If I Weren’t Such a Sissy, I’d Go to Jail!

For twenty million dollars?!? Wait a minute, I don’t really like the looks of those jumpsuits, either…

Apparently, it’s not in the religious codes to obey the laws of the land but a ham sandwich is out-of-the-question! I cannot imagine being a defense lawyer assigned a case that entailed protesting what is on the menu at a prison. To not have a menu, or food, is another matter.

Love and compassion is a given but, please explain to me why we are this accommodating to prisoners! Children are starving in the world and the inmates in the article below have the audacity to file lawsuits over a ham sandwich? Send the ham sandwiches to the starving children and escort the prisoners back to their cells!

I once knew a guy who had fourteen DUIs on his record. He cursed the legal system, his free lawyer, his wife, his children, and his parents. Everyone except himself. He managed to coerce the state into sending him a monthly check and pay for his college education because it was not his fault he lost his carpet cleaning business and could not control his drinking. Seems to me the only thing of his that he protected was his drinking…

Painting in to a corner…

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Muslim Prisoners Sue for Millions over Ham Sandwiches

A prison menu offering ham sandwiches has prompted a multi-million-dollar lawsuit by Muslim inmates who claim their human rights were violated.

Officials at the high security prison in Leeds, England, denied they gave any of their 200 Muslim prisoners ham sandwiches. But they admitted a mistake in the special menus printed during the Islamic Ramadan holiday, the London Daily Mail reported.

Islam forbids eating any products from pigs.

The Muslim prisoners complained after discovering ham sandwiches were one of three options on the menu. Prison officers on duty explained the menus had been printed in error.

Some inmates, however, claim that when they ordered cheese sandwiches they found boiled ham between the bread slices, the London paper reported.

One inmate, 28, said some inmates were so hungry they ended up eating the ham sandwiches.

He’s among the prisoners who could get up to $20 million in the legal action.

“It was a breach of my human rights and I want compensation,” he said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice stated: “An inappropriate menu card was printed during Ramadan. This mistake was rectified immediately. Appropriate menu options for the Iftaar evening meal were available throughout Ramadan. Prison Service guidelines state that prisoners must have a diet which meets the requirements of their religion.”

Separately, 16 Muslim inmates at Leeds Prison also are preparing a legal case on claims of mistreatment, including being given food that was not “halal,” or prepared according to Islamic requirements.

Last year, the Daily Mail noted, the UK’s Prison Service was forced to apologize to Muslim inmates at a prison in Worcestershire where a kitchen worker was seen tossing canned ham into halal curries.

Source: World Net Daily

Inmate to Firefighter

When it’s convenient, visit the Reuters link below and look to the left of the screen. I find it profoundly sad that we can “Choose a Crisis”. There are also boxes for “Choose a Topic” or “See Country Stats” with good info, but I thought the amount of choices in the “Crisis” section was awfully enlightening…!

The program California has been using (described in article below) is necessary, no doubt, and I sincerely hope the inmates make a change for everyone’s sakes. MotherJones.com (all links~new window) has a research project (Debt to Society) about the US prison system that’s also well worth reading. A disturbing business on both sides of the walls…  

God Help Us…

Reuters Alertnet

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California Turns to Prisoners to Fight Huge Fires

SANTA YSABEL, Calif., Oct 26 (Reuters) – As California struggles to extinguish some of the state’s most devastating forest fires, it has turned to a record number of prisoners for some of the most demanding work.

Overnight on Friday, women like Carmen Rebelez, 38, a convicted drug offender, and Michelle Millard, 33, serving five years for counterfeit checks and money, were uprooting plants and clearing flammable trees and shrubs.

Such work is designed to create a perimeter around the Witch Fire, the most dangerous of the California blazes, and keep it from spreading.

“I’ve been doing time my whole entire life, since I was 14,” Millard said. “It’s time I learned something different.”

Added Rebelez: “I want to make a change in my lifestyle, so when I get out, I can do something positive. … We made some wrong choices and we are making an effort to change.”

Of about 9,000 firefighters battling the southern California flames, nearly 3,000 are inmates. The prisoners typically get two days off their sentence for each on the fire lines. About 300 are from all-women prisoner brigades.

Millard worked with a small team of women in a remote area about two hours northeast of San Diego. To get to the mountainside that needed protection, the women hiked for an hour over charred landscape and brush.

“It’s backbreaking work. It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done,” said Tonya Randall Evans, a former hotel cleaner with a 5 1/2-year prison sentence for dealing cocaine. “But it’s given me six months off my sentence.”

Inmate Susan Segal, 42, fell about 25 feet (7.5 metres) down the precarious mountainside on Thursday, but was soon back on the job.

She and the others wore orange fire protective garb (regular firefighters wear yellow), hard hats and 60-pound (27-kg) backpacks. Their faces were blackened by soot.

PRAISE FROM THE PROS

Such work earns praise from many firefighters, who said this week’s fires were among the most difficult they’ve had to fight.

“They are the workhorses. They do the real difficult physical labor,” said Jeff Terpstra, a battalion chief from Aptos, California. “They are on their best behavior. It’s a right they earn.”

Two inmates died fighting fires in 1999 and 2000 in the California program started after World War Two. Most in the program are serving only a few years and have committed nonviolent crimes.

Tom Klimas, a fireman who has managed prison crews for the past seven years, said, “It’s draining — emotionally, physically, mentally. A lot of them have never had jobs before, other than cooking drugs. A lot of them have not been part of a team.

“Most people don’t want to work with inmates,” he said, adding that he was first lured by a 10 percent bonus for the position before becoming enthusiastic about such work.

Inmates earn about $1 an hour when fighting fires, a salary the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says saves state taxpayers $80 million a year.

Inmates rarely try to escape from the fire lines, California prison officials say, but last year, 11 tried to flee from the minimum security camps where they live.

When two inmates were given the task on Thursday of hiking up the mountain with an unsupervised hour-long return to bring back more water, one said it would be pointless to try to escape.

They were in a remote region and, as a two-time offender, she did not want to risk triggering California’s stern 25-year punishment for third-time offenders.

By Adam Tanner

26 Oct 2007 12:02:07 GMT

Source: Reuters