
Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court - danseagrave
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30344867
======
mabbo
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.

~~~
crusso
_if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people_

You imply that rehabilitation is the only reason for prison and that there are
proven methods of rehabilitation.

Rehabilitating people is hard and we don't know of any great ways to do that.
Removing criminals from society is easy and straightforward.

~~~
digikata
And really really expensive. If the point is a safe society without high costs
of maintenance it seems foolish to overlook rehabilitation.

~~~
tomjen3
We could make it much cheaper, if we wanted to. Cages hold a man as well as
cells made of bricks, prisoners can work whenever they are not sleeping and
things like recreational facilities are just going be used for and by gangs.

We could make prisons much cheaper than they currently are just by choosing
either rehabilitation or warehousing. Warehousing would be even cheaper - or
maybe split the prisoners up by worth (essentially asking is this person a
good person who did something bad, or a bad person) and then have two
different criminal systems.

------
KaiserPro
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/...](http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18682/charities_face_greater_judicial_review_costs_after_commons_vote)

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.

~~~
cmdkeen
At what point has the judicial review become merely the means for judges to
disagree with government policy? This wasn't a law change, this was a change
to an existing policy about what prisoners could receive in parcels. Judicial
review seems to have become an all too regular occurrence used by people who
don't like what a particular government is doing.

~~~
KaiserPro
But the point of british law is that no one is above it. A precedence set by
the magna carta. (which has now been superseded apart from two clauses.)

This means that if the government changes policy, and that policy change is
incompatible with the law, it must be changed. This is the mecanism that would
stop the government from passing a statutory instrument(a law that requires no
vote in parliament) to allow the Treasury to take assets without due process
(something that was protected by the magna carta, but was recently repealed)

How ever for a law to be challenged, a judicial review must be triggered.

~~~
cmdkeen
Except many judicial reviews aren't about the legality of the decision, merely
the way the decision has been made.

"Judicial review is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the
lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. In other words,
judicial reviews are a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made,
rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached. It is not really
concerned with the conclusions of that process and whether those were 'right',
as long as the right procedures have been followed. The court will not
substitute what it thinks is the 'correct' decision."

[[http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/19/judicia...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/19/judicial-
review-statistics)]

~~~
dragonwriter
> Except many judicial reviews aren't about the legality of the decision,
> merely the way the decision has been made

But isn't that an essential feature of the constitutional structure of the UK:
given that the UK doesn't have a separation of powers system in which various
entities within government have limited powers, any decision by government
that is within the sovereign power of the government is _substantively_
legally, the only question of its legality is whether or not it _is_ a valid
decision of the government, made by the means legally prescribed by the
government for the kind of decision it is -- but this can look at like review
of the legality of the substance of the decision, because the legally
prescribed mechanism for a decision may vary based on the substance of the
decision.

(In a sense, this is true of _any_ sovereign government, even, e.g., the US
separation of powers system, wherein the "way the decision has been made", in
order to be legal, for certain decisions involves a Constitutional Amendment.)

------
arethuza
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!

~~~
anigbrowl
Funny you should ask.

This company aims to provide modified iPads to prisons and jails. SF county
has signed onto the scheme:
[http://apdscorporate.com/](http://apdscorporate.com/)

This company already has a heavily locked-down tablet and provides a way for
relatives to buy music for or send email or donate money to prisoners:
[http://blog.jpay.com/mini-tablet-for-prisons-now-
available-i...](http://blog.jpay.com/mini-tablet-for-prisons-now-available-in-
louisiana-and-virginia/)

Victims' rights groups are not very happy about this:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/17/tablets...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/17/tabletsforinmates/2651727/)

EDIT: I mentioned a scheme in Ohio, but associated it with the wrong link.
That state uses Jpay, not the APDS system.

~~~
Retra
Surely they could go with something cheaper than iPads?

~~~
anigbrowl
They're probably not using the latest models or have some deal with Apple
similar to an education discount. I don't know what the business logic is.

------
Oletros
I'm glad about that overturn of the ban

------
Shivetya
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.

~~~
bainsfather
In the uk, prisoners get sent _other_ parcels, they of course are screened. No
real reason for not allowing books. This ban was just the prisons minister
playing to the tabloid press.

"a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to
prisoners" \- alas, this is not even a bad joke. In e.g. high security
prisons, you might get to visit the library once every 4 weeks. If (or these
days, more often than not when) there are staff shortages, supervision of
prisoners' library visits is among the first things cut - in which case, you
might get to visit again in 4 weeks time, maybe.

Source: 2nd hand info from talking to someone who works in a prison.

~~~
kahirsch
The first sentence of the article is "Under the current rules prisoners are
prevented from receiving parcels unless they have 'exceptional circumstances',
such as a medical condition."

~~~
bainsfather
Yes, I saw that, and I thought it was incorrect. After some digging:

This does not apply to remand prisoners.

Convicted prisoners get 1 parcel of _clothing_ after conviction (at the
governer's discretion).

Also exceptional circumstances "could include for example ... replace clothing
due to restricted access to laundry facilities."

Source: Prison Service Instructions 30-2013 Section 10.4, 10.5 and also annex
F.

