A British prison is forcing its staff to prove they treat inmates decently as part of the Prison Service’s national “decency agenda,” which includes addressing all inmates, including sex offenders and violent criminals, as “Mr.,” the Telegraph reported Wednesday.
Representatives of HMP Wymott in Lancashire, which houses 1,000 prisoners, said in a letter that the test of the decency agenda is: “Would we as members of the prison service like our children to be treated in the same manner as prison staff treat prisoners today?”
Prison staff will be marked down in assessments if they do not address inmates as “Mr.” followed by their surname, the Telegraph reported.
One officer who was assaulted in the prison by a violent inmate was told that charges would be dropped unless he agreed to call his attacker “Mr.” throughout the hearing.
"It is an absolute disgrace," local Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle told the Telegraph. "It is as though the inmates have taken over the asylum. We ought to remember it is the prisoners that have done wrong, not the prison officers."
Inmates can also buy time to watch TV or listen to radio, or request items like tape decks, books and extra soft blankets from a catalogue of items available to well-behaved prisoners, the Telegraph reported.
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