Prisoners Working To Earn Their Keep/​what A Novel Idea

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A friend asked me a while back, “Why do you write”? I was a lit­tle tak­en aback at the ques­tion, but I inti­mat­ed to her that writ­ing was my cho­sen way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing my thoughts.
Some peo­ple rap, sing, write poet­ry, and play musi­cal instru­ments. I love to write; I believe the writ­ten word is intrin­si­cal­ly impor­tant; it leaves an indeli­bly cod­i­fied his­tor­i­cal record of events of the time and a win­dow into the writer’s soul.


She told me she some­times read my work, which I was thank­ful for; she did­n’t have to.
She went on to say that I am my own worst ene­my, as there was too much cussing in my writ­ing, she cau­tioned.
My writ­ing gave her a headache, she said. I would be advised to tone it down.
My friend had no idea that what she told me was music to my ears. I nev­er thought I would write so that peo­ple could feel com­fort­able; I do not write to val­i­date what peo­ple already believe.
I write to com­mu­ni­cate my thoughts in ways that jolt peo­ple to the real­i­ties of what I am try­ing to con­vey.
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I did that lit­tle lead-in to avoid a cussing rant because I am floored at the seem­ing state of back­ward­ness in my coun­try.
Wait, wait, please, you die-hard patri­ots, before you start cussing me out, hear me out first; thank you.
According to some recent report­ing, the Jamaican Government is again talk­ing about putting pris­on­ers to work.
Geez, what a nov­el idea.


PUTTING PRISONERS TO WORK WHATNOVEL IDEA

Here’s the shit which gets my blood boil­ing. On the rare occa­sion that a mur­der­er gets con­vict­ed for a frac­tion of his crimes, the sen­tence is usu­al­ly hand­ed down with a hard labor caveat.
That the gov­ern­ment is not car­ry­ing out the court’s orders means that this admin­is­tra­tion and oth­ers pri­or are in gross vio­la­tion and abdi­ca­tion of their duties and are vio­lat­ing court orders, which are anti­thet­i­cal to the con­cepts of a bud­ding democracy.




PRISON CLOTHES

The report­ing alleges that the gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing using con­victs to clean up the nation’s streets and gul­lies that are lit­tered with garbage. In fact, the state is now con­sid­er­ing pur­chas­ing spe­cial cloth­ing for pris­on­ers to wear when they engage in clean-up activ­i­ties.

Why are pris­on­ers not in spe­cial prison clothes, and why would it only be when they are engaged in work?
Why are Jamaican Government offi­cials so intent on half ass meth­ods rather than doing things the way they ought to be done?
If a pris­on­er man­ages to escape cus­tody, one of the eas­i­est ways to quick­ly iden­ti­fy and recap­ture that felon is the prison garb he is dressed in.
Why has the gov­ern­ment not done this sim­ple due dili­gence, giv­en those facts?

LOW-RISK PRISONERS

I have always argued that Jamaican author­i­ties are like a Jack ass with its ass where its head should be.
So it comes as no sur­prise,.…… to me at least, that Pearnel Charles Jr., the junior nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, told the media quote; 

Any per­son in the sys­tems with a non-cus­to­di­al sen­tence or a cus­to­di­al sen­tence that is low risk could be used in this cat­e­go­ry to clean the lit­ters in gul­lies.” 
So the idea is to basi­cal­ly pun­ish low-risk non-vio­lent offend­ers while [vio­lent shot­tas sit]around chat­ting on their cell phones, eat­ing, mak­ing music, and order­ing hits.
Actually, com­par­ing these dweebs to jack­ass­es is an insult to jack­ass­es.
We need to reduce the num­ber of per­sons with­in our cus­tody. We have reclas­si­fied, and we are also look­ing at elec­tron­i­cal­ly mon­i­tor­ing con­vict­ed per­sons to engage in clean-up activ­i­ties that they might not be able to do before because of secu­ri­ty issues.



This is the Jackasse’s ass where the head should have been.
If the admin­is­tra­tion wish­es to car­ry out the court’s orders final­ly, it would make sense to do the oppo­site of what this twit is rec­om­mend­ing.
(a) Here’s a clue, have low-risk offend­ers who have no moti­va­tion to escape with­out get­ting into more trou­ble do the work that is being rec­om­mend­ed, and (b) Have high-risk offend­ers get up off their ass­es and do seri­ous work wher­ev­er they are need­ed, to build the coun­try.

How do you ask?
I’m glad you asked. 
I ful­ly under­stand that sim­ple things that many of my coun­try folks do not under­stand are con­sid­ered impos­si­ble to do.
Other coun­tries have cre­at­ed ways to put vio­lent offend­ers to work safe­ly.
If, of course, we can eschew pre­tense and get our heads out of our own ass­es.
Look, China, Iran, Russia, the United States, and almost all of the major coun­tries across the globe exe­cute mur­der­ers.


Since we Jamaicans are sanc­ti­mo­nious hyp­ocrites who are too shit holi­er-than-though to kill these scum­bags, maybe we can get around to putting them to work so they earn their keep and repay their debt to soci­ety.
Shackle two togeth­er by the angles and give them three feet of chain to sep­a­rate them and put their crim­i­nal ass­es to work.
This is a net win for the coun­try as they pro­duce to feed them­selves. Please give them a tiny stipend; this results in less idle time for them to plan and scheme and order hits on inno­cent peo­ple from prison.



As straight­for­ward as the fore­gone is, I can­not wait to hear the sanc­ti­mo­nious bleed­ing hearts with their con­trar­i­an hand­writ­ing about how we can­not do this; we can­not do that.
Simple leg­is­la­tion, which ought to be a giv­en, becomes a major thing. A major announce­ment is required for this grand idea. Yup, putting pris­on­ers in uni­form is groundbreaking[sic]

Since scarce state resources are being spent to feed, med­icate, house, and what­ev­er oth­er ben­e­fits they receive, it is only fair that Prisoners are made to earn their keep.
It is unques­tion­ably the right thing to do, yet the gov­ern­ment is act­ing as if this is a mon­u­men­tal, ground­break­ing con­cept for which it must be con­grat­u­lat­ed.
On the oth­er hand, if the gov­ern­ment ever gets up off its ass and gets this done the right way, look for the pathet­ic polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion to find some­thing wrong in its imple­men­ta­tion on which to object and seek polit­i­cal mileage.

On that note, while we are on the sub­ject, it is high time that the JLP tags the PNP as a “crim­i­nal sup­port­ing par­ty” going for­ward.
If they want to sup­port crim­i­nal­i­ty, let them own it.