14th August 2018
The exposure of VCE Legal Studies Students to prisoners must stop.
The use of prisoners to talk to children as some form of education is absolutely flawed for more than one reason – Impressionable young people can be incorrectly influenced by charismatic prisoners gaining their respect and the prisoners gain a sense of authority when they are the failed souls of our society. Prisoners are the absolutely antipathy of the types of character our children should be exposed to.
The spinning of stories by criminals no matter how controlled will always have the potential of negative impacts on some students – the risk well outweighs the perceived advantages. Students may want to know what it is like in jail but do they need to know?
Trying to remove the mystique of jail reduces its deterrent effect.
Couldn’t a Prison Officer give an account of jail life to students at their school if they really must know?