A complicated poem in some ways that I’ve been working on for weeks. It is firstly berating those who, having spent time in disgusting conditions in prison, merely seek to forget the experience and make no effort to work for prison or justice reform despite their shocking but rare experiences. Finally, however, it berates those who, though they have no such experience, act as if they knew all about prison and have developed the insane idea that it’s too soft! They are actually supporting the philosophy of the criminal classes who view imprisonment as an occupational hazard and pride theselves on the amount of filth they have put up with, as if they have been doing their National Service!
Criminal Classes
Every month of freedom that peacefully passes
Gives me new means to express some word
Lest I become the bane of the criminal classes
The social media and the completely absurd
One would think ex-prisoners would have an open mind
Or consider the system as objectively unkind
And bring new ideas upon justice and prison
But for many, though free, their minds they close
Perhaps through stress they lack any vision
To themselves, it seems, no questions they pose
As we struggle to be heard above the deafening din
Of those who clamour for ever more vengeance
We wonder when real reflection will begin
On the utility of the ever-lengthening sentence
But, of course, we forget that the system’s not made
For the near-innocent or merely in need of aid
And the legal world is manifestly not built
To render service to the ill-accused
Or those who refuse to acknowledge their guilt
They are mere fodder that may be freely abused
Let me end this ridiculous, raucous rant
Without knowing, really, whom to castigate
From amongst the thousands who puff and pant
Who care not a jot for the prisoners’ fate
And read of riots in the gutter press with glee
Who cannot the futility of incarceration see
And feed hypocrisy through their erroneous prattling
They are not just issue of the uneducated masses
Of deficits of democracy or sabre rattling
They are clear contributors to the criminal classes