“The point of being in jail is not to mistreat people or make them feel worse and resentful,” —Marion Damick
No, the point of jail to keep criminals off the streets.
But they shouldn’t be better off in jail…
The County Jail Oversight Board recently approved the purchase of 40 Sony Bravia televisions for viewing in the jail common areas.
If a judge sentenced you to the Allegheny County Jail, you’d be provided three hot meals and a bed to sleep in, but in common areas, you’d also be able to watch cable shows on 42-inch Sony flat screens.
Anyone else see the problem here?
Whatever happened to Cold Coffee and a Bologna Sandwich and sleeping on a metal slab?
Yeah, the problem is they don’t get free porn on the bigscreens. Won’t someone please think of the poor inmates?….
Well, I kinda figure the state is paying for them because, if the inmates are watching the boob tube, then they probably aren’t rioting. It is simply a gentle form of prisoner control.
WTF? How come THEY get a better TV than I have???
And they probably get more channels too!!! Dammit!
Yeah, remember when the idea of prisons was to actually, you know, punish people for breaking laws. Not warehouse them in comfort while they got their masters degree in criminality.
I bought my bed and tv and I buy the components to make my own meals. Sumthin’ not right, here…
Of course, sweet revenge would be to set all 1,000 channels to the Oprah network.
I have built two prisons and while the accommodations were nice, the neighborhood sucked.
From my own perspective:
I have never been in full on prison; however over a decade ago I made an unfortunate mistake and wound up in the county jail for the better part of two days.
The most pervasive feelings was boredom. Boredom because you have nothing to do but: sit, shoot the shit, talk about what stupid mistake you made, eat your three hots, and sleep in your cot (which due to overcrowding is a gym mat and a coarse army blanket).
The county I was briefly a “guest” of is conservative: i.e. no televisons. The nearby larger county is more liberal: they get the big screens.
I’ve heard more than a few people say that they want the life of their dog or cat: few people realize how boring 16 hours of nothing to do is. Figuratively, we would have killed to have even the mindlessness of daytime t.v. to watch.