In Britain, even jails have a class system

You get users who due to habit get dealers into their homes and they call it cuckooing, though sadly they hand that excuse out to all users, even ones that know exactly what they are doing and keep getting away with that same excuse.

It is this lack dealing and victimhood blanket upon all users that keeps the market buoyant and the gang turf wars in which you see runners (those who deliver the drugs) being the brunt of knife crime victims.

Sadly, this enables a situation in which they keep targeting the effect and not the source. Sure they put a few members of a gang away, those left soon rebuild and seen this happen so many times it is beyond painful to see this play out time and time again.

Then you have the rehab failings that equally do not help users get clean, this see's the NHS suffer and numerous services abused as they are just too soft. Sure there are legit victims and you could say all addict are victims, but when many addicts are the source of daily shop theft, burglary, fraud.... You see just see the flames fanned with petrol.

But some initiatives have worked better than others: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39179504

Whilst not a solution for addiction, has stymied the knock on effect of crime.

But the lack of proper rehab facilities and support just ends up with the NHS handing out methadone (more addictive) as a solution and even that get's abused and they all know somebody who can provide clean piss for any tests and with that, still use heroin, just augment usage with the methadone.

Then this all gets down to the addict - actually wanting to give up. Many don't and will often only go thru the motions to appease some judge and with that, they are great at gaming the system.

Now, if they would legalise the less dangerous drugs like canabis in the UK and tax that, then they could use that money to finance education, and more so proper rehab.

Equally, poor area's, they are and always will be the source of driving people towards drugs and that's because their reality is just depressing, this see's such area's often become drugs hotbeds.

But sadist part is the police depend upon information from the public, alas been so many instances in which that is misused and ignored to the extent that anybody informing is soon known by those gangs and users and they resort to making false reports to the police and I've seen many good honest people in my area driven away and suffer. That is a bigger issue than the media care to acknowledge.

But let's step back and think - if drugs are a big issue in prisons, what hope has society when they can't control an environment they have totalitarian control over!

As ever, it gets down to money and again - if they was to legalise some drugs and tax those as they have done with alcohol and tobacco, they could use that to fund all this and equally, make things better for all.

Sadly, many people see the issues and even those in a position to have a voice that is heard, but alas they soon shot down by those who just want to be seen to be doing their job, over actually doing it. That is very much prevalent within the police and again - all based upon experience. So you end up with a system that tackles the effect and not the root cause of what is responsible for the bulk of crime we see on the streets.

So in effect to fix the prisons - they need to fix the reasons why people are in those prisons.

But yes - rehab needs to happen, but equally it needs to be done right and properly - if they can't do that right in prisons, then they have no hope in society and that is exactly how it is alas.

I was presented with the temptation to commit the same crime that sent this guy to jail.

I made a movie with my brother and dad. We figured, how different could this be from software? (it wasn't really) Things got financially very complex, when more money got spent than we had. (I was not the one that spent it) Things got even more complex when my dad signed a deal with a production company to get us out of the hole (without my brother or I agreeing he could do this) They put in some money to pay invoices, and agreed to pay us ~$300,000 but as I recall being told, when it came to paying the money they wanted invoices for about a million worth of fake spend.

according to one of their staff members, they themselves were in the hole after making a movie with an oscar winner who'd who'd spent the whole shoot blitzed on coke. I didn't speak to them ever again after a confrontation on the last day of the shoot. I heard they were shocked when we refused to provide fake invoices, incredulous, that we wouldn't do something they considered film industry normal. (it's common, it's not normal)

What happened after that I can only piece together from rumours, which as I understand were:

They had assumed that we would provide the invoices and already submitted tax claims for film producer tax incentive payouts.

These supporting invoices were requested and they fled the country.

Every now and then someone tells me that they recognise me from tv.

TLDR: I got no money, but I didn't go to jail

By this point, the war on drugs was in full swing and the prisons were filling up as fast as humanly possible.

Sounds about right.

True justice is to undo the damage caused by the perpetrator. Unfortunately, it's impossible to do that. There's no way to restore a murdered person back to life or restore people's ability to feel safe in their own homes after it's been violated. Some damage always remains and it just can't be completely fixed.

So it's all about revenge, making people pay for what they've done and causing just as much if not more damage in return. For some reason, people can't just accept that things happened and that there's no fix. There must be balance in the universe and they can't move on with their lives if something isn't done to the people who hurt them. So we have judges, people who literally count infractions and calculate punishment. People who perpetrate sanctioned violence.