A two-part BBC documentary series which delves into the stories which lie behind the crimes of several men and women serving time in Northern Ireland’s prisons. Through a number of intimate interviews with the inmates themselves and those working in the prisons we come to better understand the environment as a whole and reasons people have found themselves in such a place.
Phil Wragg, the Director of Prisons for the NI Prison Service sums it up pretty well with the following quote:
Imprisonment is not punishment. Coming to prison is the punishment; the depravation of liberty taken by the court is the punishment., Imprisonment is about understanding why somebody finds themselves here, and starting the journey of rehabilitation.
We see how there is a wide range of reasons why people are in prison but as the series progresses it becomes quite clear that these problems primarily are a result of poor upbringing, learning disabilities, poverty, drug abuse, etc.
Prison is said to be a place for rehabilitation, an effort to correct the issues mentioned above but in reality how much rehabilitation is going on?
Well I guess the solution is to ignore what criminals do and let them have their fun. Victims be damned.
I love how these docs rarely talk to the victims and focus on how it’s society’s fault instead of the perp.
No longer am I a bit surprised at the outrageous ignorance of the prison governors who see any one who is locked up in prison as a criminal! This is barbaric and retarded thinking! Theses people are so obviously victims of terrible childhood psychic trauma for whom the only therapy that has the remotest chance of rehabilitation would be a warm, giving, loving environment staffed by those who really care.. Prison is the very LAST place a normal, fully functioning moral society should ever consider consigning it’s hapless citizens to; they who are in reality, very ill people with very real human needs! Dr Gabor Mate, a leading psychologist, psychiatrist from Vancouver is quoted as saying “Heroin is not the problem. Heroin is an attempt to solve a problem and that problem is childhood psychic trauma!
THIS IS AS OLD AS MY GRANDMOTHER…AND SHE FARTS DUST