Prison Crowding - UK

The United Kingdom is reaching a critical stage in its prison service as jails have reached a status of overcrowding. The secretary of state for justice, Jack Straw, has recently urged Judges to start handing out fewer short sentences in preference to community service orders (Where the offender has to complete a specific amount of time working for the community).

Currently the population in the United Kingdom prison service is only 470 below its total capacity, which is a terrible situation as this means the prison service is roughly 99.5% full.

The government have seen this situation and have pledged to make another 2,500 spaces available in the prison service this year, but this situation has been coming along for a long time and was reported on a few years ago. I remember back in 2005 the government were looking at prison boats to easing the crowding in Her Majesty's Prisons.

I do wonder what the governemt has in store to reduce the crowding, will it give early release to offenders who have shown good behaviour or will the government look further in to the issue and try to find an alternative.

I have been thinking about a possible alternative and have a solution that the government could utilise effectively. The UK has many disused platforms in the north sea that gas companies once used to drill in to the earth so they could drill for gas. Could the government convert one of these huge platforms in to a high security prison, one where there is no escape besides via a helicopter arriving?

I think it would be great to use these disused eyesores on our landscape for something important, especially given that without using land on the greenbelt there is not much land left to start building new prisons.

The European Union soft porn film

Many of the wonderful people in the European Union will be surprised to find that the leaders of the European Union have took it upon themselves to create a soft porn film.....yes you heard right, a soft porn film.

The forty four second video showing eighteen couples going at it like rabbits (including gay couples) only breaks between each couple to show shelves rattling and eggs shaking.

The funniest thing about the film is the end when you see the couples climax and the words "Lets come together" show on the screen.

The film is actually called Film lovers will love and is an advertisment to show that EU funds go towards creating and distributing films in the European Union.

I couldnt resist showing you the film :P

Raul Castro - Cuban President

So Fidel Castro stands down as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years at the helm of the communist machine that has been the bain of many American Presidents time in office and Cuba's national assembly unanimously vote Fidel Castro's brother Raul Castro as the President.

At seventy six years of age Raul Castro may control the reins of Cuba for a good many years as long as he stays healthy, what will be interesting is if he will change any of the ways Cuba operates from how Cuba was run by his older brother Fidel.

Although Raul becoming the President is not surprising there must be many heads of state across the world who have held their head low in dismay as they were probably hoping for someone who is a lot more understanding of the democratic world.

One of the big surprises that did come out of the appointment of Raul Castro as President is the fact that he chose Machado Ventura as vice President. Machado Ventura is a seventy eight year old Communist hard liner and most people expected Raul Castro to choose a communist leader from the younger generation to become his vice President.

The end of Fidel Castro's reign is a huge occassion in todays world, one that many will be following to see what happens to Cuba, my opinion is that Rauls appointment will mean that Fidel will still have a huge input in to how things are run. Time will show how Cuba will progress through this transition and if it will have a positive affect.