Can't stand this attitude re prison attacks

[BySnappyUmberFish]

After the murder of Ian Watkins and the assault and (very possible) death of Ian Huntley, social media and news articles have been flooded with comments such as 'Give that man a medal!!' 'Not all heroes wear capes!!'.
These people seem to forget that the killers are in prison for as equally heinous and despicable crimes as the aforementioned two. They have also most probably not attacked them over what they did, but over debts, drugs or just to gain some notoriety.

I am fed up of hearing comments like this.

I doubt any of us will shed a tear at his death , however it’s easy to be of the ‘anyone in prison is fair game ‘ type of mentality - I worked in a company where our accountant was stealing from the company and got prison - he was also trying to help and protect his disabled wife who couldn’t work and ended up with a gambling habit due to the stress- and then the stealing to try and cover his tracks . You couldn’t meet a more kind , intelligent, pleasant person , but still did really stupid things when his life went to shit. Prison is a really mixed bag in many prisons - ( not the maximum security ones) - and much as I won’t mourn this guys passing I do think certain standards have to be adhered to in order to prevent this kind of incident, because one day it might not be Ian Huntley getting beaten to death but a relative of any of us in for some very poor life judgments - not murder etc that another prisoner takes a dislike too ,

Or just maybe they’ll be feeling empathy with Russell’s victims’ families? Especially when they hear (as we all have) that one of his victims was a pregnant woman who he raped and strangled to death.

I believe that’s how I would feel, as a CSA survivor, if one of my attackers had been murdered in prison by a psychopath like Russell. Whilst still getting some closure with him being dead. There is definitely closure in that.

You do know that would put staff at risk? You are cool with that?

nice, thanks!

Then what? Who goes and removes the bodies, cleans up and delivers the next lot of prisoners? You have some weird ideas

Which was probably his thinking. Nothing to lose

I have a family member that died (as in by a murderer rapist scum, not in prison) they were missing a long time before this came out and the scum bag was eventually found a long time later and he is now prison. I’d honestly like the same thing to happen to him, I also get why people say these things even when they’re not related, it’s satisfying, some of the risks of doing a horrendous crime and going to prison are you will be housed with equally dangerous people that may want to hurt you for whatever reason.
the Huntley types get off, on being able to to do this to someone with no chance of fighting back, it’s women and children mostly, maybe it makes me a terrible person, but it feels good knowing at least some of them get a taste of their own medicine.

Interestingly, I’ve also been following the Lucy Letby thread. Another child killer, we all thought, of prem babies. I imagine that, if she’d been murdered by a fellow inmate, there would have been similar rejoicing about it.

Only now, it’s looking quite probable that she was completely innocent.

Serious miscarriages of justice do happen.

He’s gone.

Personally I would all prisioners in cells all of the time with minimal food delivered to them via hatches. Maybe play them the court impact statments twice a day so they can really focus on what they did. If prisioners can't interact lots of these drugs issues ad violence would go away overnight.

This is Escape from New York! One of my favorite films. Watch it if you haven't.

I don’t understand why people think serious criminals give a shit about victim impact statements. It was like this when people were outraged that criminals wouldn’t come to court for sentencing.

Sadly, I agree, definitely the case with psychopaths like Huntley and Russell.

I’m not going to shed any tears or be up all night worrying about the welfare of Ian Huntley or any one else in there for doing something to a child/children. However the bloke that attacked him is no certainly no Saint either. People praising him seem to have forgotten what Anthony Russell did himself. He’s no better than Huntley.

We may not care about the safety of prisoners but we SHOULD care about the safety of people working in prisons. These people work day in day out to keep monsters like Huntley locked up so they aren't free to roam our streets. If we start saying mob violence is acceptable, then its almost as saying that the staff working these places should have to accept their own safety being compromised.

It might be nice to think that prisoners should just be locked up and left to it but we live in a civilised society where this doesn't happen. And I think if you've murdered a person then you probably aren't going to give two shits about the victim impact statement. So maybe we should be focusing on ensuring prisons are safe for the many people working in them, working to keep them in there.

Huntley was not innocent FFS.

This is more where I am.

Also with war criminal or otherwise evil “leaders” of countries, I’d rather them in prison than assassinated/ executed.

I always think it’s more of a punishment!

I think the poster is just saying some people in prison are. Which is a good reason why we don’t have the death penalty (with it being irrevocable) and why we shouldn’t support summary “justice” from prisoners

Obviously not, that isn’t what I’m saying! But with a culture of prisoners taking out other prisoners, people wrongly killed of child killers will potentially be targets too. And there would be similar gloating online about it.

However evil Huntley is (and he is the lowest of the low, I have no empathy for him!!), this sort of thing shouldn’t happen in prisons.

It also puts staff members at risk. That teacher could have been attacked with that iron bar.

Are you a child murderer? You’re conflating two scenarios.

Duty of care to wade in and stop attacks….whichever scenario

Very strange views here. I totally agree with you it’s madness to want child rapists and murders to be safe, they lost that right. I want prison staff to be safe but I don’t think IH has the right to feel safe, that’s a sickening sentiment to me

I’m not risking my life to protect a child rapist.

Completely agree, it’s this weird “honour amongst thieves” bollocks. If you’re in prison with Ian Huntley, you’re scum too. And whilst the world is a better place without them, I’m not sure our prison service should be some kind of Wild West where inmates dish out their own brand of summary justice.

I can't get upset about one toerag despatching another toerag.

But as I said on the other thread, I do really feel for the prison staff. And they aren't all big hefty prison warders. Every prison has a library (which I completely support) and most library staff are women. I think they are very brave.

Also wasn't it that prison where that toerag who murdered the girls in Southport attacked a prison warder?

Anyone who thinks IH had the right to be safe must not be able to grasp the utter depravity of his nature demonstrated through his abhorrent acts of violence and cruelty towards two innocent little girls. he strangled two 10 year olds to death, he doesn’t deserve to be safe at all