Why cant prisoners work on cleaning roads and rivers?

Question

why cant we have chain gangs in the uk instead of giving the s***s free board and lodging is there a reason they cant chop wood for the o.a.p or fill sand bags when we have floods why cant they be made to return something to society instead of being given prison sentences make the b******s work for there food

Answer 1

probably because they are better off in prison than we are.. Look at the price of food etc these days. They go out and do the crime and we are the ones doin the crime by paying Tax to keep them.  Think they should do something useful like u say.  They are gettin too much of an easy ride inside....no wonder they think that they can go about doin whatever they want to do....they no whatever happens they'll come out smelling of roses in the end.  

Answer 2

Probably because of the security costs. My mom's next door neighbour, years and years ago, was very elderly and she had Parkinson's Disease. The community service cons sorted her over growing garden and one of them came back and burgled her house whilst she was in bed, She was in her 80's.

Answer 3

might swim away or car jack some poor pensioner on her way to bingo

Answer 4

because the trade unions would have a hissy fit if that were to happen

Answer 5

takes away jobs from others........how about using them for target practice

Answer 6

they might escape

plus it would cost too much to mann them on the road

Answer 7

because they have MORE rights than us.

Answer 8

I agree. They should have to earn their living instead of living rent free while we work to pay for their keep. They could have piece work sweat shops in prisons and sew clothing and linen and stuff instead of using kids in India.

They could test drugs and cosmetics on them too instead of harming animals

Answer 9

because the government is soft and wouldnt dream of it

Answer 10

I know, in America all the illegal aliens pick fruit, why aren't the prisoners doing it?  There are a lot of things the prisoners could do to earn money and it would still be less than what these employers who hire illegals workers pay.

Answer 11

Like everything else in the UK, cost! Our whole criminal justice system is completely underfunded. The manpower needed to supervise projects like that for prisoners would be, in the view of the Whitehall mandarins, prohibitively expensive. Whatever the moral rights and wrongs of your suggestion, I do not for one minute think anything other than cost would be the deciding factor for what would be a sure vote-winner in this country! (I don't agree with the suggestion by the way - chain gangs would not be justifiable or even practical for the work which you propose.)

Answer 12

or even sorting refuse for recycling

Answer 13

Because those jobs have to be done by Union workers, so that the Unions will have the money from dues to give enormous political contributions to the Labor party, so that Labor will make sure that only Union members are allowed to do government work.

We have the same issues in the US, or even more so. Heck, the kids tried to arrange to do a graffiti clean-up at our local high school a couple of years ago when my daughter was a senior, and weren't allowed to - only a public employees Union member could remove graffiti from a high school.

Richard