Calling criminals 'offenders' is insult, says campaigner

[Dedworth]

Lawbreakers should no longer be branded offenders because the term is “insulting”, a leading criminal justice campaigner said today.

Frances Crook, head of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the phrase demeaned criminals and hindered their rehabilitation.

She said it was “easy” for politicians to treat some sections of society as “other” and less than human.

“Someone who commits an offence is not an offender, they are someone who has done something. The action does not define the whole person,” she wrote in the journal Criminal Justice Matters.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...-campaigner.do

I prefer simply to refer to them as SCUM

[Terpe]

Absolute nonsense

[grahamw48]

Listened to it on the radio this morning.

'Crooks' has a nice ring about it.

[Dedworth]

Pondlife ??

[nigel]

We've got to call them SOMETHING and 'offender' sounds like a softly softly mild word to me!

[Englishman2010]

Scum's an appropriate word I can think of plenty more, but I'll keep it clean

[Arthur Little]

'offender' sounds like a softly softly mild word to me!

And to me also, Nigel ... contrary to this woman's assertion about the word 'offender' being demeaning ... it's too kind a term of reference to be applied to many recidivist lawbreakers - who are nowt less than downright criminals !!!

[KeithD]

I think they should be put in the army so we can refer to them as 'Taliban Fodder'

[johncar54]

Frances Crook, head of the Howard League for Penal Reform, must have done more harm to her group by this remark than probably any outsider could ever hope to do.

Now we all know for sure, straight from the horse's mouth, they are cuckoo, (apologies to horses, who may like to be called something else too ! )

[grahamw48]

She's not one of those nuts who married a convicted lifer is she ?

[johncar54]

She's not one of those nuts who married a convicted lifer is she ?

Post withdrawn, I misread google, Thanks Dedworth.

[Dedworth]

No (according to google) her husband is Desmond Wilcox

She must be a nutter 'cos he's been dead for 10 years and was married to Esther Rantzen

[grahamw48]

We could do with some of those crooks busy doing their gym training at tax-payers' expense to clear the blinkin footpaths of snow !

[mikey73]

We could do with some of those crooks busy doing their gym training at tax-payers' expense to clear the blinkin footpaths of snow !

hi graham up here instead of doing that up here in edinburgh they are considering using the army to clear the snow and ice off the pavements. i am sure the armed forces have better things to do than clearing snow off of the pavements.

[mikey73]

We could do with some of those crooks busy doing their gym training at tax-payers' expense to clear the blinkin footpaths of snow !

the new designs for the new prison in peterhead is being compared to a holiday camp.
"They reveal that at the new Peterhead, some of Scotland’s most reviled criminals will enjoy access to at least four all-weather football pitches.

Further exercise areas will be provided in the wide spaces between the accommodation blocks, which feature huge windows to bathe the interior with light.

Almost half the entire area of the new prison is given over to landscaped, open ground for inmates to stroll in."

"And each cell will be equipped with a new, 19-inch flat screen television when the jail opens its doors."
content from http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2010/1...-holiday-camp/

the prison is costing £140 million but they think that it wont be enough for the new designs

dont think any OFFENDERS will be doing anything other than relaxing in their comfortable accommodations for sometime to come.

[Arthur Little]

i am sure the armed forces have better things to do than clearing snow off of the pavements.

Damned right, they do, my friend ... God knows, we pay enough Council Tax to our local authorities to take responsibility for making pavements safe for pedestrians.

[johncar54]

Holiday Camps.

In the late 80's I visited Holloway Prison and in a chat with a prison officer she told me the new prison, which was soon to be completed, was so luxurious that as it coincided with her retirement (on a meagre pension, sufficient for her to live in a small flat) she would have loved to have stayed on in the prison as a 'guest' so that she could enjoy it.

I have just googled it:-


It is of red brick with projecting windows and flat roofs. Communal facilities include an education centre, workshops, gymnasium, swimming pool and chapel. A 'trolley walk' on level two runs around the site, linking all the main buildings and administration is located in the gatehouse complex. Inmate accommodation is in four and five storey cell blocks.

She said the prisoners (hope that word does not offend the sensitivities of that Crook lady! ) would have the right to have their single occupancy cell decorated, with fixtures, curtains, furnishings, in the style and colour of their choice, TV, doors open all day etc.

I wonder why prisoners re-offend after all that brutal punishment ?

[Dedworth]

What we need is a robust regime, no Playstations or TV, bland food just above subsistence level & no parole.

That would soon deter Crims and empty out the existing jail thus avoiding the expense of building new ones

[grahamw48]

What we need is a robust regime, no Playstations or TV, bland food just above subsistence level & no parole.

That would soon deter Crims and empty out the existing jail thus avoiding the expense of building new ones

Spot-on.

- AND deport all the foreign ones !

The govt. now expect my son to borrow 3 times as much money if he has worked hard enough to get into uni', yet are prepared to finance all kinds of detritus who con their way into the country to rob and steal from us.

[Dedworth]

Spot-on.

- AND deport all the foreign ones !

I forgot that one probably because in my old fashioned mind I still half believe it is done automatically.

Another thought on the Prison System - we should go for 100% privatisation with the G4S, Kalyx etc excluded from tendering with the sole bidder being The Singapore Prison Service. All new warder recruits to be shaven headed ex armed forces with a high proportion being former Ghurkas to show the Prison Service is multicultural.

[Arthur Little]

Holiday Camps.

In the late 80's I visited Holloway Prison and in a chat with a prison officer she told me the new prison, which was soon to be completed, was so luxurious that as it coincided with her retirement (on a meagre pension, sufficient for her to live in a small flat) she would have loved to have stayed on in the prison as a 'guest' so that she could enjoy it.

that modern prisons are becoming more like 'Butlin's' by the day [makes a change from Butlin's by the sea! ] But I have to disagree with your statement about prison officers' pensions ... which - in reality - are anything but "meagre".