ARE WE JUST A BAD LOT??

        Looking at the figures of the prison population in Scotland, and comparing them with the prison population in other European countries you begin to ask yourself some questions. Take Northern Europe and look at the figures for other countries with a similar population. Denmark, population approximately 5.5m, prison population, just over 4,000. Finland, population approximately 5.3m, prison population, 3,100. Norway, population just under 5m, prison population, 3,600. Ireland, population approximately 4.5m, prison population just over 4,400. Not a lot of difference there, but let's look at Scotland, population approximately 5.2m, prison population 8,178, for the year 2011/12. This was an increase of 4% over the last decade. You are looking at approximately double the prison population in Scotland compared to other European countries of similar population size. What makes the situation worse is that this 8,178 prison population is housed in a prison system with a design capacity of 7,840.

      Could it be that we Scots are just a bad lot, just a wee land of terrible people? Or could it be that we have more problems in our society, poverty etc.  get locked up for problems related to mental health and addiction, or is it simply that we have a more authoritarian government in this country. Probably a combination of all of the last three.

        Prisons are never about justice, they are about control, they are about protecting the establishment, the status-quo, about protecting the wealth and power of those who rule over us. The more they feel threatened, the more the prison population will grow.

ann arky's home,

PAN-EUROPEAN CLASS WAR.

       Since the Sunday night's demonstrations of anger in Greece there has been calls for solidarity from cities across Europe. Perhaps the people of Europe are beginning to realise that what is happening in Greece is their struggle, the Greek people are not responsible for this corporate plunder of the public purse and what is happening in Greece will in all possibility be happen in countries across Europe, it will all be a matter of degree, how much the corporate fascists think they can get away with.

This from Germany

     Let’s organize gatherings from 13-2/2012, by 20.00 MEZ, at central railway station forecourts and show our solidarity with the social rebellion —today, not tomorrow.

   The nationalist and racist resentments against Greece are unbearable. Politics, mass media and large misinformed parts of the German population fail and lie deliberately in their ‘analysis’ of the current state of the capitalist system. The effects of the Troika’s strangleholds are being trivialized, thus devaluing the justified protest.

   In Athens and in many other cities, the resistance has now reached a new peak. We cannot leave the victims of the very capitalist system alone, nor allow that people are ripped off their human dignity. We must not fall into the trap of those in Power who want us to turn against each other in order to succeed in their plans.

We are left only with solidarity; otherwise the case of Greece will become a paradigm for us all.

Denmark

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