This house would ban prisoners publishing accounts of their crimes

For this debate since I am the first speaker and the Prime minister for this debate I will set the mechanism for this debate. We, as the the British Government, will not allow any prisoner remanded at detained at her Majesties pleasure in British prisons to make contact with any journalist, editor or anyone else seeking to gather information about their crime or any other crime with the intention of publishing it and will hail the act of seeking to gather information from prisoners about their crimes in Britain, unless a court order has been granted, as preventing the course of justice. Any persons helping this crime take place will be seen as accomplices preventing the course of justice and therefore committing a crime as well. This is relevant before, during and after the conviction, during the sentence and after the sentence has been served. Clarification will be provided on request. I see a problem in society and I believe that proposing this motion will solve it. The problem we see is that people who have been charged with a crime, any crime, who then seeks to publicise their account of the story out side of the British court where they were tried makes money out of a criminal act that caused pain and suffering to persons or their property. I will devote this round to showing why this is harmful to society from two main points. Point one: suffering caused to victims and/or family of victim is unacceptable Point two: the glorification of crime My first point looks into the suffering of the victims of the(se) crime(s) committed by the prisoner publishing their story. Being the victim of a crime punishable by a jail sentence naturally comes with stress and harms that cause grievance to the victim and most are put at ease or gain a little more strength to cope knowing that the offender is serving out a jail sentence and justice is being served. However when a prisoner seeks to publish his/her story the victims are thrown into the spotlight once again and reminders of the crime are constantly around them with journalists and publishers coming to their house or phoning them asking to corroborate information or the like and when the story is published. With these reminders they cannot escape the crime and the memory of the fear is brought back again unnecessarily. Even though the offender is behind bars they still have the power to cause suffering to their victims and I see this as unacceptable. The state has a duty to protect its citizens hence why we punish criminals so why then do we allow them the luxury of being able to cause upset to the citizens we sought to protect. This is a harm to society because when this happens citizens lose faith in the way that we are trying to protect them. They see that it doesn't matter if they are in jail or not because prisoners are still able to cause this emotional harm to the victims when in jail. If people lose faith in the system they are less likely to be co-operative in helping to sentence the more serious offenders due to the belief that they are not protected even if the offender is in jail therefore giving due to the view that it is better to not get involved with the conviction even if the offender is dangerous because they feel unsafe rather than to aggravate the offender and suffer at their hand which they see can happen even if they are in jail. By not only sentencing the criminals but enforcing the core principles of jail, to be removed from society as punishment for a crime committed and to protect society until the offender is no longer deemed a danger, by making sure they are prevented form publishing a story and glorifying their crime we uphold our commitment to our citizens and show we are very serious about the punishments we give for crimes committed on our land. We protect our citizens, maintain the seriousness in which we view crimes and allow the victims of crime privacy and confidentiality to recover from the trauma of the crime. My second point addresses glorification of the prisoners a crime and the unnecessary publicity that the criminal gets. This person has been sentenced to jail for a serious crime they have been convicted of by a court. They have taken away a persons positive right and have broken their side of the social contract. No one should be allowed to make money out this act. By publishing a story they are allowed to portray their crimes in such a way that can portray themselves to be victims of an unfair system where this has not been the case. Not only does this impact the views of the police and their puts social restrictions on them that can impact how they work in a negative way but it creates a situation where police and the law are less likely to take these claims seriously from other people charged with a crime. If this other person has been unfairly treated or is wrongly convicted the law are less likely to believe them due to so many other criminals making claims of bad treatment or being wrongfully convicted. This means that the right people are less likely to get the right help harming the image of the police and the law even more which this mechanism will go some way to putting an end to as they are now forced to make these claims through their lawyer meaning the claims are directly in the system and are not hampered by media publicity which can give unnecessary weight to unsupported claims. This brings me to my main point; the media. Newspapers and magazines are companies that sell stories and they have been known to twist stories or to add weight to unfounded claims to add more impact and get more readers. This distorts the facts and can blind the public form the truth, sparking unnecessary, angry views that are unfortunately based on unfounded opinion and hardly ever true facts. This publicity allows the prisoner a place under the spot light but not to portray their crime in a factual fashion but a way that gives them ten minutes of fame brought about at the cost of someone's suffering. Crime should not pay. This glorifies being a criminal more than something fictional seen on TV or read in book because it is real. The crime is real, the offender is real, the prison sentence is real and this makes this situation so much more dangerous. If a sort is said to be a true story, even if it is biased to the point that the facts are distorted, people are likely to believe it. This is harmful in this type of situation because of the bias and the effect of publicity in the media that I discussed earlier. The accounts are believed and pressure is put on the law where there shouldn't be and criminals are allowed the ten minutes of fame that they see even though it is causing harm to society and the victims of the crime. By proposing this motion we are saying, "no" to criminals that seek to earn from their conviction and we keep unnecessary pressure off the already pressured police while lessening the effect biased views keeping trials as fair as possible and making it easier for justice to be served where there has been a miscarriage of justice. We must remember that the suffering of the victim is as real as the crime that the offenders seek to profit from. We must remember that the reopening of wounds from the pressure of being dragged under the scrutiny of the media by those that harmed them in the first place is an unnecessary stress and defeats the purpose of the core values of a prison sentence. It is our duty to protect our citizens and punish those that break their side of the social contract. It is our responsibility to take these crimes seriously and not allow criminals to abuse their right to freedom of speech at the cost of those already made their victims. It is our duty to stop this and for those reasons the motion that "this house would ban prisoners publishing accounts of their crimes" should be proposed. Thank you.