Britain is one of
those benevolent countries which likes to lock people up who are
mentally disturbed. It is estimated in Britain that around eighty
percent of the prison population have mental health issues.
Nevertheless, this savage incarceration of unwell men, women, and
even children should come as no surprise to many of us. It is a
nation that is obsessed with locking people up and shouting infantile
platitudes such as “justice”. In fact, there is no justice where
this matter is concerned. For the authorities presiding over
criminal law and over people with mental illnesses, their
incarceration should be held in no great esteem. To put the mentally
ill in prison is itself a criminal act, but few seem to share this
view.
There is a spectre
haunting Britain. It is a morbid disease which seeks to lock up a
large number of people for long periods - and this - to foolish and
unwise people is “justice”, “right” and “fair.” If the
“crime” is committed the “offender” must go to prison, so we
are told. This person can be a child, suffering from psychosis, no
matter what the condition is of the individual, they must go to
prison and rejoice in the misery in which they are subject to. The
state, that pernicious, nefarious autocratic authority which talks
puerile idiocies at every opportunity, ought not to preside over such
things. They prefer to rub the sore when they should bring the
plaster, thus endangering every woman, man and child in the
community. Indeed those that believe in punishment ought not to be
taken seriously.
If we were to take
Hannah Arendt’s advice and execute all the brutes Britain would be
without judges, the House of Commons would be without members of
Parliament, police stations would be empty, prisons would be without
officers and governors and so on. Let us, for example take a man who
has the thinking capacity of an eight-year-old child who has
violently attacked a child. If that individual is placed in prison
then the state to which he belongs are responsible for putting
children in prison, and it is also the case that such a person would
fail to grasp the reasons for being incarcerated in the first place.
This is not punishment but obscene mental retardation. Because, upon
release, there is nothing to stop him from repeating his wild act
because he has not been taught that it is wrong. There is little
morality in such affairs, and those who refrain from speaking out
about such abysmal practices are just as immoral.
I would now like to
pose a polemical argument. All punitive institutions ought to be
dismantled, and more humanitarian and caring practices ought to be
erected. If a “crime” is committed by someone who is considered
to be suffering from a mental sickness, first it is important to
determine and understand why this person did such a thing. Throwing
an individual into jail will be severely detrimental to the
individual involved, as well as to others. It is best to cure the
illness within their mind, and relinquish their demons. However,
evidently, we do not live in a caring society, and such protestations
are in vain. If a more sane society was created it would put an end
to governments everywhere, but that is impossible.
There appears,
quite marginally, to be some concern from people in different parts
of this corrosive society, but this gentle empathy does indeed have
its limits. This stops short at the prison gates, and those hapless
victims suffering a sickness of the mind, are left alone in this
dark, dank, cold and devastating world. It is a little peculiar even
by the governments’ standards by incarcerating these people because
it does little to serve their interests and ventures. Throwing
people in prison is not just a matter of barbarian practices by the
criminal class; it goes much further than that. Presently Britain
houses more prisoners than any other European counterpart. This is
because these people languishing in these institutions are acting as
financial profit for the state and private power, but those that do
not have the ability to work that is something else.
Those that are
incapable of working in prison still serve the state’s interest
just by being in prison. Many of us are so ridiculous that an
abnormally large number of us believe prisons to be places of
rehabilitation. This “rehabilitation” is a profiteering practice
for the government and the like. Crime does pay but not for the
“offender” or “”victim” but to a more insidious throng.
Why does the crypto-fascist government take immense pleasure in
locking up such people? This is a question which is not too difficult
to answer.
A new sort of
society has been created before our very eyes, it is, what we may
call a dystopian nightmare envisioned by vicious plutocrats. This
new society is, in essence, social Darwinism, aimed at benefitting
those who are wealthy enough to pay their taxes in millions, as for
the rest of society they are marginalised without knowing it. The
state gains nothing in helping those with mental health conditions;
it does not benefit the government, therefore they are an unnecessary
burden and the lower element. That is why they are shoved in prison
and offered no help before getting there, and nothing while they are
there and even after they leave. Nevertheless, the treatment of
people suffering from mental illness is seldom discussed in polite
society. Prison works, so said the former Home Secretary, Michael
Howard. Prison does not work; it did not work then, it does not work
now and it never shall in the future, certainly not in this society.
Michael Howard was fond of locking people up with all kinds of mental
problems, yet, so it appears, his conscience was never pricked. In
fact, mental health is ridiculed in the television system, on reality
shows of various sorts they act as entertainment programmes,
tormenting and ridiculing people with clear disabilities of the mind,
and the viewers laugh as if it was the most natural thing in the
world. Contrastingly, those with physical disabilities on these same
abominable television programmes are met with sympathy and often
admiration. Such polarity is striking.
The same happens in
punitive institutions. Those suffering from mental health problems
are often met with mockery and brutality, not only from the prisoners
but from the prison officers as well. For them it is prison of the
very worst kind.
26th January
2014.
For my other prison essays see previous posts. The next essay on prisons will be posted shortly.
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