Dominique Strauss-Kahn held in Rikers Island Jail

No holiday camp for Strauss-Kahn

The City of New York has a Correction Department and their choicest facility is Rikers Island. Where better than this to send the head of the International Monetary Fund. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has moved from a $3,000-a-night penthouse suite to a cell in one of America's most notorious prisons. He will also get turkey burger dinners. What a thought.

Far from correcting many of the inmates, there seems to be a culture of fear, favouritism and being preyed upon. Mr Strauss-Kahn will have a one-person cell, for his own security, officials say. "This is not about isolating the inmate from any human contact. This is about preventing the inmate from being victimised or harmed in some way as a result of his high profile," a spokesman for New York's Department of Correction said. You don't say!

If they were serious about correcting the criminals and the alleged criminals on remand why not get Strauss-Kahn to give them lessons in financial management. Then the corrected characters could set about reforming the outside world. Who better than them to spot wrongdoing!

Eric Illsley's positive porridge time!

The wife of disgraced Labour MP Eric Illsley says he's doing fine in jail. He's keeping his head down. She says, "The first few phone calls were slightly emotional obviously because it was a shock but he's keeping his head down and getting on with it. He seems chirpier now than the first few days. He'll cope. He's not always been an MP. Eric didn't come from the playing fields of Eton, he comes from the playing fields of Kendray (in Barnsley)... so he's quite resilient, he'll handle it well." Hold on a minute, dear! So you think public schoolboys are not up to a period in the slammer? Most of those who ever do find themselves on the wrong side of the law fit in perfectly well. It's the pretentious middle classes that don't fair so well.

Recent old Etonian lags have done quite well. Lord Brocket got knifed in jail, which gave him a rise in the pecking order on kudos. Jonathan Aitken has reformed himself from being a perjuror. Old Etonian Simon Mann found himself in a frightful jail in Equatorial Guinea after trying to get rid of the dictator. He is now working as an adviser to President Obiang  -  six years after trying to overthrow him. No doubt he told the despot it was all a terrible mistake.

Mrs Illsley may think the playing fields of Kendray will have given her husband a sense of coping but I think she's just trying to get her ten pence worth of class bitterness in. Eric will do far better if he comes out with his head held high, realising that he did wrong (which she tells us he does realise) and put his time and skills to good use.

Also Mrs Illsley should remember what Roger Cooper said almost 20 years ago when he was released from Ervin jail in Tehran. When questioned by eager tabloid journalists about his time at the hands of his Persian prison guards, he said, "Anyone who has been to a British public school can do five years in an Iranian jail."

Eating porridge is only the start!

New York inmate sues for penis bite by prison rodent

Peter Solomon was jailed in the Nassau County Correctional Center near New York City, pending trial on charges he had menaced his wife. However, he got more than he bargained for. A rodent took a liking to his penis whilst he slept and had a bite. Solomon later had to endure a course of rabies jabs and he says jailers knew the ward in which they placed him was infested with rodents.

So he's going to sue the jail. Lawyers for Nassau County sought to have his suit dismissed. Among other arguments, its experts said they saw no evidence of serious injury. Serious injury? So there were signs of some kind of injury? I'd say the county were in a bit of difficulty. They place him in a part of the jail where rats were known to roam and they do not apparently deny that one rodent bit this man's penis.

The judge said, "The parties dispute whether the rodent was a mouse or a rat, whether Solomon was bitten or scratched, and the nature and extent of his injuries." I suppose time will tell whether the authorities think rats and mice should be in prisons anyway. Maybe if Solomon had a finger or toe bitten then it might have been different. Having your penis bitten whilst being in jail for allegedly menacing your wife may be seen by some in the system as poetic justice!

However, there is a serious side to all this. How do those considered to be mentally ill fare in penal establishments? Is it OK for a rodent to bite a mentally ill man's penis? And what if newly jailed Tom DeLay gets his penis nipped by some nocturnal ferret? He won't take it lying down! Will such hullabaloo be cause for intervention? It seems that authorities today are quick to absolve themselves of responsibility in the first instance, then if that fails, try to find a remedy that gives them credit for innovative change.

If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well. And that includes proper care in prisons.

Postscript - I see DeLay is out pending appeal. No worries about rats then?

Convicted prisoners may get vote

There was a time when a felon was in prison without privileges. I was always taught at school that a privilege was something extra to normal daily life. Like going on a school trip. That was a privilege. Then the sanctimonious lefties got in and started using the word to have a go at "toffs". "They're privileged," they would say, commenting on public schools and the like.

So is it any wonder that prisoners may get the right to vote, because the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled a ban on voting rights was unlawful? Not really. The ECHR is so keen to talk of rights that they completely forget about privileges. It is no more a right for a prisoner to vote than for a pig to have a pilot's licence. I'm all in favour of proper corrective punishment and remedial care whilst in prison. But Thomas Cook is not in charge of prisons. No merry escapades and parties of pleasure, please.

Are we to get hustings in jail? David Dimbleby hosting Question Time from Winson Green Prison? In marginal seats it could be the villains that swing the vote. How many honourable members with small majorities want it known that the convict vote got them to the House? The whole idea is preposterous.

David Cameron says that child killers and serial murderers should be left off the list. That still allows rapists, wife murderers and the rest a voice at the ballot box. It's bizarre. "What are you going to do for us?" "Well, if I'm elected, you'll get jacuzzis, free lotto tickets and steak dinners every Saturday night!" "We'll vote you, but only if you add in a 'get out of jail' wildcard" "OK, it's a deal".

What a world!

'Pretty' prison officer wins case

Tut, tut! The Prison Service has been caught out in a discrimination case. This time it's about age and sex. Of course, they are upset. "The Prison Service takes all allegations of sexual harassment very seriously," says a spokesman, adding that the Prison Service said it was "disappointed" by the tribunal's findings and said it would study them "carefully". But no apology or a simple "sorry"? Not in today's world. That would be too much.

The prison officer concerned is 22 year old Amitjo Kajla. She only wanted to "try to uphold the HMPS purpose statement, which clearly states that their duty is to 'look after prisoners with humanity' and I sought to apply that in my work by treating prisoners with respect. However, one officer didn't like my way of working, which was counter to the macho approach he favoured." Now there's the real problem for the HMPS. Still too many macho guys strutting around. Shouting abuse at anyone has long since proved to be a waste of time.

The Prison Service should have taken Will Hay's sentiments to heart, when he told his inmates in Convict 99, "These prison walls are not to keep you in. They're to keep the riff-raff out!"