Misleading Headline 2

Okay this one is serious!

You see “Jails boss rejects idea of using ex-crims as guards” and you assume it means what it says – that ex-crims can not become prison guards.

Instead upon reading the article one discovers that in fact it says no such thing. It says:

* a previous conviction would not automatically preclude someone being employed as a prison officer
* those who had served a term of imprisonment would generally not be considered

So in fact the policy is that convicted criminals can become prison guards if they were not sent to prison themself, and even if they had been to prison the policy has the weasel words “generally not be considered”.

Considering that one can sometimes run up a dozen offences before actually winning a jail term, I am not greatky reassured. The corruption in the prison service is already massive, so why would you make it even worse by hiring convicted criminals as guards.