My essay for the Gavin Mooney Memorial Essay competition has been published
It is on prison health, and how we, as a society, are not doing enough @croakeyblog @CroakeyNewshttps://insidestory.org.au/whatever-you-do-dont-get-sick/ …
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The thing that I found most striking about the research for this essay, is that regardless of politics, people tend to fall into 2 categories: those who see prisoners as people, and those who don't
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I don't mean that they think of prisoners as somehow alien, it's just that many people see those in prison as their crimes, not realizing that everyone who goes into prison is just as much a person as them
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People also often jump to the worst crimes, as if every person who goes to prison is a murderer, despite the fact that the most common reason is drug offences
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And I say regardless of politics, because there really aren't any winners here. There's no political capitol in upholding prisoner rights Unless you talk about reducing crime rates, many people just don't care
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The reality is that you can't put the blame for the broader issues on any one particular government or political party That's not to say that no one bears any responsibility - obviously, there are things that people can and should be held accountable to
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It's just that these things only happen because so many people turn away once someone has been labelled a "criminal" If there's one thing that you should take away from this essay, it's that "criminal" doesn't mean "bad person" It's more complicated than that
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I propose some solutions in the piece, but the underlying message is that, unless we all change, it will always be an uphill battle
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