It is the responsibility of the Government to meet the basic needs of its prisoners, to provide food, water, shelter, safety, and enrichment in order to aid rehabilitation.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory utilized by teachers, educators and health care professionals alike.
It proposes that the lower tier needs of the pyramid must be satisfied before individuals can focus on higher level growth needs, leading to self-actualization. Being the best version of yourself you can be.
The lowest tier, physiological needs, is the bare minimum.
If you look at prisoners with envy or think that people claiming benefits have got it so good, that reveals an utter failing of the Government to provide its people with the most basic of needs.
Yet those people receiving the bare minimum through incarceration, disability etc. Are somehow lucky or abusing the system?
No. Fuck all the way off. They aren’t.
Your anger is pointed at the wrong people.
The Government could absolutely help every single person in the UK meet the basic requirements to live, but it doesn’t. It’s a choice and a problem that could be solved almost overnight.
Remember during the Covid lockdowns when the Government got homeless people off the street and into hotels/accommodation? For a while there, everyone had shelter. Bloody communists!
A universal basic income would help or capping/freezing rents and mortgages, more council housing perhaps?
I’m no expert or politician, but it seems to me that those ideas are within the Government’s power to make happen.
Part of the current discourse around immigration/migration is to do with migrants and asylum seekers being put up in hotels and given money to live on…
Again, our Government is meeting the absolutely barest minimum when it comes to looking after human beings.
Yet citizens of the UK see this and view it with envy or feel like resources are being stolen from them. They’re not.
The Government has enough money to solve these problems simultaneously. But it doesn’t, point your anger there.
Asylum seekers in the UK, if eligible for Section 95 support (for those destitue and waiting on a decision), typically receive £49.18 per person per week (roughly £7 a day) loaded onto an ASPEN card for food, clothing, and toiletries. If in full-board accommodation, this is reduced to £9.95 a week.
These people aren’t allowed to work in the UK until they’ve been processed either, so they’re stuck.
£9.95 a week is nothing.
What would you do? Work illegally to make ends meet perhaps? Only who will employ you?
Chances are you’ll work for bad bosses, do dangerous or menial work for less than minimum wage or end up a slave or sex worker against your will, potentially being trafficked.
All while living in a hotel that maybe has a kettle, no kitchen facilities or place to easily do laundry.
Does that still sound appealing?
Prisoners, asylum seekers, disabled people and those on benefits deserve and need human rights, because if they’re taken away for them, you won’t be far behind.
But what about the criminals? All these asylum seekers are criminals!
Well, maybe some of them are, but if that’s the case they will be deported. Do people seriously think that wouldn’t happen?
It’s important to acknowledge that people can be criminals no matter their country of origin, race, religion, sexuality, gender identity etc. People are gonna peop.
But, it’s wrong to assume that all asylum seekers are criminals or invaders, that’s simply not true and if that’s how you feel, then you need to address and deconstruct your own prejudices or simply accept that you are a racist.
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