Monday, May 31, 2010

Support Groups

Sitting in the Library, I was recently trying to help out some poor soul who felt put upon and who was seeking out information on some external group that may support him.

We found lots of general campaigning reform groups. There were groups also for young prisoners, old prisoners, women prisoners, black prisoners, gay prisoners, disabled prisoners and foreign prisoners.

But as a middle aged, healthy white man, we discovered that there was no one for him to turn to. I was as surprised as he was. He wandered away, disgruntled, and I think the BNP may have found a new recruit.

13 comments:

  1. I don't get it. How does looking for support groups and not being successful initially lead someone to think about joining the BNP? There is always support or activity groups to join, sports goups, voluntary work, church support groups, plenty of other interest groups, from animal welfare to gardening, cooking, poetry, many groups that can offer support to people in the community.

    If there is a lack of a general support group for prisoners in particular, then there should be one as I am sure that all those catering for specific groups i.e disabled, gay, young etc and those individuals who come under the remit of them, would like to have unity with one another in tandem with or maybe instead of the specialist groups.

    This lack of provision should be highlighted, it is not something the BNP would have any solutions to, unless you are for a return to the gas chambers, intimidation, division and a fear infested political landscape.

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  2. A lot of these specialist groups come about because of requirements on funding applications, so you can blame the lack of a general support group on the treasury.

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  3. er, or a lack of demand

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  4. Could a British reader explain to a non-British reader (i. e. myself) what the BNP is?

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  5. Sophie, I'm with you - I just don't get how anyone would make the jump to the British Nazi Party. I do however, see how hey prey upon the anxieties of uninformed, angry people and exploit that for their own sick purposes.

    Ben, don't you have access to the Samaritans in there?

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  6. Yes he does have access to the Samaritans.

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  7. Prisoners do have access to the Samaritans. And I suspect the BNP reference may be Ben having a joke. I will ensure he indicates where I should place a smiley emoticon in future writing! - EDITOR

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  8. Ed - Depressingly there may well be a LOT of truth in Ben's humour.

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  9. Abosolutely. I can quite see how feeling like there's a support group for every ethnicity/sexuality except white male homosexual could lead to someone going off and joining the BNP. That's exactly the sort of disenfranchised feeling the BNP pray on and it's why we should try and prevent it by making sure such support groups exist!

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  10. They, (the BNP and other fascist organisations around) try to make out they are victims somehow. I have no truck with this deceitful position, if they ever got into any powerful positions in government or council they stop activity groups for people, the ones like I mentioned in my first contribution on this thread. In Hitlers Germany, they even outlawed the boy scouts! They victimise and scapegoat others, and the framework for it can be inadvertently encouraged by policies and stipulated requirements to fund certain projects.

    Ben is being provocative here, but of course as others, (Gaina and Wigarse) have said, it is not off the mark.

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  11. There is enough resources to fund general and specific projects alike. Funding can come from clearing up tax loopholes, taxing the rich, stoping the funding trident, the war and giving trilions away to the bankers.

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  12. Can I suggest the obvious one
    http://www.prisonersadvice.org.uk/home.html

    Depending on exactly what his support needs are there may be others. But I am sure Ben knows this which makes me a little worried at Ben's comment.

    John

    PS Many of the more specific groups were set up by individual ex-prisoners (e.g. Chris at Women in Prison) they were not intended to be diversive but normally recognised the particular problems faced by that group of prisoners.

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  13. John,

    Doesn't PAS deal mostly with legal advice? This prisoner sounds as though he was looking for more pastoral support.

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