A Bad Week to Start Blogging

I've chosen a bad week to start blogging because I have the final assignment for a diploma due in this week. I could have written three assignments in the time spent setting this site up and posting views, although I've enjoyed doing both. I was going to post a view on capital punishment following the murdered schoolboy incident at the weekend, but Peter Cuthbertson has raised the same issue and most of what I would have commented on here I have said there. I'll try and come back to the issue later. There's not much to add to what Peter said other than to point out that the minimum sentence  of thirteen years awarded to Shahajan Kabir yesterday, for murdering his infant son Hassan, represents less than his son's childhood, let alone his life.

My assignment is on the treatment of HM prisoners in NHS hospitals, particularly in relation to the operating theatre where I work. As such I visited my local catagory C nick to talk to nurses there, fortunately in more favourable circumstances than Richard North. Prisoners are now treated by NHS staff, whether inside prison or out; until recently when in prison they were treated by Prison Officers with variable amounts of nursing experience. The new system isn't national yet, and there are still many, many problems. I will be commenting on these shortly. However, it remains my conviction that treating prisoners humanely is not incompatible with proportionate justice for murder.