“Despicable!” I hear you cry. Or not, if you are my regular reader, as you will already be aware of my involvement with the ongoing campaign to free Prisoner Ben. If you don’t already know about it, then I suggest you follow the link in the top right hand corner of this page, read this past entry of mine and then spend some time perusing Ben’s own blog.
The campaign has been going for 6 months now and in that time we have gathered a modest following of 400 or so souls who agree that Ben should not still be incarcerated. 400 may not sound like many, but I am delighted with that number; campaigning for the release of a convicted murderer was never going to be an easy sell and, when I started down this path, I expected to get maybe 50 members and then the group would stall. In fact, it is still steadily growing.
This is a very emotive and controversial subject and I am very well aware that, not only do most people probably disagree with me, but even that many of my friends and family are unable to understand why I am fighting the corner of someone who has committed an appalling and apparently evil act. I have not yet fully explained my reasons for taking up Ben’s case the way I have and I feel that now is the time.
Today, Ben’s blog editor posted this entry to his blog. In it, Ben mentions a report that has been added to his parole dosier claiming security have “intelligence” that “Mr Gunn has a Facebook page supporting his release”. Gosh, doesn’t that sound awful? If true, it sounds as though Ben has broken the rules by ileagally accessing the internet and he has used that access to not only get onto Facebook but to set up what sounds like an appallingly tasteless campaign.
Except, of course, that isn’t what has happened.
What has really happened is that I set up and promoted the campaign and the only influence Ben has had on it at all was to say “yes” when I asked his permission and again when I asked if I could double-check his story with his lawyer*. Ben does not have access to the internet and so he has never seen the page with it’s messages of support for him and what he is trying to do. The site has been up and running and publicly available (linked directly from Ben’s own blog) for 6 months now, so this ‘intelligence’ shouldn’t have been hard to find.
Ben is becoming increasingly well known; he is the head of the Association of Prisoners, contributes regularly to Inside Time, has been written about in the Guardian and has had his own article published there. As time goes by, his name is getting out there; he is becoming a target for those who would prefer to see criminals locked away in some dank place where they do not have to deal with them.
There is nothing the tabloid press like more than a story of criminals doing bad things on Facebook and so, with the grumblings of some trouble on the horizon, I have decided to pre-emptively put the record straight. Not that I imagine that will make much difference if this does blow up, when have the gutter press ever let the truth get in the way of a good story?
I have been following Ben’s blog since the very start. I don’t remember how I first came across it, but I was immediately grabbed by his intelligent take on prison reform. I was moved by his story and his obvious remorse and I was incensed by his stories of abuse of power within the system.
None of that would have counted for anything with me, however, if the evidence showed that locking murderers up for their whole lives lowered crime rates. I would have enjoyed Ben’s writing and I would have taken the opportunity to learn about a side of life that I knew very little about but I wouldn’t have started to campaign for his release. I made that decision because the evidence is very clear indeed: if you want to reduce the numbers of future victims of crime, the best way to achieve it is with training, empowerment, rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.
I do not support Ben because of some nebulous feeling that he has served too long, or because he is an example of an underdog fighting a system unfairly loaded against him, I support Ben’s release because it is the best thing for society as a whole and the best way to prevent future unnecessary suffering.
Ben is an exceptionally articulate and intelligent person who has fought against everything the system could throw at him to give himself an education and to build up a support group ready to help him upon his release. The most frustrating thing about Ben’s situation is that he has been continually punished for fighting for those things that the research shows will give him a better chance of not re-offending on his release. Had he complied fully with the system, he would probably have been released 15 years ago, but with no home, no education, no support, no chance of getting a job with his record, and with much greater likelihood of ending up inside again.
Of course I do not condone his crime, of course I am full of sympathy for the family of his victim and for everyone who has ever had to suffer because of crimes committed, but if we really want to do the right thing by them, then we should do whatever it takes to prevent it happening to someone else. However distasteful it may seem, that aim is best served by liberal and compassionate treatment of criminals, not by long sentences, 23 hour lock-up and no access to education or meaningful work.
There is no doubt in my mind that society is better off with Ben earning a living, paying his taxes and working as an activist for prison reform from the outside that it is with him on the inside, draining the public purse and shackled by a dysfunctional system.
So, if at any point you wake up to the headline at the top of this entry screaming at you from the top of the newspapers, then remember this post, remember that there may be an alternative explanation and, please, join the campaign to free Prisoner Ben.
Well done wigarse. I stumbled on ben’s blog after my friend SophieJ kind of like coehesed me into reading it. I am indebted to women like SophieJ. My own career driven friends turned against me when I refused to continue with my PhD degree that justified exploiting Africa for the benefit of Europe. My own family kind of like disowned me for the simple reason that I moved out of their African circles and networked with people from all walks of life. Unlike ben, I have never killed anyone, but judging from what I have been through, I have suffered more than a convicted murderer purely for sticking up for the right principles. I have been called a witch, a prostitute and a liar by strangers and I had no one to turn to. It is people like you and SophieJ that I take my hat off for. Well done and good luck.