To think that prisoners should have to pay towards their keep?

[girlfriend44]

So you commit a crime and go to prison and your kept also for free, no money worries etc.
If you can afford it shouldnt you pay something towards it? it costs country alot of money to keep you locked up why not contribute?
Your not exactly spending your money while your locked up anyway.

We keep talking about the amount of money it costs in benefits etc and slating people on them, what about the scumbags who are raping and murdering people etc and are living rent free? How much does all this cost the taxpayer?

No "we" don't.
You clearly enjoy looking down your nose at people OP & frothing about how they ought to be kicked harder when they are down, but you don't speak for me.

Show me all the women prisoners who are raping & murdering people etc, & then tell me why you think most women should even be in prison, let alone financially disadvantaged further by incarceration.

Seriously OP, you are a class A Idiot.

Unless you know how the system works and have actually been inside the system, you won’t understand.

Prisoners have enough to contend with without being abused or exploited for whatever money they have.

The daily prison wage is 2.50 and is for 7 hours of kitchen work or cleaning or education. It’s menial and very boring.

If you want to exploit those who are in the main vulnerable then you clearly need your head examining.

I'm not sure about the principle, but on the practicalities...

Rich people tend to commit "white collar" crimes for which the usual penalty is fines, not incarceration.

Rich people can afford to pay a lot to very good lawyers & thus avoid incarceration. Their case tends to go to many appeals, get suspended sentences or just fines, drags on for years.

Rich people have influential friends who pull strings in high places, to decrease chances they will be prosecuted.

Rich people can afford very good accountants to hide their wealth somewhere early in the prosecution process, so that same rich (criminal) people can claim poverty at later stages of their trial(s). Which is how they avoid paying their lawyers.

If they manage to avoid paying their own lawyers, the justice system has no chance to get extra money out of them.

OP probably also hasn’t heard of POCA 2002, the draconian policy introduced to remove prisoners of any ill gotten gains.

Do not agree that everyone in prison has been failed by adults and society. Crime is always a choice. You are fully aware what will happen if you commit a crime and your caught. Some people are just vile and selfish.

You serious they have enough to contend with?

Thats their fault you actually feeling sorry for someone like Wayne Couzens or Ian Huntley then?

Its their own doing they are there?

Unless they have loads stashed away from the proceeds of their crime ( if they have I imagine it's not going to be sitting in their bank account ! ), I imagine this would be pretty hard to enforce !

I think prisoners are an easy target for people who want to have a go. As always, the reality is so much more complex. So many prisoners have been failed by their parents, by their schools, by the police, by the state, by society as a whole. So many are victims of abuse, poverty, poor health care etc. We need a much better system that focuses more on rehabilitation than punishment. We're so shortsighted in the way that we approach it right now.

omg so you think that people who have been in the news lately for murdering children like Star Hobsons partner etc and all the others shouldnt be there?

Ian Huntley was a school caretaker. I doubt he had much money to seize to pay for his keep!

OP, the individuals you have named are not representative of all prisoners. Maybe educate yourself a bit about how many people end up in prison?

What we should be doing is ensuring that when people leave prison they have the skills, opportunity and means to be able to lead a 'normal' life and therefore not return to prison or commit further crime. Then they can pay taxes like everyone else.

I don't think piling punishment on top of punishment will help anyone trust the system.

This is such an odd thing to start a thread about.

The majority of people in prison have either a mental health condition or a learning difficulty or both. But hey, let's punish them some more by making them do slave labour.
God, this country is full of shitty people.

Yeah, only if the rich have to pay for NHS services too.

@girlfriend44

How much does all this cost the taxpayer?

More than if the Torries hadn't scrapped Sure Start, Family Support and Policing.

99.9% of prisoners in the UK will have didley squat in savings and many won't even have a bank account. The ones that have actually made money out of crime, and there are very few, can be pursued under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Anyway it looks like Liz Truss will be the next PM. She's promised to cut taxes, so she'll either have to release a load of prisoners or defund schools and the NHS.

Is that you Pritti?

no but we must feel sorry for him he has enough to contend with!🙄

If prisoners who were normally in receipt of benefits, which were then stopped it might affect their wife, children at home. Say they then couldn't pay their rent, or bills. That would mean that their families were being punished as well.

@sunsetsandsandybeaches I was once told by a family friend who is a prison guard that mortgage & rent gets paid for prisoners whilst they’re locked up. Don’t know how true it is.

OMG given to hyperbole much?

you say the majority, what about the ones that dont!

@Dalint cannot think of anything worse. I pay for private healthcare.

YABU if it's 'millionaire gangsters' you are thinking of, one they make up a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny (do you get it) proportion of prisoners and those who, will have had most of their ill gotten gains seized, returned to the government anway. Not everyone who ends up in the prison system is 'bad and in need of punishment' the vast majority are abuse suffers, life long poor, with reduced health and educational outcomes as a result. But, yeah OP, string em up and make em pay for the privilege eh? 🙄

Maybe tax them a % on their wages post release, like a student loan.