Midnight Express was a good movie, sounds like little has changed.

Whereas in Australia, guy I knew well once got his builder's license after during a prison stint for stealing money from a council he worked for.

I wonder if anyone has tried saying right at the start;
"Lets not waste our time, I will confess to anything you put to me
but of course no one will believe it so why bother."

I have never visited an Australian prison but from what I see in Media etc. many people would be better off in prison than keep fighting a losing battle with authorities !
On many occasions I think they put the wrong people behind bars when incompetent/corrupt bureaucrats should be locked away instead.
A bloke who kicks a noisy dog gets locked up whereas a Game fisherman can torture a Marlin for hours on end & he's a kind of hero ! Or, a bloke knocks out an intruder & he gets locked up & the intruder can end up with compensation !
So far as Turkish prisons go, let the Turks jump up & down about it !

All prisons in the world must be made more humane and respectful of human rights which prisoners do not have. The treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel is a real cause for concern as is the treatment of millions innocent people who are living in Gaza and other parts of the occupied territories.

Prison is supposed to be punishment. Perhaps if ours were a little more harsh, we would have less repeat offenders.

As for guilty or innocent, deciding on that may just be a matter of ones politics.

Turkish prisons/judges/courts? Ditto, bah humbug, Chinese, Russian Iranian and Myanma? The latter where you can be killed simply for protesting yet another coup, by pocket lining Generals? And who knows what's on Russian menus for political opponents?
Alan B.

Footnote. The worst thing about our holiday camp prisons is the folk you have to share them with!

I believe hasbeen is on to something, repeat offenders need to spend time in gut-busting, dawn to dark, chain gangs, doing unpaid community projects! Until they've more than repaid their debt! (two-three years for a stolen and trashed car?) And overseen by guards on horseback armed with both rifle, guard dogs and stockwhip!

Repeat juvenile/offending while on bail, offenders, not to receive sentence until after their 18th b'day The latter not to be given more, bail?

If our flawed system included unbeatable, space-age lie detection, only the guilty as charged would face this, repeat offender option!
Alan B.

TURKISH ATROCITIES: AUSTRALIAN POWs

The Turks have form - in Killing AUSTRALIAN Prisoners of War 1915-1918.

The AUSTRALIAN War Memorial reports http://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww1/turkey

"Of the 217 AUSTRALIANS captured by the Turks, 62 men - nearly one man in four - died in captivity.

"...The garrison included nine mechanics of the AUSTRALIAN Flying Corps.

Only two would survive the nightmare march.

“We were driven along like beasts,” one of the survivors recalled, “to drop out was to die.”

Three-quarters of those who left Kut died in captivity, many while building a railway through the Taurus Mountains.

David Curran, an Irish-born Melbourne carpenter, was an air mechanic in the AUSTRALIAN Flying Corps.

Captured at Kut in April 1916, he survived the nightmare desert march into Turkey but died

what his mates described as “a horrible death”

as a prisoner in June 1917.

His mother in Ireland had desperately but vainly written to the Red Cross in search of him. At last told that he was dead, she sent this card to friends and family to remember her son, “in a grave we may never see”.

LEST WE FORGET TURKISH DEATH MARCHES

Is punishment for criminals actually in the Australian dictionary ? I have heard of many victims copping retribution but nothing about crims !

AlanB

And ..?
do you think our very penitent Premier of NSW, should be breaking rocks with a sledge hammer on the road side for misappropriating (read thieving), $30m of taxpayers money redirected to her boyfriends land developer mates?

Funny it is, how little hostility is conjured towards top end crime on these pages.

Dan.

$30m of taxpayers money redirected to her boyfriends land developer mates?
diver dan,
My guess is that Australian jobs & infrastructure came out of those $30 mills. What are Australians getting for the $1.2 mill/day the Goaf & Co committed Australian Tax Dollars to PNG for the past 45 years ? There has been ample publicity over the years of the use of that money by officials there.
What are we getting for the Dollars supposedly saved from abolishing National Service 47 years ago ? I can confidently say we got an indisciplined gimme, gimme society in return & which is likely the largest Welfare pyramid per capita on the planet !
And, people thick Housos is a comedy ? It's a Documentary !