The queen of the high Cs

I have not a shred of doubt in my mind that people are still reeling in shock and disbelief at the revelations of the goings on in the not-so-inappropriately nicknamed Corradino Hilton last week.

By the looks of it, Corradino is the type of prison wherein one may enter as a petty thief and exit as a hardened criminal- Kenneth Zammit Tabona

What was described as evidence in the truly sensational trial of one Josette Bickle, the “queen” of the prison who, by these accounts, held not only her fellow inmates but also her gaolers in thrall, was unnerving!

The “queen”, despite her having the makings of a true Jezebel, is, according to Mr Justice Michael Mallia, and I tend to agree with him, not alone in this racket but part of a fathomless corrupt system that, till now, we have only heard rumours about.

The stories about this “queen” and her “handmaidens” are but a shocking symptom of a malaise that goes far deeper than the mere lust for money. The virtual slavery experienced by those women brave enough to give testimony in this trial was almost unbelievable, depicting our prison not as a correctional facility but as a den of iniquity.

I have a sinking feeling that what we have been told is merely the tip of the iceberg. What we have learned is by deduction the product of years upon years of corruption, mismanagement and abuse. It is no wonder that relapsers relapse and that a sense of remorse is lacking.

While her sentence was being read, Ms Bickle was reportedly heard to murmur that she had not done so badly! That alone speaks volumes.

Where have we gone off the rails? If Ms Bickle is so amoral as opposed to immoral that she cannot see that running a drug cartel in a prison is not quite cricket then there is something very wrong somewhere.

One presumes, because of the way the majority of us have been brought up, that everyone has a sense of right and wrong. Yet, I cannot but help suspecting that this sensibility has been emasculated with each successive generation, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and newfangled ideas about discipline.

I may have not have been enamoured of the idea of the “ferlas” (an instrument of corporal punishment well known to Aloysians, consisting of a strip of leather a foot long and about half an inch thick reputedly reinforced inside with strips of metal) thwacking menacingly in the hands of the prefect of discipline while at college but it certainly was a deterrent. Today, a mere tweak of the ear may land you in court and jobless!

Ms Bickle is 40 years old and presumably should have been at school in the late 1970s and early 1980s, if at all. The rot had already started then as we over 50s have long known that we were the last of the so-called abused and repressed living in the shadow of a caning for the least transgression. I would not say that our system was right, as many boys were literally terrorised, but, then, we swung the pendulum to the other extreme and it simply has not found its equilibrium yet.

These fantastic stories from Corradino also make people feel very insecure and unhappy about their own safety and seriously doubt the effectiveness of the authorities in maintaining law and order and assuring us that we can sleep safely and soundly in our beds. The very idea that they allowed, if not condoned, the enthronement, coronation and rule of a drug queen of the rank and power of Ms Bickle in their midst is indicative of the worst sort of corruption.

This trial has blown the lid off Pandora’s Box big time and it is now inevitable that a concatenation of unspeakable and almost unbelievable revelations will be triggered off in such an avalanche as to practically convince us all that fact is indeed stranger than fiction.

When all is said and done, as we all know, there was just a battered and bruised manifestation of hope left in the box and I am still trying to imagine what sort of hope this could be.

That the Corradino Correctional Facility needs a radical overhaul to live up to its name is a given. This has to happen and as at yesterday. It is not enough to merely bring those involved to trial but justice, this time, must be seen to be done.

If people who are sent to prison are going to come out of there as far worse people than they were before, then the entire objective of the “correctional facility” flies out of the window and we are left with something out of Shantaram or Midnight Express! This is simply not on.

I wonder what the price in psychological damage has been. By the looks of it, Corradino is the type of prison wherein one may enter as a petty thief and exit as a hardened criminal. It must be cleaned up and the people must witness this as it is, first and foremost, run and maintained by our hard-earned taxes and the prison’s efficaciousness must assure us taxpayers that crime prevention is being combated actively and effectively.

No other solution is acceptable.