from Hacker News

Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

by danseagrave on 12/5/14, 1:38 PM with 76 comments

  • by mabbo on 12/5/14, 3:18 PM

    I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way.

    Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a bad person. Best lock them up again.

  • by KaiserPro on 12/5/14, 3:35 PM

    And ofcourse Mr Grayling has done his best to destroy Judicial reviews that highlight this kind of problem.

    Basically if you want to challenge a law, a judicial review is the only way you can go about it (going through the political process, writing to an MP and the like leaves you open to the whim of the press and "public opinion")

    http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18682/...

    If this law goes through only those with significant amount of cash can ever challenge illegal laws. Combine that with the changes to legal aid, mean that only the rich will be able to attain justice.

  • by arethuza on 12/5/14, 2:29 PM

    I wonder if there are any schemes making e-book readers available in prisons - no danger of smuggling in drugs in a stream of bytes!

  • by Oletros on 12/5/14, 2:21 PM

    I'm glad about that overturn of the ban

  • by Shivetya on 12/5/14, 2:30 PM

    The one issue brought up which I think it a legitimate concern is, how do you insure the book is not used for improper purposes. Those would be but not limited to, concealment of prohibited objects, drugs, and messages?

    You can screen for some, but I would expect all parcels to have some limited form of search. I would tend to think a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to prisoners, perhaps even only allowing access to the delivered books in a library setting; books are kept by the system in the library for the prisoners.

    I understand that idea that reading is fundamental, but controlling what is in their environment is a big part of maintaining a safe and secure environment.