After the tragic stabbing of two inmates at Thomas Embling Hospital by another inmate, the Herald Sun chooses to run the cynically provocative (and inaccurate) “criminals live in luxury” line:
THOMAS Embling Hospital – home to some of Victoria’s most disturbed psychiatric patients – offers sushi meals, Wii fit classes and chill-out rooms with massage chairs.
The hospital is a secure facility with 118 beds, located in 8ha of parkland along the Yarra River in Fairfield. Many of its patients are placed there after being found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental impairment…
Patients are given the latest in psychiatric care, and some are allowed day leave to prepare them for release.
Ooh! La-di-dah! The “latest” in psychiatric care, eh? That’s not fair! I’ve never committed a horrible crime whilst clinically insane (of course, neither have many of the patients at TEH, but let’s ignore that for the moment) and therefore not been responsible for it, and do they give me “the latest in psychiatric care”? No! I pay my taxes, where’s MY sushi that costs $2.20 at the local food court? The Wii Fit that was introduced to combat a growing obesity problem at the facility for patients who are never allowed to leave? Why don’t I get my own 1/118th of a Wii provided by the government just because I can walk outside at any time?
The point, of course, is to prompt envious, stupid comments like this:
if u are one of the victim of crime or your family member, seeing this criminals getting royal treatment from our tax money ,where is the justice.?
Other commenters call out the bullsh*t:
I am utterly annoyed and disgusted by the gutter journalism displayed by the Herald Sun. You are clearly only presenting some of the facts of the services and treatment provided by Thomas Embling Hospital. For patients at TEH it is no picnic, it is long and intense rehabilitation, some never leave or meet the standards required to return to the community. The Herald Sun in irresponsibily and incorrectly representing the hospital. You should be disgusted.
What worries me is that there’ll be enough Hun readers who’ve already been indoctrinated with the “government luvs criminals and makes their lives better than mine” crap that this distorted piece of garbage will just serve to reinforce their erroneous impression on the subject. And make them even more likely to buy the next instalment.
Moved On 
“Disgust” doesn’t even cover my view of this article.
A full of the comments are ignorant, knee-jerk reactions from people who think that people who suffer from mental-illness are less than human.
Um, “a few” of the comments. Doy.
Not just that, but how nice that everyone who is a resident at that facility is now a criminal!
Which is patently not the case.
I have only ever bought 1 copy of the Herald Sun. It sits snugly next to my store of quality toilet rolls.
Michelle and Keri-I’m amazed the Hun didn’t use a picture of the Joker to accompany the beat-up.
confessions-I presume that it’s for spare toilet paper?
Crap-I meant elephantandrat! I just saw one long word for a persona and assumed it was confessions.
Well it could be me – I prefer quality toilet rolls, and i’ve only ever bought a handful of HS papers in my lifetime. But i use my tabloid purchases as paper to start the fire – the Australian and community newspaper don’t burn too well.