Public Service Announcement

For the benefit of Iain Dale and others.

This is a man using semaphore to send a message. That's what semaphore is for - sending messages.



Of course, it's a bit old fashioned. Nowadays, if I understand what young people have been telling me, you can use one of these:



Telephones are for sending messages too, although you can just chat if you like. It's a bit laborious to chat with semaphore, though I suppose you could if you had strong arms and were feeling exuberant.

But this isn't for sending messages:



It's a prison. P-R-I-S-O-N. People are kept behind bars, lose their jobs, lose contact with their families. Some kill themselves, others just mutilate themselves. Some get raped or bullied repeatedly without any hope of protection from any authorities.

Their families suffer mental health problems and increased poverty. Their kids suffer the same way, become delinquent, more likely to offend. These family members haven't done anything wrong.

Plus, it's a bit dispiriting to be locked in a cell.



Here's the announcement:

Prisons and the criminal law are not mechanisms for sending fucking messages.

We need to lock up some people. We should lock some people up for much longer than we do right now. These people are entirely and exclusively those who do violence to other people's property or persons. And that's it. They do not include drug takers, who if they are harming anyone are harming themselves alone, something they have every right to do.