1500 digital TVs for South Australia's prisoners

[Psyber]

I've been in Yatala but only to interview the occasional prisoner - it is a bit chilling.

[White Line Fever]

I've been in Yatala but only to interview the occasional prisoner - it is a bit chilling.

Why?
Does anyone else have first hand prison stories??

[Psyber]

I've been in Yatala but only to interview the occasional prisoner - it is a bit chilling.

Why?
Does anyone else have first hand prison stories??

What I found chilling was the thick walls and the sense of being locked in, even though I knew they would let me out..
I am just a touch claustrophobic which was possibly a factor.

I also interviewed and assessed the occasional person in the unit for the "Criminally Insane" that used to be attached to Yatala.
I remember in particular a woman who had killed about 6 people over 2 years in the Norwood area in the 1970s.
[ I interviewed her with a guard standing in a corner of the office.]

[fish]

If you'll pardon the pun - it seems that some people are failing to see the big picture here.

[redandblack]

The case of Pauline Hanson might be relevant here.

Before she went to prison, she held the strong view that prison life was holiday and punishment should be toughened.

On her release, she was asked if she still held that view.

She replied 'no'.

I always wonder why this wasn't followed up with her at the time, but I think it indicates that it certainly isn't a holiday. Psyber's experience underlines that also.

[mick]

To a person who is not an habitual criminal prison is a nightmare, even in the "soft" institutions like Cadell, I have known two inmates at Cadell, one was convicted of a white collar crime, the other an habitual drink driver. Apart from these crimes they were "decent" people. It certainly wasn't a holiday for them, its a scary place lots of standover and intimidation from the "pros". I also know a number of prison officers, all have a hard line attitude to prisoners, one complaint is that prisoners can smoke in prison, the guards can't, prisoners get ciggies and tobacco without GST, the guards don't. However I was told these concessions are designed to make the inmates more manageable. I suspect the TVs are a similar strategy.

[Gozu]

"If the figures don’t say what we want them to say, they must be wrong":

Ever noticed how, if you rely on the tabloid media, you’re always being told that crime is getting worse? That it’s just one slow, devastating slide into anarchy and chaos, it never gets any better – no matter how many “tough on crime” policies our politicians implement (thereby apparently proving that we need to get tougher until it eventually works)… That there’s never any improvement, no matter what we try.

When crime figures are released that actually show crime rates dropping, we don’t see the reverse of the headlines we get when they increase. Quite the contrary – we get attacks on the figures themselves. How dare they contradict our narrative! We’ve told you [our version of] what’s going on, and we’ll only accept the figures that back us up. Anything else must be a lie.

And their readers lap it up uncritically.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2 ... -be-wrong/

Just remember: your parents thought the world was descending into anarchy when you were a teenager. So did theirs thirty years earlier. And those before them. Try to remember how out of touch you knew they were then.

And remember that the tabloids are selling you something. You don’t have to buy it.

[Ronnie]

"If the figures don’t say what we want them to say, they must be wrong":

Ever noticed how, if you rely on the tabloid media, you’re always being told that crime is getting worse? That it’s just one slow, devastating slide into anarchy and chaos, it never gets any better – no matter how many “tough on crime” policies our politicians implement (thereby apparently proving that we need to get tougher until it eventually works)… That there’s never any improvement, no matter what we try.

When crime figures are released that actually show crime rates dropping, we don’t see the reverse of the headlines we get when they increase. Quite the contrary – we get attacks on the figures themselves. How dare they contradict our narrative! We’ve told you [our version of] what’s going on, and we’ll only accept the figures that back us up. Anything else must be a lie.

And their readers lap it up uncritically.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2 ... -be-wrong/

Just remember: your parents thought the world was descending into anarchy when you were a teenager. So did theirs thirty years earlier. And those before them. Try to remember how out of touch you knew they were then.

And remember that the tabloids are selling you something. You don’t have to buy it.

He's a little arrogant in his thinking about parents. The one's i have know more and more the older i get....

[redden whites]

Leon Byner to thread......Leon Byner to thread.......

[redden whites]

A $600 TV doesn't magically offset not having your freedom. In fact, they have TVs now anyway that have become redundant since analog was switched off. So you either pay for set top boxes and someone to come in and install them all or you buy new ones. If TVs in prison cells are a huge issue why weren't we onto it in such an emotional way before with the TVs they had then.

I have never been in prison. I am sure a lot of a reactionaries to this story have never been in prison either. I am also sure prison, even with a flat screen TV, would rate 0.1 of one star on the accomodation rating scheme with the added bonus that you can't go anywhere outside the prison. I have no problem if it is only 0.1 of one star as they are there as punishment. If you live in a tin shed and have a TV you still live in a tin shed.

End of thread; sanity pevails.

[Media Park]

A $600 TV doesn't magically offset not having your freedom. In fact, they have TVs now anyway that have become redundant since analog was switched off. So you either pay for set top boxes and someone to come in and install them all or you buy new ones. If TVs in prison cells are a huge issue why weren't we onto it in such an emotional way before with the TVs they had then.

I have never been in prison. I am sure a lot of a reactionaries to this story have never been in prison either. I am also sure prison, even with a flat screen TV, would rate 0.1 of one star on the accomodation rating scheme with the added bonus that you can't go anywhere outside the prison. I have no problem if it is only 0.1 of one star as they are there as punishment. If you live in a tin shed and have a TV you still live in a tin shed.

And I assume the cabling between the tv and box would be a security/safety issue also, so they wouldn't have had a lot of choice in the matter.

[Hondo]

I heard a theory that the flat screens prevent things being hidden inside which must have been a problem with the old ones?