[Praxius]

Quote by: ruksak I smoke. If I was in jail, I would want to smoke. If I was in jail, I wouldn't want to be in jail. Point being, you don't get want you want in jail, only what you need. Your basic human necessities are guaranteed by law (food, water, shelter, health-care etc.). Last I checked smoking cigarettes does not apply as a necessity. Here in Indy, not only can you not smoke in jail, you can't smoke in Wal-Mart. Or any other publicly accessible building. Or state/city owned building. This includes several feet from the entrance to any building open to the public. Smoking break-rooms inside our place of employment are now a thing of the past. To ALLOW prisoners to smoke would qualify as a "double-standard".

Same laws apply pretty much all over Canada, when it comes to smoking inside or near entrances.... hell, stores that sell tobacco can not have an ajoining entrance to a pharmacy.... we got some interesting laws for smoking.... including the abolishment of smoking rooms.

As you said, basic necessities... but if you're gonna pull something physically addictive away from a prisoner, as it goes for human rights and such, don't you think there should be proper programs in the jails for helping them kick the habbit to reduce suffering from withdraw? They have already said they have no plans on doing this, so they're leaving them high and dry.

The double-standard begins back in the new article:

Jail guards and other personnel are permitted to smoke outside, while prisoners won't be allowed to, and that sets a double standard, Bernheim said.

I agree about what you said:

Here in Indy, not only can you not smoke in jail, you can't smoke in Wal-Mart.

Nobody is disputing smoking inside, not even the prisoners.... it's the outside that is beyond reason at this point. You're gonna have hundreds of smoking prisoners not being able to smoke, walking around outside surrounded by gaurds who are smoking, and trying to kick a habbit in probably one of the not so great enviroments to be kicking a habbit, having those watching over you shoving their smoking in your face everyday isn't going to improve anything.

If you remove the smoking, why not remove everything else they are permitted to do, like exercise or play ball with one another? They're prisoners afterall.... why should they have anything?