Here’s an interesting story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,1170170,00.html
Apparently, some innocent men tricked the British government into providing them years of free room and board by pretending to be honest criminals. And now they’re getting taught a proper lesson. Thank God that this miscarriage of justice will not stand!
phew For a second, I thought from the title that actual wrongly convicted people were being forced to pay room and board for their unintentional stays.
Um…they are, or at least the British government is trying to make them.
Wow. Just when you think they can’t get any lower.
I think Otto and CompuKnowYerNamesTooLong were both whooshed.
Simply because I like the sound it makes.
What’s next? Charging executed criminals for their execution?
No, the guilty ones don’t have to pay.
Just the innocent ones.
Exactly. If you are guilty and they execute you, you are legally entitled to the use of the state’s bullets for your execution.
But if you are innocent, aren’t you STEALING those bullets?
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Exactly. If you are guilty and they execute you, you are legally entitled to the use of the state’s bullets for your execution.
…QUOTE]
Yep, that certainly would seem to be the “logic” of it. :9 But, just for clarity, let me remark that we no long have capital punishment in the U.K.
And that story! Well, when I read it earlier in the week, I really thought I must be imagining things. Had to read it about three times to believe it was serious. Take 20 years of someone’s life away, then charge money for it?
I wonder what our government will think of next. 
No, let’s just send the bill for the bullet to their familes.
I am amazed at the assessed value of English prison cuisine. Or are English prisoners served French cuisine imported directly from Maxim’s?
Innocent people locked up by the government have it better in America. When they are released after some years locked up in Guantanamo the US government does not charge them anything for room and board. And that would be worth a lot when you consider it is a dream paradise destination in the Caribbean. I don’t know what the food is like though. Maybe it’s just McDonalds in which case it would not add up to much.
This is going to sound, ummm, incriminating, but I’ve eaten the food at a number of fine correctional facilities around the Midwest. Trust me, McDonald’s would be a huuuuge improvement. Note to self: when going to jail, bring your own lunch if at all possible.
(Before you get too curious, these were business trips; I was interpreting for deportation hearings held in prisons. Never a dull moment on that job. It was very educational.)
Well, I read somewhere that some homeless people prefer to be in prison over christmas because shelters charge for christmas dinner and don’t serve chippolatas 
It does raise the question of how punishing prison can be though if it can be valued at £60 a day, a night in a Travel Lodge hotel in manchester would only set you back £49.95, albeit without food.
Come to think of it, I pay less than that full board at college, I mean, the food is bad, but does this mean that the prisoners in HMP Durham (maximum security as far as I am aware) are getting better food than me?
This is just sickening.the charges, not the college food, although that isn’t far off
Yeah, but then you’d have the inmates suing that McDonald’s made them fat. That wouldn’t work well.
Well, I know some former psychiatric inmates who were involuntarily electroshocked and then billed for the electricity. Does that count?
Are you sure this is not something from Monty Python?
Guard-´ello Pete; I´ve got two news for you, a good one and a bad one.
Bearded Prisoner-The bad one first, please.
G-You´re free, you were not guilty, it took us 18 years to sort that out though…
BP-Good Lord!, what could be the good news then?
G-Uhmm, here´s the bill.
BP-What!!! springs up and grabs his shirt over the heart ACK!!! Drops stone dead
G- Oh no, not another one; I never wanted to be a prison guard anyway, I wanted to be a lumberjack, leaping from tree to tree… music cue, mounties enter scene
Actually, if you read the article a little more closely, you’ll see that it’s actually 60 quid a week. Sounds like a bargain to me.
Seriously, though, this is fucked up. It really does sound like something from Monty Python. Listen to what the authorities have to say about it, from this Irish Examiner story:
“To place the person in the position they would have been had they not been wrongly convicted”? What the fuck?
The guy in this story gives some idea of what the wrongful conviction cost him:
No amount of compensation could begin to make up for this, and to reduce the compensation payments in the way they are doing adds egregious insult to the worst of injuries. The Home Office’s use of the term “saved living expenses” to describe these deductions would have Orwell chortling with glee.
No, it would have had him almost frothing with rage at the injustice.
True. I guess i figured he would also be happy–or at least little bit flattered–that he had been so prescient.
Maybe flattered but more like unsurprised. Angry, sad, and not the least bit surprised.