Jools
Nothing I can say really, you two really have had it tough. I suppose there isnt much more that can go wrong really.
I have been locking up cons for 10 years, I have dealt with every type of criminal going like Jasper in that time and agree with scotty B. I even dealt with an animal rights terrorist who tried to blow up a cancer research shop next door to my wifes Fathers Italian Resaurant once.
The sad thing is when I started I looked at all these child molesters, rapists and murderers with discust but also a little bit of interest. You read about these people in the papers and conjure up this immage about what they are like and they are usually nothing like what you expected.
They look like people you know and could be anyone. However appalled you are at first you change and I would say become deaf to what people have done. If you dont then you cant do your job properly. I have to say hand on heart that I treat all cons the same to a certain extent. I treat them fair, give them only what they are intitled to under prison rules etc and never trust a single thing about any of them. One spin off is that I look for the bad in every one now and am very untrusting. I would say that I am a good judge of character and can usually conclude someones character after 5 minutes of chat.
Prisons can be god awful places for some people and be a living hell, but I would say for most it is no prblem and for some it is fantastic. Prisoners have a social structure like any group of people and depending on what your place is in that structure is everything. Under the Human Rights Bill prisons have become a whole lot easier for prisoners and the rights are stacked against the staff these days. It can seem that what ever is tough for them is against their rights and this can be frustrating, I can only see this getting worse as time goes by. It may come as a supprise for some but prisons only run with the cooperation of the prisoners. Underfunding and penny pinching has seen staff cut etc making them even more powder cake environments with the prisoners having the upper hand these days. Anyway people locked up for life meaning life become even more dangerous in my oppinion as they have nothing to loose so think nothing of hurting anyone who gets in their way. I have thought about the death penalty for some people that I have come accross and to say that there are certain crimes, and where there is no question of gilt that the death penalty is appropriate is flawed. To be convicted is supposed to be no question of gilt. Jurrors are directed by the Judge that to find someone guilty there must be no question in there mind of inocense. However we have found time and time again that some people are let down by the system by being mistaken identity, fitted up by dodgy police etc. Once someone is executed it is to late to say sorry for the mistake. Imagine being someone wrongly convicted, imagine being executed knowing that. Imagine the family finding their mother, father, son or daughter was executed for nothing. If you make one rule for one it has to aply to all, and that is where the problem. This is why all prisoners get treated the same by me because you never know who is guilty for sure or not(I mean they are all inocent in prison according to them anyway).
