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Monday, 31 January 2011

A first step

That's more like it.
Scotland reintroduces manual labour for "low-level" offenders.  It's not a bad start, but the Scots are falling down by having criminals doing useful things like shoveling snow or redoing old peoples' homes.  This smacks a bit too much of labour camps for my tastes and it muddies the waters by blurring the line between punishment and work.  It would be far better if they returned to the Victorian idea that punishment is punishment and set the little darling to breaking rocks, pounding sand, pricking oakum, or filing logs.

Surely there's an old treadmill lying about somewhere.
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2 comments:

  1. jayessellMonday, 31 January 2011 at 03:53:00 GMT-8

    Work IS punishment.

    PS:
    The picture at first looked like a gallows.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The IdMonday, 31 January 2011 at 07:25:00 GMT-8

    Jay: That's what I thought, at first. "Uh-oh, Dave's gone a bit hanging-happy." Then I realised that they were walking on a treadmill.

    (Not that I imagine that David is exactly opposed to capital punishment)

    And yes, work is punishment. And if they are going to be doing work, then it might as well be a net benefit for society.

    ReplyDelete

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