Criminal classes

If we were to take this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/61318/manx-and-welsh-restorative-schemes-win-prisoner-rehabilitation-award ) at face value the local prison service has sharpened up its act with the help of some concerned and altruistic citizenry.
No, I thought that too.
So, no surprise then to find that Prison Works Isle of Man is based at The Alpha Centre, Broadway, Douglas, and according to the entry for number 1120 on the Manx charity register exists:
“to serve the spiritual, emotional, social and physical needs of offenders, ex-offenders, victims and the families of all three as well as those at risk of offending and other members of the Island Community as well as persons or groups off-island as are identified and approved on a case by case basis. Objectives include advancement of education, victim awareness, restorative justice, employment both paid and voluntary and resettlement and after-care.”

Oh joy of joys, another bogus charity run by Broadway Batwits (who, historically, tend to be rather better at hiding criminals than reforming them, by the way).

Personally, I would have thought that any contact with the type of intellectually-challenged religionistas who run this scheme could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment, and that if the future of any ex-cons might depend on them it would be nothing short of a national disgrace.

Surely the recidivism often attributed to the criminal class must be far exceeded by that of the average evangelical. And for the benefit of those who can't hold their noses long enough to look, I (who have) can also reveal that they fall into two clear subdivisions.

On the one hand, there are the 'rightists' (those who believe themselves so right about everything they never stop shouting long enough to listen to another view - and certainly not hard fact).

These are otherwise known as pastors or preachers. They tell everyone what to do and live off dumber people's money. Failing that, they invent reasons why the state should pay them to tell others what to do, on the pretence that such victims need their witless “help”.

On the other hand, we find self-pitying losers who refuse to take responsibility for themselves or anything else, who think everything in the world is somebody else's fault and that that is enough of an excuse to skive, live off family, charity and the state, and generally to sit about with a digit up the backside spouting the most banal racist, homophobic and sexist twaddle.

These make up the congregation, the preached to..... or as we smart-arse atheists have dubbed them, the sheeple.

No wonder, then, that serving convicts who have dropped out of any other education, work or rehabilitation scheme the prison can offer, ex-cons who have worn out the patience of anyone they used to call family or friends (too dumb to stack supermarket shelves and not even house-trained enough to clean toilets) or just failed criminals in general find religion so attractive. For them it is (lack of) business as usual.

Well, I am sure these misfits will be very happy together. And if they kept themselves to themselves (and more importantly funded themselves) it would be nobody else's business.
Problem is, they never will, though constantly poking their noses into ours; all the while having the bare-faced cheek to keep asking for our money to do it.