Both Joe and pete have been known to remind us how their religion informs their approach.

Joe's view of treating people seems to reflect what we are told is a Christian approach. pete however doesn't appear to use any conviction in his view. Interesting.

For what it is worth, I have inspected over 60 prisons in England and have seen everything from people with mental health issues for whom society has no answer all the way to the famous and infamous. Unless you decide to incarcerate every inmate for the rest of their lives you have to decide what kind of person you are going to stand behind in the supermarket.

Setting your mindset by those who are either brutal or brutalised by their prison experience is not helpful to either society nor those who are both willing and able to become contributing members of society. I too can point to those for whom freedom is an interlude, but how that helps debate is beyond me.

Perhaps reactionary ignorance is beyond my intelligence.