back to article Yorkshire Ripper loves Wii Bowling

Even multiple murderers aren’t immune to the Wii bug: nearly two dozen of the Nintendo consoles have been installed at Blighty’s high-security psychiatric Broadmoor Hospital and Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is a fan. UK taxpayers have coughed up £5000 so that the facility’s inmates can while away their sentences with a …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Don't you have to be mental.

    to buy a Gamecube in a new box, that does what the Playstation2 did 10 year ago with the EyeToy?

    1. Rebajas
      FAIL

      Anonymous?

      I can see why you might choose to remain anonymous with such a ridiculous comment.

  2. Justin Bennett
    FAIL

    Surely

    Executing them is far cheaper & more efficient!

  3. fifi
    FAIL

    Wii unfit

    http://news.olemiss.edu/index.php/200912164777/wiifit.html

    recent research has shown that WiiFit has pretty much bog-all effect on fitness.

    Yet another waste of money

    1. Bassey

      Not quite accurate

      Thorough, well thought-out research has shown that leaving a wii-fit unused in the corner of the living room does nothing for fitness. Not "quite" the same thing as you claim. In further astounding news, paying £1500 for gym membership and only going twice makes only your bank balance lighter. To paraphrase an old parable, you can take a fat, lazy lard-arse to a treadmill but you can't make him run.

    2. Rebajas
      Go

      4 minutes per day...?

      From the article:

      "In addition, daily Wii Fit use per household declined by 82 percent, from 22 minute per day during the first six weeks to four minutes per day during the second six weeks"

      Helps if the participants actually *want* to get fit, you don't get fit by merely owning gym membership. Likewise you need to use the Wii Fit to see any benefits.

      Idea for next article: Diet Coke with Burger & Fries not effective dieting...?

    3. Marvin the Martian
      Thumb Down

      "WII no effect on fitness"?

      And your point, if any, is? You demand fitter inmates, so let's invest in large fitness centres? Hm. With all machines specially modified that they can't take off any parts to use as a weapon (metal bars, weights, chains, etc)?

      5000quid for several inmates is a laughable cost on the basic cost of even keeping 1 inmate 1 year. Yeah, let's vote for longer prison sentences and against a budget to cover it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Huh?

    Plasma TVs? Wiis? Where do these low-lifes get off?

    If they are due for release I don't see much harm in getting them ready for the real world (which would include a TV for the cultural input) but for those still being held? A 10x10 concrete cell should be enough. Prison is meant to be a punishment, not a holiday camp.

    £5,000 on Wiis and god-knows-how much else on plasma TVs while pensioners freeze to death in their homes? I see Labour has its priorities correct. One set of crooks and scum looking after another set of crooks and scum.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Are you on holiday from the Daily Fail?

      Such generic outrage almost suggests a visit from the Twat-o-Tron, except that the spelling's too accurate.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Couple of points

      Broadmoor isn't a prison, it's a secure psychiatric hospital. Not everyone in there is a murderer, rapist or criminal. Some of them are just so mentally unwell that they're beyond help and unsafe in the outside world. Should they be deprived fun and entertainment while also losing their liberty through no fault of their own? Don't fall for this Mail-lite faux outrage designed to enrage white van men.

      Also, pensioners? Not as bad off as many. They have a ten grand yearly minimum income, are entitled to greatly reduced power bills, and get massive heating allowances. My father in law's yearly heating allowance covers two years power bills, and then he gets cold weather payments on top. He's perfectly healthy, could still work, has thousands in savings, yet pays out virtually nothing. Meanwhile many of the disabled and terminally ill are living on virtually nothing, no cheap utilities or free prescriptions, full rent, no heating or cold weather payments. Nobody asks to become ill, yet the govt punishes them by making them live on as little as £4k per year. How much out of that would you have after paying rent, council tax and heating? Exactly.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err

      It's a maximum security psychiatric hospital where people guitly of crime, due to their mental state are sent to be cured, not punished, it's not a prison.

      Even if it were a prison, only part of the reason for a prison is to punish, the rest is to rehabilitae, you aren't going to rehabilitate people by brutalising them.

    4. The Original Ash

      Segregation and Rehabilitation

      Prison serves two purposes; To rehabilitate offenders, attempting to turn them into productive members of society, and to segregate offenders from society until such a time that they are rehabilitated. As we have no way of accurately determining a state of rehabilitation ("I's sorry, Gov. I's nevar do it 'gain!") we set arbitrary time periods for certain types and classes of infraction, and attempt rehabilitation within that time period.

      The only thing slamming a person in a bare 10x10 cell for a decade will do is bread resentment and hostility. That is not something you want to do to someone who is already capable of performing potentially violent acts.

      Besides, £5k for some shiny-shiny is bugger all in the big scheme of things; I easily pay that much in tax every year by myself. If that helps a con to keep his self-esteem up and speed his rehabilitation into becoming productive, so be it.

      (I expect plenty of thumbs-down points as a "bleeding heart liberal")

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Wish I could afford one...

    Wish to hell I could afford a Wii !! OK - I wouldn't actually buy one, but the cash would be handy. But then I'm just an ordinary law-abiding pensioner who's paid his taxes for 50 years and gets nowt out of the system but sympathy and leaflets...

    Where did I put that axe...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Er...

      Poor thing, with only a £10k minimum income guarantee, and free prescriptions, dental and eyecare, housing benefit entitlement, pension credit, reduced rate gas and electric bills, cold weather payments, fuel allowance, free or reduced public transport, free leisure activities and after a certain age free tv. etc.

      Meanwhile, disabled and terminally ill people are stuck, through no fault of their own, trying to survive on the appallingly low benefits they receive. Try living on less than half of what you get, paying full rent, council tax and power, for prescriptions and transport, with no cold weather or fuel payments to keep you going. It was -7 here last night. How long would you last living like that? It's not a temperature that's particularly compatible with a comfortable existence when you just cannot afford to switch the heating on because it'll mean going without medication or food and drink.

      When my mother (who has cancer, arthritis and heart problems) reaches 60 her income will more than double, and her outgoings will drop by two thirds, just for being 5 years older than she is now. She'd quite like a DS to entertain her in hospital. Pity it would take her about a year to save up for one.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Why prolong the life of thugs?

    They should be clogging their arteries.

  7. Dale 3

    Exercise

    Prisoner + Treadmill connected to the National Grid = exercise for prisoner + free electricity + positive (perhaps in an electrical sense) contribution to society.

  8. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Stop

    NHS budget

    The NHS budget for 2009 was £90B, that is 9, followed by ten zeroes. How exactly is £5000, one eighteen millionth of that amount going to make a spot of difference to patient care in any meaningful way? Not that I particularly condone giving games consoles to the criminally insane, but I really don't think the kneejerk nonsense from the Murdoch-mouthpiece the Sun is anything other than mind-numbingly stupid.

  9. Reading Your E-mail
    Thumb Up

    Two footed Journalism

    "....while away their sentences with a spot of X Manhunt 2 X Mario"

    You sir owe me a new monitor!!! ;)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wii

    Err really?! Is this really true (or Wii-lee true)? Of course, it's easy to be outraged. The first duty of any justice system is to protect the public - not punishment. Here the inmates have been removed from society - and so that's got to be a big tick in the "protect the public" box. Now I guess keeping the inmates compliant is damn helpful and the odd diversion seems like a good way to do it. We don't execute, and sending inmates into insanity seems like a bad policy (especially if they already have mental illness). If this keeps them reasonably easy to control, and away from the rest of us, well fine... If it's even true.

    If this seems rather too much, try and remember someone has to guard them - we don't want to make their job any harder than it already is (I wouldn't want to have to do it).

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    @ Dale 3

    except the prisoners would have to be fed on extra fillet steak to keep their energy up.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Plasma TVs?

    A bit excessive, no? Why not much cheaper and longer-lasting LCDs?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sun reporting

      I would suggest that in the Sun, anything thin and flat=plasma=lcd. Can you even get those power gobbling, heat spewing, burn-in monsters any more?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oh -

        You mean those superior displays with no Input lag, superior contrast ratio, non washed out picture, and correct black levels?

        Yeah they still make those.

  13. Steven Hunter

    Oh FFS...

    "Lock them up in concrete vaults!" and "Put them to work on treadmills!"

    How very Dickensian of you all. Glad to know that the 19th century sense of justice is still alive and well in the 21st century...

  14. Nick Haw
    Grenade

    Love the outrage

    In my opinion, there are far more important things to worry about than a couple of grand spent on Wii's for mentally ill people.

    No one would bat an eyelid if it were for mentally ill people in any other hospital in the entire country.

    Those who are critical of the government on this are way off the mark. I expect that the NHS trust that runs Broadmore have a budget and this was felt to be useful for all the patients that are treated there. The money that has been spent, would always have been spent on those patients, be it games consoles or more rubber wallpaper.

    This story is tabloid journalism at its worse.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    I can just see it.

    A group of barefoot people, clad in white hospital gowns play their Wii consoles happily. Merry electric sounds fill the air. Suddenly, the lights flicker and there is a powerful electrical hiss as the lights go out.

    All is darkness and silence for a number of terrifying moments before, one by one, with a click, the lights come on up the corridor and eventually the consoles spring back to life.

    "Ah," says one patient, "I guess Sutcliffe finally lost his appeals then. Baggsy his nunchuck."

  16. fifi

    reasoning

    I should clarify my previous comment:

    If they are buying Wii Fit as a way of improving fitness, then it's a waste of money.

    If they came clean and said it was a way of occupying their time, it might still cause some comment, but it would be a far more honest use of the money.

  17. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Stop

    Missing the point

    How is it that these patients need indoor exercise facilities? Even prisoners are, I believe, entitled to at least 2 hours outdoor exercise. Are these mentally ILL people not even allowed the simple pleasure of a yard or garden?

  18. LinkOfHyrule
    FAIL

    Non story

    So they have Wiis in hospitals do they? Wow! Good to see Murdoch's papers providing quality journalism yet again by telling us. No wonder they want people to pay to read their crap when the stories they dig up are this hard hitting.

    I seem to remember they had a similar story in either the Sun or the News of the World a year or two ago about Ian Huntley moaning at the prison authorities that he wanted them to upgrade his Gamecube to a Wii. Wow, award them a Pulitzer quick!

    At least Ninty have the convicted murderer gamer market sowed up now too. I always knew Pokémon was evil!

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bowling?

    I'd have thought Sutcliffe would have preferred whack-a-mole given his love of claw hammers.

  20. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Joke

    Allo allo allo!

    Wot's all this then?

    The game is up sonny, put down that nunchuck...

  21. Mick Sheppard
    WTF?

    Criminal Justice System

    Title says it all really. The only people to get Justice out of the system are the crims. After all to have committed all those crimes they must have been mad, and it must have been societies fault for not understanding them, or not helping them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      This is the classic judge's dilemma: Mad or Bad?

      You can be sure that the psychiatrists that diagnose mental illness and report to the judges are very good at their jobs. It is also worth noting that there are patients who are not committed of any crime in Broadmore, also that in the normal prison population in the uk has a diagnosable mental illness rate at something in the high 90%.

      Now add to that - The justice system represents justice for society and the perpetrator of the crime, not the victim.

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