To believe that prisoners serving life sentences shouldn’t have access to luxuries like TV or gym equipment?

[NimbleRoseMoose]

Why should taxpayers fund entertainment for people who’ve committed heinous crimes?

I think people see ignorant about life sentences and what they mean. You have a minimum term to serve, and then you may be released if considered suitable. If you offend or break your probation, you are recalled to prison. This criteria stays with you your entire life. You cannot shake it. It does not expire.

Then there are whole life orders for the very worst murderers who are a whole different class of people from many lifers. These people never get out. They are the kind of people who have untreatable personality disorders, sadistic intent and positively seek out people to hurt.

Thankfully there are a lot fewer of them in our society.

Even when we had the death penalty, we had life sentences which released people after a period of time. Many people are capable of change. Those that aren't usually end up back in prison.

Shouldn’t the focus be on accountability and personal development rather than comfort

If they are on a life sentence, what are they "personally developing" for?

Make life mean life, then the OP's position about taking away forms of recreation and entertainment is not a problem. They'll never get released so it doesn't matter how unpleasant their life in prison is.

Except it does matter, because in the long run it simply makes prisoners much harder to manage if they're being slowly driven insane by boredom and lack of stimulation/education.

A prisoner with access to TV, a library, conversation and exercise facilities is a much, much easier and safer prisoner to handle than one being kept in solitary confinement with fuck-all to do all day, believe me. A prisoner whose basic needs are met (and yes, some form of entertainment and the ability to exercise are basic human needs, not luxuries) is always going to be more docile and more able to do some sort of useful work in prison and be a positive influence on other prisoners. This therefore makes them easier and cheaper to manage and is a lot safer for the staff who have to interact with them.

Perhaps we ought to implement a system where people who don't give a fuck about the welfare of prison staff should be obliged to work in the role themselves. We'll see then how keen they really are on the policies they're airily suggesting.

I dare say prison officers would just love to manage unreleasable lifers with nothing to lose. When you have nothing to gain, you can treat people like nothing. And that is what people end up doing, because it doesn't matter who they hurt or torture, including the staff.

I disagree with this. In the UK, life isn't usually life. Give these people a chance at reforming for when they get out.
I watched a brilliant programme about prisons in a Scandinavian country (I forget which one now,) the prisoners are treated exceptionally well and humanely- and they had ZERO reoffenders. So impressive.
I do see your point, but the prison service appears so broken already, I don't think restricting things like gym and education would be helpful

They are on licence upon release and can be recalled at any time. Just because they aren’t behind bars the whole time, that doesn’t mean the sentence doesn’t last their whole life.

Edited to say: And having means of punishment (withdrawal of TV etc) means a hell of a lot to staff who have to control said prisoners. What do you think would happen with multiple prisoners with absolutely nothing to lose (no chance of release, no privileges) I’d be genuinely surprised if the eventual result wasn’t multiple dead or maimed prison officers.

No way were you in the secure area. It's simply not allowed. You would have been in the family or visitors centre.

Daft post. Op.would you like to be the officer who has to manage these people every day.

If they are serving life sentences they should never be released. That's the main problem, life rarely means life. A life sentence with the possibility of release if you behave yourself for 20 years isn't a life sentence.

One of the problems with that is that people (even in prison) get old.

Prisons are not designed for 90 year old with dementia and a feeding tube.

If someone hurt my kids of course I'd want them to be punished severely and made to suffer but that still doesn't mean that that would be the right thing to do. This is why justice is not carried out by the victims. You can't expect victims to think of what is best for society.

In fact I think the victim(s) of a crime and the "justice" that is handed out should be two different issues. The victims should get whatever compensation and support is available but the sentencing of a criminal is not done for rhe sake of the victims (I mean in criminal cases). The sentencing is done for the rest of society (which includes the victims). Telling the victims they got justice for, for example, losing a loved one to murder because the murderer is sitting in a bare cell staring at the wall how does that make anything better? Will it bring the loved one back? Or make them miss them less?

Also, I know people don't like to think along these lines because it is scary but why do people commit violent crimes? It is because either something has gone terribly wrong ij their environment or because something has gone terribly wrong in their brain. Usually both. Under the wrong circumstances any of us could have become or still become a violent criminal. Most people won't but some do. So for me, punishment, blame, morality isn't a factor. Some people do very bad things and if we cant stop them we have to keep them away from society to keep society safe but what is the need to treat them sub human? They are still humans, just humans who weren't lucky enough to be 'normal'.

There is an argument to be made that justice should be harsh to be seen as a deterrent but I think there has been enough research to show that doesn't work. On the contrary when the focus is on rehabilitation and dignity of everybody's life then reopening rates tend to be lower.

None of them ever would. They just think someone else should sort it out.

Watching the shit on UK TV is more punishment !

Edited: sorry I quoted the wrong post, this was intended to agree with @saraclara where she said:

No way were you in the secure area. It's simply not allowed. You would have been in the family or visitors centre

I wonder if there was an ‘example’ cell - single occupancy, nicely painted, attractively decorated, not on a wing with multiple others, plus only really well behaved prisoners (trustees or relatives of the visitors who have earned the privilege of mingling with their family with limited supervision).

You’d have to be incredibly naive to think that represents the prison estate but this thread shows a lot of people are.

@NimbleRoseMoose

You've had quite a few intelligent and eloquent replies explaining why it's unreasonable.

Has this changed your mind at all or are you still of the original opinion?

To me gym equipment is about encouraging use of exercise to promote health and mental wellbeing among prisoners which is important and means when they're released they have the gym established as a coping mechanism that can go with them. So I would see that as being part of rehabilitation.

Noone could sustain work, education, or rehabilitation programs for an entire day with nothing else to do but sleep. Especially given that many people in prisons will have extensive trauma/difficulties with concentration and attention/ struggle to engage with education due to previous failures. They will need down time in order to process their learning and to engage with it in a sustainable way. Otherwise you're being tokenistic and making the education/work etc part of the punishment.

I agree with others, loss of liberty, separation from friends and family, a criminal record and the length of time to serve etc are the punishments. Everything that happens when they're in prison should be aimed at identifying how they got there and what support is needed to firstly stay safe and keep others safe while they are there and then when they get out again.

Sexual assault is not petty crime!!!

This is a very short article and for me interesting not because it questions rehabilitation by short courses, but the more general aspects of how we treat prisoners:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/29/prisoner-rehabilitation-does-not-work-says-former-prisons-boss

No one has said it is?

SA falls under the category of a serious crime? Which is what we’re discussing.

I had previously said (paraphrasing) that if prison was such a walk in the park then criminals wouldn’t be trying to avoid being caught and jailed, and another poster rebutted that some homeless people they knew deliberately got themselves jailed sometimes.. you can see the difference surely?

For 15 years? Or whatever.

I don't care what they do all day. Sit in their cells, rot and consider what horrible human beings they are and wish we had the death penalty for their dreadful crimes?

They’d probably sit in their cells and plan ways to injure / kill prison officers, actually.

If you are prepared to be a prison officer under these conditions, fine. If you expect other people to endanger themselves so you can sit at home and be smug about torturing bad people (and that’s what this suggestion is, don’t kid yourself), why do you think that’s OK?