Best Prisons to Live

Some prisons are as good as your holiday vacation.

Prisons are punishment for misconduct. They are built to maintain order in the society, believing in the premise that getting into prison sucks your privilege to live freely so you wouldn’t want to be there.

These five prisons are still prisons in a way that it locks you out of the “real world”, but there are privileges that would make you rethink which would you prefer to be in.

Five star prison in Austria

Photo from grazt.at

What the hell right? People save up for 3 day brief stays in a five star hotel, when these inmates in Justizzentrum Leoben get to stay in a five star facility for years, if not lifetime. The prison is secured, luxurious and modern.

Cebu inmates dance

Photo from knowyourmeme.com

They are the inmates in the viral hit “Thriller“, which has 51.5 million views (so far). Instead of burning time inside the cells, they learn a routine, dance in synchrony, and post it to YouTube. Their latest vid? Gangnam style.

Family unit cells

Photo from gulfnews.com

Somewhere in Spain, the Aranjuez prison is nice enough to build family unit cells where the prisoners could bond with his/her children. The walls are painted with jolly Disney characters. Playground and nursery are accessible.

Community-based the prison

Photo from palmer365.com

San Pedro Prison in Bolivia is close to normal. No guards, no gates, no bars. Instead, you’ll see children playing around with “market stalls, restaurants, hairdressers and even a hotel” (Murano, 2009).  On top of it all, prisoners have to work and buy their own cells. Like the outside world, the more money you have, the more advantaged your situation will be.

The summer camp prison

Photo from CNN.com

Inmates in Bastoy Prison will feel like in a holiday, whole year round. They have horses to ride around the island of pine trees and rocky coasts. Craving a baked salmon? They have chefs to cook for them. They even have the beach to dip in summer; and the ocean’s view will always be there if they want to relax. Aaah, imagine the sound of that. Ironically, they have a more free lifestyle inside the prison distant from what they can afford. No surprise that 20% of prisoners who are released reoffend to come back.

Would you approve of these prisons?

Sources:
10 of the World’s Most Unusual Prisons; Oddee
Welcome to the world’s nicest prison; CNN

Ridiculous Fines for Cellphone Use while Driving

Fines vary from $20 to $2000 – is this merely an extra money for the government to spend on new roads, or will it prevent people from using cellphones?

Photo from Stefan Kloo’s flickr

We all know your reaction time doesn’t improve when you use a cellphone while driving. If I were playing Angry Birds, I wouldn’t even see the other car coming.  But I could hold a navigation device in my hand all day while building a Lego tower, and not be fined. Even calling someone while riding a bike is no problem.

Calling would distract you from driving, and therefore be an offence. Research shows that older people react much slower than younger people (Green, 2009), and there is a dramatic increase  in reaction time between an 80 year old and a 20 year old man. Why then do we not forbid all old people to drive? They’re much more dangerous that young people calling.

Research also shows that handheld calling causes as many accidents as handsfree calling (Victor H., 2011). It doesn’t matter whether you hold your phone or not, you can’t pay as much attention to the road as you should. But when attention becomes the problem, we could also forbid music in cars. I personally find pink cars very distracting, let’s forbid those too.

Is there any way to forbid everything that causes distraction? No, but calling is a popular thing to do while driving, so when you forbid that. We might solve a big part of the problem. But then handsfree calling should be forbidden too. And Angry Birds. While we’re at it, let’s just ban all cellphone use from our lives. It is not possible.

Will the fine prevent you from calling while driving?

Sources:
Driver Reaction Time; Visual Expert
Using a Bluetooth hands-free while driving just as risky as using the handset, study finds; Phone Arena

Yes to Euthanasia?

If we all strive for more freedom in our lives, if we have the right choose our own jobs, our own way of living, may we not decide whether we want to live or not?

Photo from dailyrecord.co.uk

Euthanasia has been the cause of many debates worldwide. When we kill animals we do it fast to stop them from experiencing unnecessary pain. Do those animals want to die? Maybe so, their living conditions aren’t very good when humans put them in small cages. Animals can’t communicate with us, they can’t tell us if they agree. Would we let them live if they’d disagree? Maybe, if they could communicate, we might consider them equal to us, and we wouldn’t kill them. How can we be sure animals experience any pain at all? It is impossible, but we expect them to, it would be rather strange if they didn’t.

Tony Nicklinson was no animal. He was paralysed in 2005, and could only communicate with his eyes. Did he suffer from pain? Yes, he said his life had become a ‘nightmare’. Did he want to die? Yes, he lost many cases fighting for his right-to-die. Could he communicate, could he tell us he didn’t want to live anymore? Yes, he could and he did. Did we kill him, did we let him die without experiencing unnecessary pain? No.

Why didn’t we? Becauce the law says so? Is that a valid reason when someone has to live 7 years, paralysed? A healthy person who wants to die has many ways to do this. Tony didn’t, you can hardly kill yourself with your eyes. Doctors couldn’t because they would be murderers. His living conditions were worse than the animals we kill for food, living in small cages. If his living conditions are inhumane, does the law still apply to him?

After Tony lost a case in the High Court, he stopped eating, which was his death’s cause. It was his only option left. How could he enjoy living a life he didn’t want? How can you enjoy living if you’re forced to?

What is your opinion on the subject?