Prison: The best place to be , when TSHTF?

frank_begbie · Post by **frank_begbie** » 09 Sep 2010, 20:45

When your foods run out and you've been thrown out of your house, no money?

Three meals a day nothing to worry about, and all the security you'll ever need.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 09 Sep 2010, 20:51

Ever heard of what happens to nice young men in prison?

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 09 Sep 2010, 21:04

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/t ... 241988.stm

There are rumors they just shot prisoners may not have happened but in a TSHTF moment why not .

Being a prison guard would be better

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 09 Sep 2010, 21:19

Ever heard of what happens to nice young men in prison?

If the OP is anything like his film character, then I don't think there's anything to worry about.

frank_begbie · Post by **frank_begbie** » 09 Sep 2010, 21:49

nexus wrote:
Ever heard of what happens to nice young men in prison?
If the OP is anything like his film character, then I don't think there's anything to worry about.

Yeah, it'd be just like Porridge

the_lyniezian · Post by **the_lyniezian** » 10 Sep 2010, 00:11

Is it not possible that in the course of a resource collapse, emergency powers might be brought in which justifies the use of rather more draconian punishments than prison (which in itself is a drain on society), to keep order?

Hurricane Katrina was after all a natural disaster necessitating people getting out of the area as quickly as possible. An oil crash is likely to be neither quite as sudden or quite as likely to leave people behind.

ziggy12345 · Post by **ziggy12345** » 10 Sep 2010, 07:52

There are a lot of pensioners who consider prison as an option to staying at home with no money for food and heat. When people pensions disappear I would expect to see a glut of crimes by pensioners just to get into prison. Its not much different from an old people home anyway

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 10 Sep 2010, 08:03

Its not much different from an old people home anyway

Yeah right. Have you ever been to any Ziggy?

Lets hope you're joking. I've been to both, in a professional capacity and despite what the Daily Wail says there isn't any comparison.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 10 Sep 2010, 10:50

Frank - in a collapse/martial law situation, I suspect the prisions willl be hosed down by the military.

Thats what I would do anyway if I was in a military government, society is better of without most of these scum.

re · Post by re » 10 Sep 2010, 12:11

Lord Beria3 wrote:society is better of without most of these scum.

I guess you might feel differently when you've lost your job through no fault of your own. The post-peak-oil economy just can't sustain so many jobs. Suddenly you fall behind on the mortgage repayments and before you know it your home has been repossessed. You're on the streets, cold, starving and in total despair.

In this situation you now find yourself, things you wouldn't have thought about doing a few months ago become very tempting. You see a supermarket stocked to the rafters with food, much of which they'll end up throwing away, you think they won't miss a little bit, but you get caught shoplifting.

Oh shit, you're one of the unlucky 9% of shoplifters with no previous convictions who gets sent to prison. You're now the scum we would be better off without.

It might help create a comforting "them and us" situation when you call people in prison scum but I wouldn't be quite so quick to judge.

Seven and a half per cent of the male population born in 1953 had been given at least one custodial sentence before the age of forty-six

Almost one in five (22 per cent) of people held on remand before trial in 2003 were acquitted or not proceeded against.

Half of all remand prisoners go on to receive a non-custodial sentence.

prisonreformtrust

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 10 Sep 2010, 12:28

No excuse for shoplifting in this era of plenty... there are people on petty crimes and drug crimes who shouldn't be in prison... but being realistic, in the event of a collapse, there only skill once the prisons emptied would be to use violence and terror against the survivors.

Just read Afterlight, the peak oil novel, if you want to see what happens

Gangs of young men with guns and knives raping and murderering people for food.

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 10 Sep 2010, 13:47

In the past children were hung in this country for sheep stealing you could be castrated for killing deer to feed your family .

In a low energy future when people are near starvation amongst the general public Id expect a return to those sort of sentences, I don't expect full prisons with prisoners getting 3 meals a day .

More a rope and a long drop into eternity

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 10 Sep 2010, 13:54

list I found of things that could get you hung

murder
* treason
* stealing from a shipwreck
* damaging Westminster Bridge
* stealing goods valued at five shillings (25p) or more
* highway robbery
* stealing letters
* poaching
* blacking yourself up at night
* impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner
* cutting down young trees
* begging without a licence if you are a soldier or sailor
* being in the company of gypsies for a month
* "strong evidence of malice" in children 7-14 years old
* stealing horses or sheep
* writing a threatening letter
* arson
* destroying turnpike roads
* unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child
* stealing from a rabbit warren
* robbery in dwelling house
* housebreaking
* high Treason Coining
* stealing in a shop
* privately stealing from a person (Pick pocketing)
* returning from transportation
* sacrilege

yup

featherstick · Post by **featherstick** » 10 Sep 2010, 14:10

I had a mooch through Ruthin Gaol's records a few years ago. In Oct-Nov every year at the end 19th C/beginn 20th C there was a spike in petty crime as indigents sought a prison cell for winter.

frank_begbie · Post by **frank_begbie** » 10 Sep 2010, 14:22

I can't see TPTB just introducing hanging again.

What about the prisoners already inside for murder.

You can't just say "right, we're going to hang you now, we've changed the law", when before the crisis, you gave him life in prison.