The prison blog

July 31st, 2006 at 9:14 am by David Farrar

I really can’t see what all the fuss is about the so-called “prison blog”. Tim Selwyn does not have Internet access in prison (which would be a cause for concern if he did). He writes letters to a friend, as all prisoners do, and his friend places them on his blog.

This is no different to Jeffery Archer writing a prison dairy, except Tim won’t make as much money from his! Frankly I find it educational to be able to read regular missives from someone inside a prison.

I was amazed that this was a headline story on TV One news last night. The word “blog” seems to make people go silly. National is better to focus on the massive cost blowouts with the new prisons – that is a real scandal!!

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40 Responses to “The prison blog”

  1. llew Says:

    Additionally, the prison authorities read all Tim’s letters & censor them if deemed appropriate to do so.

    The fuss is because ignorant people insist on believing that prisons are holiday camps & such stories are an easy target for the media.

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  2. crasster Says:

    Not quite true. The law prevents indiscriminate searching of prisoner mail and, even if it were legally permitted, imagine the number of staff needed to read the mail of over 7500 people.

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  3. Paul W Says:

    Is there any restriction on an inmates ability to talk to the media? It seems the problem is not about communicating per se, but the fact that the communications are published. If Power was more sensible, and I suspect he isn’t (therefore he will likely quickly return to the obscurity from whence he came), he’d argue against the publication of inmates correspondence during the term of their incarceration but that too will offend basic human rights (the ones you retain even if not your liberty) and age-old practice.

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  4. crasster Says:

    Yeah, there are offences for having “restricted” communications with prisoners. It should be noted that unlawful communications are ones that undermine the prison/legal system or are prohibited (i.e. prisons have banned the prisoner from communicating with the person(s)). MPs, in particular, have an unfettered ability to enter prisons to check on conditions. That being said, I don’t think MPs can assert an unfettered right to communicate with prisoners. Still, what’s Selwyn saying that’s of interest to anyone? He’s a convicted liar and cheat. It’s funny that, when someone says something you agree with, you tend to disregard uncomfortable truths about their background, motivation and reliability. I would hardly call this guy a reliable source. He stole the identities of dead babies, for chrissake. Not what I would call super reliable.

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  5. Ryan Says:

    David,

    Who’s running National strategy? Power is well off the mark on this one. There’s any number of National supporters — like you and I — would think his ranting about this is ridicolous….

    … is Power running up the white flag? Aren’t there more important issues for him to campaign against… perhaps he needs to be removed from the front bench if this is the best he can do.

    … he would be better placed to campaign to jam cellphone signals in jails to ensure there are no unmonitored communications, surely a controled vetted censored written communication is about as managed as is possible. What next, will he want to ban letters to family and family visits in case they say something that is then repeated in public.

    He needs to drop this stupid line of attack and concentrate on more important issues immediately.

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  6. Ryan Says:

    The adhoc search of prisoners mail is a red herring.

    If corrections were concerned about a potential security risk seeing as they control the communications channel, they could choose to vett 100% of Tim’s mail.

    BTW … what is the difference between this and that television prison documentary, where prisoners gave their views?

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