My review of the CHARLIE BRONSON C4 TV documentary yesterday – 28FEB23.

Yesterday, 28 February 2023,

A two part documentary on Charlie Bronson was aired on Channel 4, UK. I have known this man for 31 years, and to describe him as the UK’s most violent prisoner is incorrect. I didn’t like the way this man was portrayed. And I wrote the following review.

Very disappointing, very shallow, no spirit of enquiry, zero insight – a documentary that learnt nothing, forgot nothing, and taught you nothing. The Ford ad was more exploratory.

PSYCHIATRIC EXPERTISE

The nearest it came to any psychiatric expertise was his son’s insight that Charlie had a button which if pressed, could make him explode. No enquiry as to what this might be? Is it still there? What impact would this have on the PB decision whether he is now safe, or not?

All we were offered was “Over 70, your violence goes down” – hardly worth the paper it was written on.

GORE – and lots of it. Clandestine video of a monster, decades ago. No curiosity as to had this diminished? Did the recent staff down grading to ‘medium risk’ merit scrutiny? Would this assist the PB in its challenging problem? No interest was raised – yet for the PB to do its job properly this is precisely the point that needs ventilating – in fact, the PB would be derelict if it didn’t ask why? What had changed in the last 5 years? The documentary was content to say that nothing had, even hinting that nothing could.

As for leaving his son’s anxieties to the very last frame – how this can represent ‘balance’ escapes me.

Charlie put two of his psychiatric reports in the public domain – he printed them verbatim in his book “The Good Prison Guide”. No reference was made to this. Nothing gleaned from it. How many lifers do this? Why did Charlie? What does it say about him, both then and today? Or is Charlie’s mind, and his motivations a closed book? Sounds like it.

If I were Charlie, I’d be very disappointed with this – a chance for much more enlightenment was sadly missed. Instead of asking why our current penal policy makes a failed bank-robber so much worse, costing us all, and him, 50 years’ incarceration, with zero benefit to him, or us – we were repeatedly reminded that violence frightens us – something we already well knew. Why, where it came from, how to lessen it – nothing.

Link– https://www.channel4.com/programmes/bronson-fit-to-be-free

Professor Bob Johnson,                      Wednesday, 1 March 2023

MRCPsych MRCGP   MA (Psychol), PhD(med computing), MBCS, DPM, MRS

Dept of Education & Psychology

University of Bolton,  BL3 5AB, UK.

 e-mail DrBob@TruthTrustConsent.com      www.DrBobJohnson.org

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