
Should Kent's prisoners get paid for the work they do?
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Call 08459 811111 (local rate), email [email protected] or text 81333 (start your message with KENT).
Should Kent's prisoners get paid for the work they do? Is it slavery to make them work for almost nothing?
It costs on average £36,000 a year to keep someone in prison. In Kent prisons inmates are offered some pretty menial jobs like assembling food packaging and party balloons. They are paid 30p an hour, which means they can earn around £8 to £10 a week.
The prisons themselves are making around £500,000 by putting the inmates to work. Is that a good thing?
You might have read this morning that some of the most widely disliked buildings in Britain, the so called "concrete jungles" or "brutalist" structures of the 1960s and 1970s have been added to a controversial list of some of the world's most endangered buildings. They include libraries, bus stations and parts of the South Bank Centre in London.
What about here in Kent? Perhaps you would add a Medway or Kent structure to the list such as the Pentagon Centre in Chatham and Gravesend's Woodville Halls.
Nearly 2,000 jobs are being cut at the BBC as it tries to make nearly £700m in savings over the next six years. Around half the savings will be made behind the scenes but it will also mean big changes for BBC Two and Local Radio. It is proposed that BBC Radio Kent will share its output with other stations in the afternoons, evenings and at the weekends.
On breakfast this morning you heard Head of the BBC South East Region, Mick Rawsthorne, speaking about how the cuts announced by the broadcaster yesterday will change the BBC here in Kent.
Tim Luckhurst is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent and tells mid-morning what he thinks.
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- Fri 7 Oct 201109:00BBC Radio Kent