I’ve never been to prison so I don’t pretend to know what it’s like in one. I’ve seen the same television shows you have presenting jails as hard cold places where shankings happen every other day and the showers are just the love between a man and another man.

Whether these depictions are even remotely accurate or not however is beyond most people’s call.

Take hospital dramas for example. Most surgeons and medical staff are stuck in the routine of medicine and if they’re lucky something interesting might happen once or twice a year.

However watch any of the hospital dramas currently airing and you’d think extraordinary cases was a weekly occurrence and people just slept around with eachother all the time.

With that in mind it can be kind of hard to delude yourself into thinking ‘Bubba’ will sort someone out when they’re sent to jail for a particularly heinous crime.

When a prisoner decides to end their life though, well that’s instant gratification right there. It’s mob justice without the mob.

Whether it’s the Bubba effect or simply the result of mass overcrowding I have no idea but there seems to be somewhat of a big deal being made about French prisoners taking their own lives.

Personally, I can’t see what all the fuss is about.

The latest death is that of an Australian man who hung himself after being convicted of drug trafficking.

According to the Parisien newspaper, the victim was 43-year-old father of two, who normally lives in Canada and who was sentenced to 10 months in jail in July for smuggling drugs into France.


I love how they label the guy a victim, as if implying that it’s possible to be an innocent victim of your own actions. Much in the way a stupid P plater is a victim when they wrap their car around a tree at 300km/h.

People go to jail for all sorts of reasons but the underlying focal point shouldn’t be overlooked is  that there is a reason they’re there. Rape, drug trafficking, people smuggling, child molesting, theft, assault whatever – someone convicted them of something and they’ve got nobody else to blame but themselves.

If there’s 60,000 prisoners crammed into French jails designed to hold 50,000 should we care? I’m not advocating lawless ‘Sona’ style brawlhouses like we saw in Prison Break but so long as the guards can still do their jobs what’s a little drop in living conditions for prisoners.

I’m not a big fan of the ‘create your own little paradise’ with tv style prisons we have here in Australia. I mean if you’re bored great, it’s jail get over it. Here’s some rope, when you’re done there’s ten other prisoners waiting in line for your cell.

Governments shouldn’t be allowed to waste taxpayer money to come up with innovating ways to create mental stimulation for those doing hard time.

Jails aren’t meant to be a literal distraction to forget about how long you’re spending in there, they’re meant to be a place where hopefully over an extended time out you reflect on what you’ve done and the decisions you made that led you there.

I think there’s a lot more pressing issues in life to worry about rather then holding inquiries as to why inmates are offing themselves. It costs thousands of dollars a year to house these crims and if they want to help us a long by ending it quietly good on them.

Nobody stood in the way of their life choices before they went to jail, so why the big deal over what they do once we’ve put them there?