I watch a lot of crime programmes. The real true crime ones. Not the fictional nonsense that has the CSI (Crime Scene Investigators) sending blood samples off to the lab and getting the results back in five minutes or the police catching criminals, getting them convicted and locked up in a 50-minute episode. Not Midsomer Murders, though. They take two hours.
However, I don’t particularly care for programmes where some famous person drops in at a prison to chin-wag with convicted felons (and it’s usually murderers: think Killer Women) about their crimes. I do find it disconcerting how well-freshed these inmates look. You wouldn’t believe that they were supposedly incarcerated for 24 hours in a three-foot cell and only granted one hour of daylight ‘in the yard’.
Take the case of one American convict Erin Caffey, who brutally murdered her mother and two brothers and attempted to kill her father in the process. She had spots and lank, greasy hair when she was convicted and sentenced. For her television appearance with said famous person (after being locked up for 15 years) her skin is smooth and soft. A smart bob replaces greasy, lank hair, and she’s resplendent in full eye makeup, mascara, and the obligatory red lipstick to complete the look. Where are they getting this stuff from? I bet they didn’t look that good on the outside!
And another thing. Have you heard the latest? No? Well, let me tell you. Here in the UK, some prisoners are allowed to work, that is, do proper work outside the prison. That is, they leave the prison in the morning, go to work, and return to prison at the end of the workday. And guess what, some even earn more than the prison officers who guard them! And they still receive free board and lodgings.
Crime doesn’t pay? Tell that to the Marines! Or better still, tell that to the cushy-living criminals!
*****
PS: I’m off to rob a bank!
