Life Should Mean Life

 General  No Responses »
Jul 142016
 

… and it pretty much does.

The “lock ’em up and throw away the key” crowd are keen on pointing out that life should mean life. Meaning that those sentenced to life imprisonment should be inside for the rest of their lives.

Everyone “knows” that murderers sentenced to life are often freed after 10-25 years or so.

What is less well known is that when someone sentenced to life is released, they are released “on license”, and are definitely not free in the normal sense of the word.

For a start, lifers do not get released until they have convinced the relevant authorities that they are no longer a risk to society (in theory). When you come down to it, there is no point keeping a murderer in prison after 20 years if the circumstances have sufficiently changed that they are no longer likely to murder anyone – that 60-year old woman who went berserk and killed her children when she was 40 isn’t likely to have more children.

Bear in mind that keeping murderers in prison is expensive and the expense of the big TV and playstation a lifer gets in their cell is irrelevant compared with the cost of the bare cell.

Even when lifers are released, they are released on license, and monitored (although I dare say there are not enough resources allocated to monitoring). And if the lifer gets up to anything that makes their monitor feel uncertain, they’ll find themselves back inside without going through court. There have been lifers who have found themselves back inside because they were drinking too much.

So, no a murderer is never truly free.

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The “Secret” Christian Subsidy

 Religion  No Responses »
Feb 062015
 

I happened to discover today that there is a chaplain within the House of Commons in the UK; fair enough. I don't really have a problem with someone being there to offer some sort of support to the HoC staff. Not even letting them incant some mumbo-jumbo at the start of the day.

But who pays his or her salary? Is it the Church of Englang? Or is it the government … and indirectly, the taxpayer? Which includes me.

I also don't have a problem with a single salary for a member of the clergy – one salary doesn't add up to much compared with the entirity of the public sector. But how many others are employed by the taxpayer?

  • The NHS employs chaplains.
  • The prison service employs chaplains.
  • Universities employ chaplains.
  • The military employ chaplains.

And probably other murkier corners of the public sector. Now when I say "employs", there are some areas of doubt – some are volunteers, and some may be paid for by the Church of England. But there are obviously many who are paid by the taxpayer.

Now I don't want hospital patients, prisoners, University students and staff, nor anyone in the military being derived of chaplains. If some people think they provide a useful service, then I have no objections to them using such services.

But why is my money being used to pay for their services? I would much rather my money was used to pay for properly trained counsellors which would provide appropriate services to all members of the public without being ever so slightly creepy (by talking about the mythical sky-daddy … or indeed the "wrong" mythical sky-daddy). If someone wants to speak to a religious consultant, then a counsellor can find a volunteer to meet that request.