But that's sort of my point. Making people miserable should be the point of prison, it should be such a miserable experience that people a) never want to go back and 2) remember how miserable it was, at the point when they are considering committing a crime.

I am not talking about making people freeze or starve to death, I'm merely suggesting that they have the very basics of human rights. Yes, enough blankets to keep warm and yes a reasonable number of calories, I even went as far as to suggest a library, gym, exercise yard etc etc.

My experiences of prison in the UK is of it being more like a 'locked-door' Comfort Inn where the inmates have access to pretty good food, a suprising amount of freedom, the ability to educate themselves and "creature comforts" like tv and computers. I don't consider those things "basic human rights" because if they were, everyone who wanted them would have them. My idea of prison would be single celled accomodation with access to a communal area (with one shared tv perhaps) during the day, basic nutrition and the ability to exercise either the mind or the body (or both.)

I'm not at odds with the idea of prison, just the method of execution of the sentence. I can't find the original reference at the moment, but there is a study into re-offence based on the location of the offenders last prison, which basically said that the cushier the prison, the more likely the person was to re-offend. As far as I'm concerned, prison should be as unpleasant as possible, and any rehabilitation should come after the sentence is served.



But that doesn't mean that the inmates see it as such. Inmates in the prisons I've visited have access to toilets whenever they want/need, they go to bed when they want etc etc because the human rights protestors see it as their basic human right. Just because the system says they're being punished, and to the fullest extent of the system, doesn't mean the inmates perceive it as punishment, in which case what's the point?

Zippy, don't forget that we operate different categories of prison depending on the severity of the crime. Dartmoor, when I saw it (c.2000), was certainly not a locked-door Comfort Inn.

Yes, I guess that's true, I've only seen "maximum" security prison in the US, perhaps I should find a Cat.A prison in the UK for a visit (if you can?) for comparrison. But Dartmoor is Cat.C and so are Wealstun and Maidstone (which I have visited) so I can't understand why they'd be so different.

It wasn't Cat. C when I was there, that happened in 2001.

Although, I just went to have a read about Belmarsh which is Cat.A and found the following:



Seriously? FA accredited coaching for prisoners? I wonder how many truly talented teens have that opportunity?

Fair enough, I didn't know that.

Don't worry chaps, the reassuringly high suicide rate in British prisons indicates that they are still nasty places; TV and flushing toilets not withstanding.
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/sub ... sp?id=1221

Men are 5.1 times more likely to kill themselves in prison than in the general population. Young men, between 15-17, were 18 times more likely to commit suicide.
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/sub ... asp?id=328