Monday, June 12, 2006
Life Should Mean Life
Today Craig Sweeney, a convicted paedophile was sentenced to life for abducting a toddler from her home. He will serve 5 years. Last week, a man who was convicted of raping a baby was told his life sentence meant he would serve a minimum of 8 years, rather than the original 6. What does this say about our legal system? Surely in cases like this, life should mean just that. If they're in prison, they can't reoffend. And in the end, it is as simple as that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
31 comments:
No, that is the minimum that the sentencing judge says they MUST serve. They may serve longer, up to life.
"What does this say about our legal system?"
It f***ed?
For a life sentence to have only five years as a minimum is a sick joke, especially in a case like this. You can just imagine some hearing five or ten years down the road "oh, he's really sorry, poor thing, he won't do it again, how about parole and counselling, I've heard the xxx method is really effective, says so right here ?" and out he comes to do it again and wreck another little girl's life.
All is not lost however, creatures like this are likely to meet with accidents in prison.
They should be banged up for life for assaulting something so helpless. Bang them up and let the other prisoners take care of them.
- Anonymousette
Isnt this one of the basic issues that relates to whether prison works or not? If someone is in jail they ae taken out of society and are unable to re-commit that crime.
Yes more needs to be done to make prisons drug free, to ensure that in-mates are made to learn basic reading and writing skills which means they are less likely to re-offend, but at the end of the day while they are in jail it prevents re-offending!
Capital punishment, I'm afraid. The only solution. Cut all this 'rehab' crap.
This was Mr Blair's preferred punishment for the head-hacker-in-chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda leader in Iraq. Indeed, I thought it rather curious that a man who opposes the death penalty (like many in the modern, compassionate, Conservative Party) was manifestly rejoicing at his death.
Clearly someone like this should never be let near children again. Perhaps whats needed is a long(er) prison sentance then a choice between having the temptation surgically removed or living in a specialist offenders colony somewhere. ( West Falkland ? ).
I think we are WAY overdue for a root and branch overhaul of our judicial system
It's meant to deter and punish (can you believe it?) criminals and above all, TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC.
It manifestly fails on all counts.
Of course, the judiciary would be in charge of any such overhaul - that's why it isn't going to happen, and that's why crime will continue to rise and law-abiding people will continue to have no faith in the whole thing.
Scrap that human rights garbage that Blair nailed onto our effective British legal system and buggered it up. The judiciary in Britain is now way too powerful - and this has happened in the eight years that Blair's been in office. Britain used to be, along with Japan, the most law-abiding country in the world. Then Tony 'n' Cher got in.
- Anonymousette
In cases like these one could easily argue the merits of Sharian Law, just hang around long enough.........
Anonymous says "a choice between having the temptation surgically removed , the trouble is that does not guarantee a "cure". Offenders have been known to use a, um, substitute implement if they can't do it themselves.
Where is good old British common sense ? To put a five year minimum on a life term is simply idiotic.
Yet another argument for elected police chiefs, judges, 'district attorneys' etc etc......
I can't help feeling that the shortage of space in prisons creates this ridiculous environment where nobody seems to serve their sentence.
I vote for more money to build bigger prisons.
I'm a member of the Labour Party, but I admit that Michael Howard (the odd prison escape aside) was one of the best Home Secretaries we've ever had (far, far better than Charles Clarke).
'Prison works' - absolutely, which is why when Howard went against his department's defeatist ideology that said the best that could be hoped for was to limit the rise in crime, crime fell. While criminals are in there, the public are protected from them (which they're not on these poxy early release schemes, probation, or when they're tagged). If prisons are overcrowded, then build more. Per crimes committed, we actually have one of the lowest (if not the lowest) number of prison populations in Western Europe.
I wonder meanwhile while those on the Guardian reading liberal left don't have sufficient self-awareness to realise, before bleating about how so many prisoners are illiterate, that this might be something to do with their precious (and utterly failed) opposition to synthetic phonics. Their problem with synthetic phonics (apart from its reliance on structure and discipline) is that it works in practice, not in theory.
I seem to remember that illiterate young offenders were taught to read in borstal schools. So why not bring them back? When both parties seem to think that public services should be franchised out to businesses, why not revert to a public/private sector partnership which actually worked, ie. where local police forces could take cases to solicitor's firms instead of relying on a CPS which, in its 9 to 5 culture and propensity for losing paperwork, is known as the Criminal Protection Service?
When Capital Punishment was abolished in this country the abolitionists were insistent that life imprisonment would mean just that :the remainder of the offenders' life would be spent behind bars!
We need to return to this concept without delay.Protection of the innocent must be the priority - F*ck rehabilitation of offenders.
Perhaps we should ELECT Judges like they do in the States. Now that would be a vote winning policy for the Tories!
There are many states in the US that have capital punishment. They tend to have fewer crimes per capita than the socialist states, especially as those are also, in the main, states that encourage their citizens to own guns.
I've said before that prison terms should be awarded in three phases: First offence (that they're caught for): a sentence that gives them an unpleasant taste of loss of freedom, but doesn't turn them utterly antisocial and may in fact open their eyes. Some remedial education during their sentence. Second offence: Hmmm, you don't seem to learn terribly well. Three years, no parole, no early release, no probabation. Nada. They serve every minute of the three years.
Third offence, imprisoned until the age of 33. Crimes are committed, by and large, by young men. If they prove that they are persistent offenders, they need to be incarcerated until they aren't young men any more. No parole. No hope of early release. By the time they get out, most of their lawbreaking pals will be married or have moved on.
There would be a huge surge in the prison population until this soaked into the brains of violent young men. "If I get caught three times, my young life is over." We would need more and bigger prisons, which could be built with a view to converting them to condos when the prison population thinned out, which I believe it would.
Once it became established that young men of 18 and 20 were getting sentences that banged them up until age 33, this would be a real deterrent. We could make the release age older, if anyone thinks I am being too soft-hearted.
- Anonymousette
Dear Ian
Capital Punishment has not been abolished in the UK - murderers execute innocent people everyday
I remain Your obedient servant
G Eagle
More than anything, it is this weak, ineffective and complacent attitude to the law for which this Government will be remembered most.
"Education, Education, Education" and "24hrs to save the NHS" are positively funny compared to "Tough on crime. Tough on the causes of crime".
Cameron must learn quickly that no social policy will ever work until crime and punishment is tackled without compromise and life means life.
richard bailey - the rot began with the incorporation of the destructive "human rights" legislation tacked on to our own Common Law that has worked so well for centuries in Britain and the US, Canada, Oz, New Zealand, India, Singapore and Malaysia. It's still working elsewhere, but it has been utterly corrupted in Britain.
Blair and his gawping, greedy wife knew it was destructive. It is all part of the Gramscian plan to destabilise and dilute British society. Everything against common sense and centuries of wisdom, but nothing the citizens could do about it. The Blairs, Alastair Campbell, Jack Straw, all those indistinguishable women, David Blunkett, Peter Mandelson had the whip hand. Yet they elected them three times, which tells me the British electorate are astonishingly easily bullied or they are so lacking in acuity that they deserve what happened to them because ... they weren't vigilant.
- Anonymousette
Anything less than the death penalty for violent paedophiles is a waste of resources, I'm afraid.
They are an evil that cannot be rehabilitated.
Please forgive me for posting yet again on this subject, but I may have had a little wine and a revelatory thought (jes' sayin' is all ...).
The probation officer who judged that this piece of offal could be released early should be obliged to serve the rest of the sentence in lieu.
This, I feel, would have a mysteriously sobering effect on the community of Great Forgiving Souls who work for the Labour Party.
Someone recommending two people be released early with a subsequent reoffence by both of them would have to serve both their remaining sentences.
I can't see a flaw here. Can anyone else?
- Anonymousette
your suggestion was discussed among the shadow cabinet in summer 2002.
it was rejected by the senior MPs including david davis and oliver letwin.
I've got no problem with trying to rehabilitate prisoners with education etc. Everybody should be given a second chance. But two chances is enough. Thereafter it should be maximum security, maximum discomfort (within the bounds of humanity).
Personally I'd make a first time prisoner's stay a progression of learning experiences. The first phase would be a "boot camp" type environment where instant obedience and good behaviour would be inculcated. After passing this a con could then be transferred to a prison where he could earn the right to privileges through good behaviour and education. The final phase would be designed to ease his transfer back into society.
Recidivists should be banged up in what the septics call Super-Max prisons. Here life would be very regimented and privileges few and hard earned. Rehabilitation should be a secondary concern.
As for someone convicted of what were once capital crimes - C-Max for the rest of his natural born life. 23 hours a day locked in a cell, alone. One hour of exercise in a walled yard. No visits, limited reading material, no tv or radio. If we haven't got the stomach to kill the buggers then at least they should be removed from human society completely.
Oh and I'd get rid of the concept of parole as well. If you've been convicted and the judges says five years; you serve five years. I'd also say that bad behaviour would automatically earn a con extra time inside.
RM
Life should mean life. When we mean life, rehabilitation isn't important. We should offshore these prison sentences. This would massively reduce costs and would create a more effective deterrent/punishment than our current system - also allow the victim/victim's families to choose the location.
Anonymous - Thank you! I didn't know that. I never had any respect for Letwin or Cameron anyway. Making parole officers serve the sentences of people they released who reoffended while on parole would concentrate minds and render the citizenry safer in their beds. It's harsh, but it's also harsh to be murdered or raped by someone wrongly allowed out on parole.
Remittance Man - I endorse what you write 100%. One chance at rehabilitation. If it doesn't work because the offender is too moronic, lazy or hostile to recognise a chance when it is handed to him, that is his responsibility. So are the consequences. It is wrong to remove the consequences of violent and criminal behaviour from the criminal. Recidivists should receive what they have earned: hard time and that would mean everything you list.
Prison in Britain is seen as a reasonable risk. It's not too bad - TV, magazines, exercise, drugs. And they know it's not going to last long. Five years in solitary for 23 hours a day with no TV and limited reading materials is genuine punishment. And if they're in solitary, that means they had their chance at rehabilitation and didn't bother.
The Shadow Cabinet was wrong to reject the idea of making parole officers serve the time of prisoners who offend while on parole. It is solely their responsibility.
- Anonymousette
Remittance Man - I also concur in getting rid of the idea of parole. It's predicated on "good behaviour" - but "good behaviour" ought to be the norm. You're in prison because you had to be separated from society. Prison is more powerful than you are. Behave yourself or be punished.
Behave yourself and be rewarded is peverse.
- Anonymousette
Remittance Man - I also concur in getting rid of the idea of parole. It's predicated on "good behaviour" - but "good behaviour" ought to be the norm. You're in prison because you had to be separated from society. Prison is more powerful than you are. Behave yourself or be punished.
Behave yourself and be rewarded is peverse.
- Anonymousette
I apologise for the double post. The comments section was down for a while. I apologise especially as I am going to post again:
Witheshaw, that's brilliant! Offshore prison facilities! Why not? And yes, it would save the taxpayer vast sums and make some enterprising people in other countries a fortune. I see nothing but good coming from this. Privatised, offshore purpose-built prisons for long term offenders. I can't see a downside.
- Anonymousette
G Eagle - and a lot of them are people just out of prison having served a supposed life sentence for a previous offence of murder.
Does anyone know of any right-wing UK law and order websites? Call me a Tory but this is the issue that motivates me the most.
Because Labour don't actually believe in punishment, they won't build any prisons - we have horrendous overcrowding resulting in a failure to rehabilitate ( see record reoffending rates). It takes 1.5 hours to check 200 people and their luggage on to a jet, but 5 hours to process an arrest in the UK. Our criminal justice system is paralysed - but we as Tories need to be arguing for massive and effective change. Peter Hitchens contribution to the debate is the best to date. I want to tell the world what we can do differently...Any ideas?
Witheshaw - I wish I knew of some sites because your ideas are sound.
It might be useful to drop Peter Hitchens a note, though. And Richard Littlejohn. Between them, they have a huge platform and they are both lively enough thinkers to see the merits in this idea. William Rees-Mogg might be interested enough to address it in a column. I think your best hope is to get the idea out into the common consciousness thus legitimising it as a realistic route.
I'm not up to date enough on British MPs, but some of them, surely, are sound on reforming the justice system. Why not write to Michael Howard and see what he thinks?
I think your idea of offshoring prisons is brilliant. It gets the prisoners right away from their support system and their drug suppliers and- best - the toxic British "liberal" establishment.
It would provide a means of making a fortune for entrepreneurs in countries like India. A Chinese entrepreneur might be interested, or a businessman in PNG.
I really believe this is an idea whose time has come. Everyone wins.
Post a Comment