and hadn't thought he'd ever be able to get a job easily. Apparently, he'd been out for his sister's friend's bday and an older lad (mid/late 20s and much physically bigger than him) had grabbed his sister's bum and given it a real squeeze in front of everyone. He said the guy and his mates were being generally lairy all night and he'd seen them sniffing coke in the toilets. His sister was in tears and the guy was laughing with his mates and saying "what you gonna do, little boy". He just lost it and thwacked the guy round the head with the bottle he was holding.

Not the best way of dealing with it of course but he wasn't looking for a fight, he was standing up for his sister and would've been very unlikely to have initiated a situation of his own accord. I didn't think he was a bad guy tbh. He often went out of his way to help other people, including coming over in his pickup truck and helping me when I was moving house.

The educational gap is ever widening and men get much less focus/support despite generally having much worse mental health as a group, so I don't find it surprising that a fair few go off the rails.

@Againstmachine I gave you an example of someone who was convicted of murder, you did agree they were not scum.
You are as I've already said just looking at everything in black and white, and that is very rarely the case. Most people aren't just bad, but a combination of shitty upbringing, abuse, neglect, drug abuse etc... often lead to the decisions these people make. Surely you understand that? For a lot of these people the odds were stacked against them from birth, they never stood a chance.
I knew another boy who was in prison for drug dealing he got sent there at 14, in your eyes he is scum, in mine he was a child that was exposed to drugs, abuse and neglect from birth he received beatings from mums boyfriend when he didn't sell mums boyfriends drugs, until he was eventually caught at 14 and sent to YOI for 4 years.
Or the man who had cigarettes stubbed out on him from the age of 3, was forced to perform sexual acts on grown men at the age of 9+ in what world was he ever going to grow up to be a reasonably adjusted adult?
As a PP said, behind most of these people in prison is a story, a fucking horrifying, harrowing story, and it's very rare that crimes are committed by people who just want to commit crimes.

Oh so rapists, murderers child abusers, drug dealers etc aren't scum just misunderstood? Or do you not mean them criminals.

Guess what I'm allowed to have opinions on criminals who have been convicted in a court of law, whether I have associated with them or not.

Years ago I dated a guy who suddenly disappeared and his family informed me he'd been sent to jail for a crime he'd committed some time ago from when I met him (2-3 years I think 🤔) he was hoping he wouldn't get time inside so hadn't told me about it

He was miles away from the character I knew to match up the crime with him and it wasn't violent so I decided to go visit and continue since it was a fairly short sentence

Probably loads of that and these days people just seem to post tik toks of them taking a shit, wiping their arse, picking their nose, popping a pimple

Honestly, some prisoners are nice people.

You can see how they ended up there, a truly traumatic, violent and abusive childhood, significant mental health issues, substance misuse, neurodiversity or and learning difficulties and much more.

Some have all of the above, some have a couple.

But when you talk to them, actually talk to them, they are polite, respectful, they display true empathy, sympathy and caring attitudes. They have a real want to better themselves, to rehabilitate, never return, never harm anyone again or make anyone a victim.

They know they have done wrong and are now serving their time, but they want a better life, they want to contribute to society in a positive way after their custodial is served.

You've probably in your lifetime run into a stranger on the street or serving you in a shop/hospitality setting. Had a little chat and walked away thinking "ah they were nice" one of them could have been an ex-offender who once served time in a HMP.

Life is a strange old journey sometimes.

Then your repeating of their being scum is unfounded. It's also ignorant.

Eh read the post she was talking about her co-workers.

No I haven't and I have no inclination too.

Have you worked with prisoners?

Well that person it ended up was talking about her co-workers in prison and not the prisoners.

These videos should be banned. These women are indirectly making money from crime.

You call others naive, who work in a prison. What experience, aside from news reports, do you have of prisoners?

It's difficult.

Prisoners actually fair better in some situations with social and family support. Their rehabilitation can be more positive. The risk of re-offending can be reduced. Hence why prisons do work hard on creating/maintaining positive social and family ties, it benefits society as a whole.

However, there are some prisoners who use fear, power and Domestic Abuse to entrap a partner. HMPPS try and intervene when this is apparent, but sometimes you end up pushing them closer together than separating them, especially when the perp uses his "charm" to convince the victim that "the system" is against them.

There is also the issue of culture and religion, especially when divorce is frowned upon, not allowed. These women simply can not leave their encarcareted husbands and some simply don't want to as they will also have strong beliefs of culture and religion.

I agree, it does somewhat glamorise this lifestyle, but at the end of the day they are all adults with capacity, so hands are tied.

You just know eventually some of these women will be found guilty at some point of "joint enterprise" but some lessons just have to be learnt the hard way sadly.

People will love who they want to love, and in cases where risk is not an issue, you just have to let it be.

And I said there is a minority who aren't scum but most are.

That'd not being black and white I'm giving that minority benefit of doubt.

But most people in prison are scum.

There's a difference between deserving to go to prison and scum, she made a mistake no doubt, but many people speed, it's was a tragic accident, it doesn't make her scum.

I'd like to see you as a 15 yo girl trying to stop 20 youths from 18-24yo fighting......again your rush to judge shows you think everything is just black and white, and it's just not.

As I said a tiny minority aren't scum but most are in fact of your examples the joint enterprise one yep she deserves to be in prison as she didn't do anything to stop it.

And the speeding woman deserves to be in prison, she had no reason to be speeding and what she did killed someone through he behavior and could have killed more.

You have two tiny minority but this thread is mainly about women being with scumbag men who are usually scummy dealers etc.

There is definitely older women visiting men in prison as well op they probably just don't tik tok it

I feel like your being very judgemental

@Againstmachine I can see you feel really strongly about this, but we're not just talking about 1 type of person. People are in prison for a variety of reasons.
I have experience of the prison system.
So a young 15yo girl had been sexually abused since the age of 4, she reported it but the family didn't believe her, when she got to 15 she finally snapped and killed him. She was sentenced to life minimum term 13 years. She is not scum, she was actually a really kind woman.
Another woman who was pregnant, was speeding and had a car accident which killed her husband, the family of her husband begged the judge not to send her to prison but she was sentenced to 4 or 5 years, her baby was born in prison and then taken off her, she isn't scum.
Another 15yo girl was convicted murder by joint enterprise, she didn't have anything to do with it, but because she was there, was charged and convicted. She went on to work for the princes trust and is now doing really well for herself, she isn't scum.
A late teen who severely beat a man who was raping and beating his mother in the next room, he heard her screaming, banged the door down and found the man strangling and punching his mother whilst trying to rape her, they had a fight and the man was seriously injured, he got away scot free whilst the son was sent to prison for GBH. He was not scum.

I have many more examples, these are just 4 off the top of my head, but my point is, that whilst I understand there can be a "type" of person who is in prison, it certainly isn't all, and the majority of them have had a severely fucked up childhood. I would suggest, so you don't continue to look so ignorant that you open your eyes to the potential reasons someone may be in prison, because it isn't as black and white as you seem to think.

Ah this old chestnut, saying we all have done bad things.

Nah we haven't all done bad things and apart from tiny minority good people don't commit crimes that end up with them incarcerated.

It really isn't that easy to get sent to prison these days.

It seems this thread is full of apologists for scum.

What I meant is that most of us have done 'bad' things, not necessarily illegal, or maybe if they are, not necessarily convicted, but I do believe good people are capable of bad behaviour....otherwise we'd all be bad. People canaletto decisions when they're not in a good place and we might not be so moral ourselves under similar circumstances.
I also like to think that some criminals aren't really aware of the victims perspective when committing the crime. Many feel remorse afterwards when they're able to reflect. Do they remain 'bad' for ever.
Of course I do know that some people can never be rehabilitated.

It was, and that’s why I don’t think having a bad childhood is an excuse. I personally believe that as far as more serious crimes go at least, it’s a reflection on the individual person’s choices and personality, not their past. We can’t pretend these men don’t have autonomy just because they may have had bad childhoods, they freely made a choice to commit a crime. I don’t think over empathising with them is helpful.

My dad may have been abused when he was a kid (I don’t know), but that doesn’t make what he did to me any less evil. He made a choice as a grown man.

@Naunet what happened to you is awful. I'm not condoning that at all

Well I’ll judge because I have walked a mile in their shoes. I grew up with a father who sexually abused me between the ages of 3 and 8 and a mother who neglected me, yet somehow I’ve managed never to rape anyone, abuse a child, beat someone up, deal drugs, kill someone etc. Why? Because despite what happened to me, I’m not a prick.

If your behaviour doesn’t define you as a person, what does?