Prison vote plan to be outlined

[Win2Win Racing]

The government is to set out plans for draft legislation on the issue of whether prisoners serving custodial sentences should be allowed the vote.

More... (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20431995#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa)

Prison vote plan to be outlined

[barneymather]

This is the EU meddling again - votes for prisoners originated in Brussels - aided by their dim-witted supporters at Westmnister. The Lib-Dem's Lord Lester, who would win a prize for most out of touch politician in the country, says Britain's standing will be diminshed across the world if we don't comply with the EU legislation. Lord Lester is a human rights lawyer incidentally.

Why should someone who beat the **** out of an OAP or commits a sexual assault have the right to do anything other than serve their time? The EU's idea is to give prisoners serving less than 4 years the vote, but given the soft sentences handed out in Britain, you could commit a serious offence and get less than 4 years.

Apparently 30,000 jailbirds would be eligible to vote under these proposals, and needless to say the law firms are hovering like vultures to mount legal challenges, with the bill for any compensation cases naturally coming out of the taxpayer's pocket.

You hear a lot about reoffending rates, and how do-gooders and naive (or just plain stupid) government ministers are anxious to stop this, but all I can say is that prison clearly isn't much of a hardship or punishment if villains are prepared to risk going back there.

A couple of days ago I read of a character in Dundee stealing a duvet just so he could go back to jail. The liberal Press love to portray anyone who advocates taking a tough line with criminals as being completely unreasonable and ignoring reality, but the reality I see is that there are very nice facilities availalble (TV in your cell, gym, computer games) in prison to hardened criminals. The person the offender stole from or assaulted may well not have such items and all the former has done is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In what passes for the criminal justice system in the UK, victims are ignored and their suffering is deemed to be irrelevant. It's all about helping the poor deprived offender who never had a chance in life, sob. Millions of people grew up in households where money was tight, but they had the decency and respect for others not to go our burgling houses or mugging people because they were too damn lazy to work for a living and see crime as a valid lifestyle choice.

And there are jobs out there, even now, and immigrants are only too happy to take them because they're used to working. Their home country expects them to pay their own way and doesn't fund them to lie in bed all day. When will the buffoons in power realise that treating criminals with kid gloves is never going to work? They just laugh at the 'punishment' they're given and can't believe their luck at getting off so lightly. :rolleyes: