Benevolent Evil

Benevolent Evil
I saw the conservative campaign posters of a smiling gordon brown and a caption reading he had released 800,000 prisoners. Yesterday reading Darryl Durrs last words before his execution by lethal injection. On radio 4 on Womans Hour they ran a piece on the number of suicides in womens prisons. I have spent time researching the various contraptions man has come up with to do away with our undesirables. The guillotine, the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, the list goes on. The irony lies in thinking of a way to do the unthinkable. To kill in the least painful way. To be inhumane in the most humane way. This hasnt always been the way and it seems peculiar to europe and most of all America. Jailing people to punish them then having them on suicide watch seems to me like wanting to have your cake and eat it. Prison isn't supposed to be nice yet when people respond to the punishment by killing themselves the authorities think they are failing. No method of execution is humane and good on you Gordon Brown for letting prisoners leave two weeks early. You have saved lives. Now the election build up has begun, this practice has stopped and our prisons are once again overcrowded.