8/14/2019 Why Are So Many of the UK Prison Population Ex Servicemen?

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Why are so many of the UK prison populationex-servicemen?

Servicemen experience a great amount of horror andaction within the armed forces. In Afghanistan for example asoldier will see death and brutality almost every day. These

extremes have a huge effect on both the soldier physically andmore importantly mentally. For most of the time they arealways fearing for their life and trying to defend it throughforce.

When the men experience an act of brutality oraggression their reaction has to be one of great aggression initself. If we now travel back home, the soldier may be in a barand have an argument with a man there. This, though a lesserconfrontation to that in Afghanistan causes the soldier topossibly react in a far more aggressive way. This is because

he is so used to reacting in an aggressive way toward the Taliban, he has no conception of the correct level of aggressionto respond with or even react with no aggression at all.

 Through this it could be said that the men have beeninstitutionalised in a sense that they cant remember how tobehave or act after their tour of duty. When returning tocivilian life having been in battle, most issues seem trivial.

Having been in an environment of fear and stress, it isalso possible that some men have suffered from shell shock orPost Traumatic Stress Disorder. In this case it could be saidthat the soldier is not in a normal frame of mind and ismentally ill. In which case is should he be “excused” from hiscrime? Perhaps.

But what of the soldier’s past? This could be of course areason why there are so many servicemen. It is a little thoughtof fact that a vast majority of the British army are from a verypoor background. The attractive income which the army offerscan be one of the main reasons why a soldier applies in thefirst place The average private will have been brought up onperhaps near minimum wage and in shoddy housing. He willnot have attended a good school and he would have beensurrounded by violence and potentially criminal activity..Because of the environment that the soldier is brought up in,he may have a history of criminal activity or violence due tomaybe his parents or friends.

Perhaps most important of all within the army is how thesoldiers have been taught to think. The army is based arounda simple hierarchy and the men which we are looking at areentirely at the bottom of the pecking order. Their lives are

routinely run while serving. They are told what to do everyday and obey these orders without argument; they are

8/14/2019 Why Are So Many of the UK Prison Population Ex Servicemen?

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essentially not in control of their own lives. There is obviouslya shock then to the men, having been in that environment andbeing told what to do, coming home to find there is no officertelling them when to get up or go to sleep. They havecomplete control over their lives which must confuse the mengreatly. This disorientation can lead in many cases to drug usewhich leads to theft. If caught of course the soldier might besent to prison where he will become another of the ex-servicemen to be in our prisons.