Whatever your views on Jon Venables release and subsequent return to prison there surely can be no disagreement on our right to know what he did to warrant this.
The Injustice Secretary, or whatever Jack Straw is officially called these days, says we don't have a right to know and other Labour politicians have expressed the opinion that the law decides this and that it isn't in the public interest.
Where in law does it say that the public do not have a right to know what crime a criminal has committed? How can the re-imprisonment of a serious offender not be public interest?
In these times when "rights" are scattered around like confetti at a wedding, it is increasingly obvious that certain "rights" of certain people trump those of all others - and it's us, the law abiding majority, whose rights are least respected.
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Friday, June 05, 2009
No more early releases
The turmoil in the probation services as revealed by the case of the two murdered French students demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the justice system.
With the prison capacity stretched beyond the limit, the government have turned to the idea of releasing prisoners before their sentences have been properly served or discouraging courts from applying prison sentences at all.
Unfortunately, such a system has placed considerably more stress on the probation service while at the same time providing no additional support or capacity for that service to cope with the extra burden imposed on it by government policies.
The options are limited, but clear. There must be an immediate cessation to the policy of automatic early release. Prisoners should serve their full sentence and any shortening (or lengthening come to that) of that sentence should be linked to their behaviour while behind bars.
Secondly, the government must find some way of increasing the capacity of the prison service - whether that means prison ships or turning a disused barracks into a prison is up to them, but they must do it and do it quickly.
Thirdly, they must instruct courts to apply prison sentences where they are justified rather than doing all they can to avoid custodial sentences.
Finally, we must get away from this belief that "prison doesn't work". It does if you understand what it's purpose is and the purpose of prison is NOT to rehabilitate offenders, but to punish them and remove them from the general population so that they cannot commit further crimes while incarcerated.
It's actually very effective at the latter, but less so as a punishment. Once more, what is needed is a return to prisons which are austere places where prisoners are expected to perform hard work and where luxuries such as access to entertainment or are earned not expected.
With the prison capacity stretched beyond the limit, the government have turned to the idea of releasing prisoners before their sentences have been properly served or discouraging courts from applying prison sentences at all.
Unfortunately, such a system has placed considerably more stress on the probation service while at the same time providing no additional support or capacity for that service to cope with the extra burden imposed on it by government policies.
The options are limited, but clear. There must be an immediate cessation to the policy of automatic early release. Prisoners should serve their full sentence and any shortening (or lengthening come to that) of that sentence should be linked to their behaviour while behind bars.
Secondly, the government must find some way of increasing the capacity of the prison service - whether that means prison ships or turning a disused barracks into a prison is up to them, but they must do it and do it quickly.
Thirdly, they must instruct courts to apply prison sentences where they are justified rather than doing all they can to avoid custodial sentences.
Finally, we must get away from this belief that "prison doesn't work". It does if you understand what it's purpose is and the purpose of prison is NOT to rehabilitate offenders, but to punish them and remove them from the general population so that they cannot commit further crimes while incarcerated.
It's actually very effective at the latter, but less so as a punishment. Once more, what is needed is a return to prisons which are austere places where prisoners are expected to perform hard work and where luxuries such as access to entertainment or are earned not expected.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
The meaning of life
How long is life? The Bible says three score years and ten - i.e. seventy years, but our justice system thinks different.
A serial sex attacker who preyed on women in south-west London over a six-year period has been jailed for life.
Kirk Reid, 44, was convicted at Kingston Crown Court of two rapes and 24 sexual assaults and must serve at least seven-and-a-half years.
Seven and a half years? That's pathetic. Life should mean life.
This isn't justice - it's a travesty.
A serial sex attacker who preyed on women in south-west London over a six-year period has been jailed for life.
Kirk Reid, 44, was convicted at Kingston Crown Court of two rapes and 24 sexual assaults and must serve at least seven-and-a-half years.
Seven and a half years? That's pathetic. Life should mean life.
This isn't justice - it's a travesty.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The muddled mind of government
There are a lot of things you could criticise the government for over their plans for a "giant database" to track all our emails, phone calls and Internet activity on both a civil liberties and practical basis.
It's intrusive, Orwellian and, given the track record of government on technology projects, it is likely to be hugely expensive and won't actually work.
But the biggest problem for me lies in one essential oversight.
What is the point of a database to intercept communications when intercept evidence is not permissible in British courts?
It's intrusive, Orwellian and, given the track record of government on technology projects, it is likely to be hugely expensive and won't actually work.
But the biggest problem for me lies in one essential oversight.
What is the point of a database to intercept communications when intercept evidence is not permissible in British courts?
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Rapists are victims too
Ridiculous!
Thousands of the worst rapists and paedophiles can now seek to be taken off the sex offenders' register to protect their human rights.
In a landmark High Court ruling, judges said being on the register for life without any opportunity to challenge it breached an offender's rights.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 a sex offender sentenced to 30 months or more "shall be subjected for life" to the register's notification requirements, without any review.
Lord Justice Latham, Mr Justice Underhill and Mr Justice Flaux held the current registration scheme wrongly denied them the chance to prove in a review that they no longer posed a risk of reoffending.
They ruled it was incompatible with their Article 8 right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Once someone has committed a sexual offence then they are a sex offender - that can never be changed - why shouldn't that be noted somewhere for the entire life of that person? Once again, the "human-rights" of criminals is considered more important than the rights of the law-abiding.
And once again we have foreign laws determining what we can and can not do in our own country.
Thousands of the worst rapists and paedophiles can now seek to be taken off the sex offenders' register to protect their human rights.
In a landmark High Court ruling, judges said being on the register for life without any opportunity to challenge it breached an offender's rights.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 a sex offender sentenced to 30 months or more "shall be subjected for life" to the register's notification requirements, without any review.
Lord Justice Latham, Mr Justice Underhill and Mr Justice Flaux held the current registration scheme wrongly denied them the chance to prove in a review that they no longer posed a risk of reoffending.
They ruled it was incompatible with their Article 8 right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Once someone has committed a sexual offence then they are a sex offender - that can never be changed - why shouldn't that be noted somewhere for the entire life of that person? Once again, the "human-rights" of criminals is considered more important than the rights of the law-abiding.
And once again we have foreign laws determining what we can and can not do in our own country.
Monday, December 08, 2008
No going back
The ominously titled Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, claims he is as frustrated as anyone about the way the Human Rights Act has become a sort of "villains charter".
He suggested that the rights in the legislation, which enshrined the European Convention on Human Rights in British law, could be balanced with new “responsibilities” to obey the law and to be loyal to the country.
First of all, it's not as if Straw wasn't warned that this would happen. There were plenty of people telling him that such legislation would bring about exactly the sort of thing it has done - it's just that Straw chose to ignore these warnings 'cos he knew better.
Secondly, having conceded that it doesn't work the obvious thing to do would not be to bring in new legislation to try and counterbalance it - that would just complicate matters even more as the "law of unintended consequences" kicks in.
No, the obvious thing would be to get rid of the useless legislation that he introduced in the first place - but he won't.
This is the thing with progressives - they will never admit that their shitty ideas don't work. When they fail it is always because of some "unforeseen" circumstances. So when their badly thought out education ideas turn out badly educated, semi-literate kids by the hundreds and thousands it's never the fault of the policy - just a problem with the way it's been implemented by the schools.
When crackpot social welfare schemes turn out generations of welfare dependent low-lifes it's never the fault of the policy - just a shortcoming of the way it's implemented by local authorities, and when their ridiculous human rights legislation makes it easier for criminals to escape justice it's never a fault of the policy - just the way it's been implemented by the courts.
Progressives never say they were wrong - or sorry even. And they never consider going back to how it was when things worked - imperfectly, maybe, but much much better than they do now.
This is always going to be the way with progressive politics - always thinking that more radical changes will make things better but always lurching from one disaster to the next and always making society more broken.
Cameron tells us that mending the broken society is his priority, but does he really mean it? Of course not - if he did then things like repealing the human rights act and withdrawing from the EU would be top of his agenda. They don't even register on his radar - because he is cut from the same cloth as the rest of this liberal progressive bunch of fifth rate political poseurs.
They're not interested in making Britain better for anyone but themselves.
He suggested that the rights in the legislation, which enshrined the European Convention on Human Rights in British law, could be balanced with new “responsibilities” to obey the law and to be loyal to the country.
First of all, it's not as if Straw wasn't warned that this would happen. There were plenty of people telling him that such legislation would bring about exactly the sort of thing it has done - it's just that Straw chose to ignore these warnings 'cos he knew better.
Secondly, having conceded that it doesn't work the obvious thing to do would not be to bring in new legislation to try and counterbalance it - that would just complicate matters even more as the "law of unintended consequences" kicks in.
No, the obvious thing would be to get rid of the useless legislation that he introduced in the first place - but he won't.
This is the thing with progressives - they will never admit that their shitty ideas don't work. When they fail it is always because of some "unforeseen" circumstances. So when their badly thought out education ideas turn out badly educated, semi-literate kids by the hundreds and thousands it's never the fault of the policy - just a problem with the way it's been implemented by the schools.
When crackpot social welfare schemes turn out generations of welfare dependent low-lifes it's never the fault of the policy - just a shortcoming of the way it's implemented by local authorities, and when their ridiculous human rights legislation makes it easier for criminals to escape justice it's never a fault of the policy - just the way it's been implemented by the courts.
Progressives never say they were wrong - or sorry even. And they never consider going back to how it was when things worked - imperfectly, maybe, but much much better than they do now.
This is always going to be the way with progressive politics - always thinking that more radical changes will make things better but always lurching from one disaster to the next and always making society more broken.
Cameron tells us that mending the broken society is his priority, but does he really mean it? Of course not - if he did then things like repealing the human rights act and withdrawing from the EU would be top of his agenda. They don't even register on his radar - because he is cut from the same cloth as the rest of this liberal progressive bunch of fifth rate political poseurs.
They're not interested in making Britain better for anyone but themselves.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
More on the rule of law
I've already had a few posts recently about the rule of law and I suppose it's possible that some people aren't getting fed up with me banging on about it, but JuliaM on Ambush Predator highlights a recent case that calls into question whether the rule of law still applies even in our courts.
A Southend peace campaigner arrested with a seven-inch knife outside 10 Downing Street has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Jurors failed to reach a verdict on a charge of having a bladed article in a public place in July ...
How could they fail to reach a verdict on that charge? He clearly had the "bladed article" in a public place so how could they reach any other conclusion besides "guilty"?
According to one of the principles of the rule of law, nobody may be above the law. This person was clearly guilty of breaking the law, but the jury couldn't make their minds up! How bizarre is that? Well - in this day and age - not very.
We saw with the Kingsnorth vandalism case that juries are prepared to acquit people regardless of the law if they think that person had good enough mitigating circumstances - but mitigating circumstances should not be pertinent to the issue of whether someone is guilty or not - only to the kind of sentence they get.
This is a very worrying trend for me. It suggests that some people are above the law if they convince enough people on the jury that they had a justifiable reason for breaking the law - and that undermines, once more, one of the principles of the rule of law. Effectively, this tells people that if they think they are justified in doing so they may break the law.
Juries are supposed to base their verdicts solely on the evidence presented. Increasingly they are not doing so - and by failing to do so they are undermining the very principles upon which our legal system is based. If the courts fail to uphold the rule of law then what sort of message does that send to the rest of the nation?
A Southend peace campaigner arrested with a seven-inch knife outside 10 Downing Street has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Jurors failed to reach a verdict on a charge of having a bladed article in a public place in July ...
How could they fail to reach a verdict on that charge? He clearly had the "bladed article" in a public place so how could they reach any other conclusion besides "guilty"?
According to one of the principles of the rule of law, nobody may be above the law. This person was clearly guilty of breaking the law, but the jury couldn't make their minds up! How bizarre is that? Well - in this day and age - not very.
We saw with the Kingsnorth vandalism case that juries are prepared to acquit people regardless of the law if they think that person had good enough mitigating circumstances - but mitigating circumstances should not be pertinent to the issue of whether someone is guilty or not - only to the kind of sentence they get.
This is a very worrying trend for me. It suggests that some people are above the law if they convince enough people on the jury that they had a justifiable reason for breaking the law - and that undermines, once more, one of the principles of the rule of law. Effectively, this tells people that if they think they are justified in doing so they may break the law.
Juries are supposed to base their verdicts solely on the evidence presented. Increasingly they are not doing so - and by failing to do so they are undermining the very principles upon which our legal system is based. If the courts fail to uphold the rule of law then what sort of message does that send to the rest of the nation?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Why do we have to accept this?
From the parents of murdered teenager Hannah Foster.
Mr Foster said: "We cannot accept how a complete stranger can abduct, rape and murder your teenage daughter – still a child in the eyes of the law - and yet not end his days in prison."
I can't accept it either. I'd go further and say that he should not just end his days in prison - but his life should end very soon too. The death penalty should be reinstated for such crimes. I've listened to all the arguments about how the death penalty has no place in "civilised society" - but they just don't hold water. Does the abduction, rape and murder have a place in civilised society?
Of course not, but it is obvious to anyone that the current punishment for such crimes has no deterrent effect. Worse still, if the only difference between abduction and rape of a teenager and abduction, rape and murder of a teenager is an extra seven years or so in prison then that actually encourages people to go all the way and murder their victim doesn't it? With the victim unable to testify it increases their chance of avoiding capture. If they are caught - well, it's just a few more years behind bars. So what?
If the difference was more severe - for example, if life actually meant life or, better still, the death penalty then they'd be less inclined to murder the victim. It's a big difference between spending 15 years in jail and spending 60 years in jail - or dangling lifeless from a rope - and that might just make criminals like Hannah's murderer stop and think.
We gave up the death sentence on the promise that a life sentence would mean a lifetime in prison for the criminal. That promise was broken a long time ago. We gave up the death sentence on the assurance that prison was sufficient deterrent, but that has been proven to be a lie.
We gave up the death sentence because we were told it was all too easy to get it wrong and sentence an innocent person to death - though very few actually were - but far more innocent people die since we stopped hanging murderers and with advances in forensic science, establishing the identity of a murderer is a much more certain process.
Surely we have reached a point where we should now say that a death sentence for murderers whose guilt is proven beyond any doubt should be mandatory and that a life sentence should mean life for all other murderers is the right thing to do?
Mr Foster said: "We cannot accept how a complete stranger can abduct, rape and murder your teenage daughter – still a child in the eyes of the law - and yet not end his days in prison."
I can't accept it either. I'd go further and say that he should not just end his days in prison - but his life should end very soon too. The death penalty should be reinstated for such crimes. I've listened to all the arguments about how the death penalty has no place in "civilised society" - but they just don't hold water. Does the abduction, rape and murder have a place in civilised society?
Of course not, but it is obvious to anyone that the current punishment for such crimes has no deterrent effect. Worse still, if the only difference between abduction and rape of a teenager and abduction, rape and murder of a teenager is an extra seven years or so in prison then that actually encourages people to go all the way and murder their victim doesn't it? With the victim unable to testify it increases their chance of avoiding capture. If they are caught - well, it's just a few more years behind bars. So what?
If the difference was more severe - for example, if life actually meant life or, better still, the death penalty then they'd be less inclined to murder the victim. It's a big difference between spending 15 years in jail and spending 60 years in jail - or dangling lifeless from a rope - and that might just make criminals like Hannah's murderer stop and think.
We gave up the death sentence on the promise that a life sentence would mean a lifetime in prison for the criminal. That promise was broken a long time ago. We gave up the death sentence on the assurance that prison was sufficient deterrent, but that has been proven to be a lie.
We gave up the death sentence because we were told it was all too easy to get it wrong and sentence an innocent person to death - though very few actually were - but far more innocent people die since we stopped hanging murderers and with advances in forensic science, establishing the identity of a murderer is a much more certain process.
Surely we have reached a point where we should now say that a death sentence for murderers whose guilt is proven beyond any doubt should be mandatory and that a life sentence should mean life for all other murderers is the right thing to do?
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