Tax payer fury over Brit prison hiring yoga teacher for hardened criminals
By ANIMonday, July 19, 2010
LONDON - A prison that has all the inmates serving lifetime has fuelled a row after it appointed a yoga teacher to teach the inmates how to relax.
Taxpayers are dishing out money for murderers to learn ‘Taoist meditation breath work’ and ‘flowing stretches’-which cost around 10 pounds an hour on the outside.
The classes have been going on for two years at Shepton Mallet jail in Somerset for all the 186 inmates.
The yoga facility for the criminals came as an insult to the families of the victims.
“You have to wonder what they will make of it all. It’s a bit rich for life-sentence prisoners to enjoy yoga while serving their sentences,” the Sun quoted a prison source as saying.
Yoga teacher Mark Pogson said that his ‘energy work’ would help the prisoners ‘reap the benefits’.
“Given the financial pressure and cuts, I hope the authorities continue to support and give priority to this kind of activity for all throughout the prison system,” Pogson wrote in a prisoners’ magazine.
“Activities like yoga have a role to play in engaging prisoners in education programmes and those aimed at reducing re-offending,” said a spokesman. (ANI)
