Daily Mirror Front Page: 3 February 2014
February 3, 2014
So prisoners have been overpaid benefits. Personally, I have to wonder why prisoners get benefits while in prison in the first place. They have, after all, committed crimes and/or broken laws in order to get to prison in the first place.
They have free food, clothes and shelter and those who are fit for work have jobs within the prison. They need money for nothing.
Meanwhile, we who keep the law are made to feel like rubbish for claiming benefits we need to survive.
Readers, I do feel that once released from prison, claimants should have benefits reinstated immediately. But while inside? That’s where I draw my line.
You are free to disagree, and your comments, as always, are very welcome below.
11 Comments
leave one →
Same Difference 
I can confirm that prisoners do, indeed, need money inside. I don’t know whether the rules are the same nationally, but I know that in a well known Liverpool prison, inmates have to provide their own clothes, toiletries and most of the time, food. Prisoners get allowances for work or education they participate in, otherwise they only a nominal sum (£2.50) per week. It costs the families of prisoners fortunes to keep them there – the food is inedible and most prisoners buy their own. The biggest scandal is that the food they have to order in advance is of the cheapest on the market and the prisoner is quite literally ‘ripped off’ by those profiting in selling the goods. For example a 50p bottle of shampoo may be charged at £2, basic noodles at £1 per packet, 30p packet of biscuits for £1 etc etc. It is a national scandal and I wouldn’t be surprised if the food is made deliberately bad so that prisoners have to buy at extorted prices – someone is making a nice profit and nobody is taking this issue up. It makes me so angry and Prisoners are just as much demonised and lied about as those on welfare.
LikeLike
Im against a lot of what this government is doing, but I’m sorry if u go to prison, u should b eating prison food!! Thats the punishment. I know lads that fink its a holiday. At least they get fed regardless of how it tastes, maybe it will make them not want to go again! Luxuries shouldn’t b allowed, shampoo?? Give um a bar of soap, sorry I’m old school on this one!
LikeLike
Unless you have been to prison you know nothing they all have to work to be able to buy toiletries nothings free in prison , try talking to people who have been in prison then you might get your facts right
LikeLike
Try not commiting a crime and then you wouldn’t get sent to Prison in the first place. Although I agree no one should be privately profiting from artificially inflated prices.
LikeLike
I am not suggesting for a minute that people who commit crimes and are put in prison should have it easy, but much of what we hear about in terms of prisoners is based on lies spread by the media. Their punishment is that they have lost their liberty and even a prisoner is entitled to basic human rights like proper food and not having to pay inflated costs for everything they need. The main issue here is not so much that prisoners have to pay to meet their needs, but that they are being massively ripped off in the process which is creating a profit for someone, and that much of this money has to be sent in by their families who are struggling to survive. This would not be so bad if it was the prison system that was making the profit in return for the costs of keeping a prisoner, but I understand they use private contractors. It is an outrage, but then people are not interested in the hardships of prisoners for obvious reasons.
LikeLike
Must be good in prison The Rankins and Parrs keep going back in there
LikeLike
You can’t claim benefits while in prison except housing benefit “for shorter sentences”. Even on remand you can’t claim DLA, ESA, IS, JSA or AA among others. https://www.gov.uk/benefits-and-prison/benefits-that-stop-or-are-suspended
LikeLike
Yes, I agree, no social security benefits are paid and housing benefit is covered for up to 3 months only whilst a prisoner is inside (must apply). I assumed he was talking about the small allowances prisoners receive which is nominal if not working and increases slightly depending on whether the prisoner is in education or working – at best around £15 per week for those working. Where prisoners have a television in the room, the cost of this is deducted from the allowance – nothing, absolutely nothing is free in prison and prisoners have to rely on their family outside to send them the money to survive. Many of these prisoners families are on benefits or low wage and cannot afford to send the money as well as having to pay travelling costs to the prisons for visits. And by the way, there is not an abundance of food given prison either, the food they are given would not fill a man so it is a case of starve or buy the food themselves. Profits are being made on prisoners and nobody is addressing it.
LikeLike
Simple solution……….STOP committing crimes!!!
LikeLike
P.S. On the other hand convicts who have served their time have certain priorities on release, something I do disagree with.
One example is that a single person released from prison is exempt from the “under 35” rule for LHA and qualifies for a 1 bedroom rate instead of a shared room rate.
In contrast the only disabled people who are exempt from this same rule are people with mid rate care DLA. This means for instance that a wheelchair user under the age of 35 with high rate mobility DLA but no or few care needs has to somehow try and find an accessible shared room (next to impossible in the private rental sector).
LikeLike
Can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
LikeLike