Filed under: Arguments
Judith Collins, Corrections Minister, has introduced a smoking ban in New Zealand prisons that will come into effect during July 2011. Around ½ of all prison guards smoke in designated areas and around ⅔ of New Zealand prisoners smoke in their cells. The prisoners will be given an education about smoking before the actual ban takes place. It is designed to help the prisoners quit when the ban comes into effect.
One main reason that smoking will be banned in New Zealand prisons is that cigarettes are often used as ‘jailhouse currency’. People use cigarettes as money on the jail’s black market to buy weapons like knives. This creates violence among the prisoners and someone could get hurt when they had nothing to do with it. It could also injure guards that come to break it up.
Another reason that supports the ban on smoking in prisons is the health and safety of non smokers. People that smoke get matched up with people that don’t, so they end up breathing in the second hand smoke come from their cell mate. The same thing can happen to non smoking guards that are walking past the cells of prisoners that are having a smoke.
Another of the reasons that support the ban is that, considering that two thirds of prisoners in NZ smoke, no smoking in prisons could create a lower crime rate. Smokers might not want to go to prison because they will not be allowed to smoke. This could mean that they might not commit any crimes, lowering the crime rate.
On the other hand, the smoking ban could create violence amongst the prisoners and guards because the guards will be able to smoke. The guards will be able to smoke in designated areas and although the prisoners will not be able to see the guards smoking, they will be able to smell the smoke on them. This could aggravate the prisoners and cause more violence than there would have been with no smoking for anyone at all.
Also, inmates that smoke will be angry because they will not have the one pleasure they had been allowed before. If you take away smoking you are taking away one of their only pleasures which could aggravate the prisoners that smoke, causing riots and possibly too much violence for guards to handle.
To conclude, I believe that if smoking were banned in New Zealand prisons, it could bring rise to aggravation and threats among prisoners. But it would also be beneficial to the health of the prisoners. If they were healthier, generally they will be calmer. So I support the smoking ban, but it should include the guards.
Learning Comment:
While I did this work I learned how to properly research, write and edit a double sided discussion argument using quotes and knowledge from pieces of information. I chose to put this bit of writing on my blog because it portrays the pros and cons of banning smoking in prisons.
