MR BIGMAN: Good Luck my man! May your sentence be short. Your Royal majesty's prisons are coed? Don't know if they allow mixing, but in constrast to these united States, were shamefully we are the world's largest jailer per capita. At about 30,000 pounds per year plus per in mate no wonder we are broke and the world is going down the tubes with us. Those prison guards (who sponsored the "mostly tea party Freshman Congressmen (and women) were given an orientation on governance- you know how to vote, ect... they were sent to confressences in 5 star hotels, in the State of Hawaii- half on the Island of Maui, the other half on the Island of Kaui...the vangaurd of change, a perversion of the right...some had good ideas...but this conference was sponsored BY THE PRISON GUARDS UNION OF AMERICA...guess how they would influence the vote...and as dumb as some of these tea partiers...well they made easy pray.
In California, the US supreme court, though filled with conservative judges rulled that the "liberal" State of California had to release or reprimand from prison top jail a number of inmates, so shameful was overcrowding and the attendant problems. Guess those supreme court Justices felt left out of the party in Hawaii. At any rate, some times checks and balances work in this country...hurray for the judicial branch.
I've talked to alot of people that have spent time inside and it seems to depend were your reprimanded...you can non-affiliate and mind your bussiness or be reprimanded to a facility were you affiliate or become someone's bitch. Always confounded me why the different races didn't all unite against the guards...b/c they are too stupid or more plausibly more smart...racial divides and squables provides division and a market for contraband that different gangs and cooperating prison gaurds can exploit to make money on contraband- sometimes inside the walls than outside.
Well so much for rehabilitation
So anyrate wire and Oz are Hollywood but they have alot of basis in reality. I doubt HM's Prisons can be that bad. At any rate, whatever your ethnicity, I would imagine that whites aren't the minority (but don't know what your ethnicity is). Would imagine that factions like the old soccer firms, IRA priosoners (if the aren't all housed on that one Island prioson which escapes my mind in the south of England), and other ethnic gangs: Pakis, Turks, African, West Indies blacks, ect might be divided. Is this the case? My impression is that overall British, and European Prisons (with the exception of Greece and maybe some former Eastern Euro Com Bolck members, are safer the prisons in the USA. I know from you guys that private prisons have made inroads but I have a feeling that UK or Irish prisons unless you are a member of some Irish republican spinter group or jihhadi group in which case MI5, or some agency in the UK police apparatus would beat the shit out of you during questioning (seriously taboo here per the constitution...unless your reprimanded to Guantanamo Bay, hence its existance "nominally outside US soil")...I would think that time would be safer and more humane- but I might be 100% wrong. Please educate me on the realities of the penal system in the UK and other European Nations (ok UK and Eire would suffice). The sickest thing in the USA, UK, Eire, South Africa, and atleast in the English speaking, world, probably outside of it, is that drug addicts and small time purveyors are the bread and butter of the prison world. In this country cannabis offenders make up a majority- fucking ridicoulous- in states outside CA- but CA has a 3 strikes law- 3 strikeable fellonies and you get 25- life- some have been sent for petty theft to feed their family because they can't get a job when released.
You end the war on drugs, the incarceration, lost productivity from blacklisted qualified skilled workers (users or purveyors), the money spent incarcerating, the lives corrupted in a despicable way that defines the incarceration process. Squandered tax payer money... prisoners that in this country require 2 prison guards when hospitalized (that work 16 hr shift and get major overtime), more importantly the trauma and danger that incarceration for drug crimes represents. In this country it is unconstitutional for the time to be worse than the crime but people are so brainwahed- yet perceptions our changing, but they are much worse.
Bigman, goodluck and may your time pass quickly! Fucking shameful situation, and shame on us all for letting the government get away with these CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. You shouldn't be jailed, your prosecuters and jailers should be standing trail in The Hague and the politicians that uphold these laws that are violations of basic human rights.
Anyway
weeds and my personal favorite,
breaking bad are good series.
Kat- you only got to see part of Perry Farrels's
the Gift, not to be confused with another mainstream movie of that name. It would be worth finding on ebay- gives some realistic insights into the late 80s LA drug scene, though somewhat idealized, its my favorite (they are probably really fixing tar in the movie- its Jane's Addiction after all.
Drugstor Cowboys less grity, more idealized, but based on Jame's Fogel's true story about robbing pharmacies in Portland, Oregon (circa early 70s). FYI, Fogel, after years clean, decided to rob another drugstore in the last few years and got what at his age was a life sentence.
Trainspotting is cool too but...
