Off Topic The Politics Thread

Interesting.

 

I have wondered the same. And why other countries in the EU/EEA seem to adopt their own practices (restrictive or not) on immigration without apparent problem from the EU governing bodies, and then they get changed with new national government's.

 

Why would you be released if you had a life sentence?

 

yes

 

If you have a criminal record it's very hard (if not impossible) to get to live and work in Australia. If people are murderers they should not be allowed in this country to live and work. It might sound hard to a lot of yoghurt knitters but tough luck. I don't know why KooPeeArr keeps mentioning criminals in this country when he knows i am talking about criminals from the EU.
Oh well I don't need to keep arguing a point. As soon as we get our boards sorted we won't have to worry about these EU criminals.

 

My point wasn't that difficult to grasp. I understood yours in relation to new laws made and I addressed that.

Happy to leave it there with you although Goldie gave me a solid reply so I will respond to him and then leave the subject.

 

A fair point and it has got me thinking, so thank you (I don't do it enough).

In that case it would depend on the circumstances of each.

If similar laws applied in all countries then each offender would have to serve their time before being allowed to move abroad (by consequence of the terms of their contracts).

If the laws in the country were more lenient then it would be more alarming. If they were harsher then less so.

If you were talking about a group of immigrants without knowing any are criminals then, even without disclosures from their home countries then it would still depend on the crime rates of those countries to assess possible impacts. Even then we'd need to benchmark crimes and their punishments against our own.

It's academic given the promise of strengthened border control although it would suggest we should slam our doors shut to Costa Ricans due to their crime rate but let in relatively more Middle Eastern Arabs* and Japanese (without checking, I suspect the crime rates would be lower).

*Not to everyone's taste I suspect.

That is a simplification though.

 

Most life sentences in the UK are not whole life tarrifs. Instead, convicted offenders are released after serving their minimum term and are free under a conditional licence which usually endures for the rest of their lives

 

Don't confuse yourself. It's a simple enough point. It's not yoghurt knitting to point out the obvious. It was not the EU which was to blame for the inability of the Government to prevent Muslim radicals coming to this country or the inability to expel them once they had started to preach their poison. It's the price we all pay for living in a free society. Perhaps you would prefer a more authoritarian regime or a police state?

It is also perfectly logical to most people I suspect that a criminal is a criminal. Where he comes from has nothing to do with it. You're not Nigel Farage in disguise are you?

 

Zzzzzzzzz You really are becoming boring now. Every time I seem to write a post I have you pulling at my trousers
I don't know why? Did I prove you wrong on something once and you can't take it? Get over it fella and move on. You know nothing about me or my political views. To compare me with frogface Farage is as wide of the mark as your boring posts.

 

Fair enough. Usual cop out from you when someone points out that occasionally, not always, you talk utter cobblers.

 

Thank you.

 

In that case, why bother with border checks for criminal convictions at all? Are they a waste of time in your view?

 

Not at all. But the disagreement with Ellers was his dumping the blame for issues raised by human rights legislation on to the EU. When we get back effective control of our borders from the EU the problem of undesirable immigrants won't magically disappear. When they come by boat or through the rest of the world on commercial airlines with forged documents. Border checks always sound fine in principle but when was the last time you were actually asked any searching questions or more than a cursory glance was given to you or your passport at any border check. Even with the scanners at UK airports when it can't read your photo all that happens is that a customs official apologises for the inconvenience, gives it a cursory glance and lets you through. Security is only as through as the person n the desk wants to be and 99% of the time they don't even make a token effort.

In that sense the honest answer to your question is that very often border checks are indeed a waste of time but not for the reason you may have attributed to me.

An open question for you and anybody who may have inside knowledge. Do criminal convictions get recorded on the passport or visa documents? I assume you have none and therefore won't have any personal knowledge of it but some of our brethren might.

 

With the UK not being in Schengen I don't see leaving the EU (or not) has anything to do with UK border security. As the UK is not in Schengen, border controls are in place for any non-UK passport holder entering the UK. They could be improved, or slackened come to that, today. Leaving the EU has no impact on that.

 

The UK are much better at recording and maintaining records of convictions, than most other EU member states which means that an English ex-offender will have less chance of getting a particular job in England, than a German or Dutchman who has committed the same offences because the records over there have been erased and thus they appear to be conviction free.

Here's an article from the Daily Telegraph in 2012. I don't know whether things have improved in the last four years:

EU migrants with criminal convictions get jobs denied to British workers under new criminal records regime
Migrants with criminal convictions will be able to get jobs denied to British workers under a new EU-wide criminal records regime being adopted this month.

British jobseekers with minor criminal convictions are being put at a disadvantage because of a new regime of criminal records checks Photo: PA

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By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

11:45AM BST 06 Apr 2012



In Britain, even the most minor convictions for student pranks or breaches of the peace can come back to haunt jobseekers years later if they apply for positions as teachers, policemen or other “sensitive” roles.

But migrants from EU countries applying for the same jobs will be given a clean bill of health, even if they have similar convictions, because other countries either wipe the slate clean or do not keep records of low-level offences.

The problem also applies to British workers trying to get jobs in other EU countries.

Justice campaigners have described the situation as “scandalous” and have asked MEPs and the Home Office to address the issue as a matter of urgency.

The problem arose after Britain signed up to a trial of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), a new system of sharing criminal records between EU member states which is being permanently adopted this month.

Britain’s rigorous Criminal Records Bureau regime means that even convictions classed as “spent” remain on file for life and can be thrown up during background checks by potential employers anywhere in the EU.

In stark contrast, countries such as Belgium and Germany routinely destroy after just three years records of convictions resulting in prison sentences of less than six months or fines of less than 500 euros.

Other EU countries have laws which prevent employers being told about spent or minor convictions, and in some countries, such as the Netherlands, fines of less than 100 euros for minor crimes are not treated as criminal convictions for the purposes of CRB checks.

As well as the disparity in the way records are kept, EU countries have wildly varying sentences for different offences. In Germany, someone who indecently assaults a child can be given a sentence of as little as six months, whereas in the UK the starting point is two years.

The pilot scheme began under Labour in 2006, when ACPO set up the UK Central Authority for the Exchange of Criminal Records.

Since then, several other EU members have set up similar bodies, and by last month the UK was able to share criminal records with Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.

The remaining EU member states have to join the ECRIS scheme when it goes EU-wide this month.

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats’ MEP group said: “We have been alerted to this and we are taking a growing interest in it.

“It’s something we need to look at very carefully because there is a concern that we end up discriminating against our own people.

“We have to find a way of avoiding inadvertently penalising British citizens by putting them at a disadvantage against other EU citizens when they are applying for jobs.”

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, has already promised to scale back access to CRB checks after the number carried out in 2011 came close to three million.

More than 2,000 councils, firms and even landlords’ groups are currently entitled to carry out CRB checks on jobseekers and potential tenants.

Under the ECRIS regime, requests for background checks between one member state and another are sent back with code numbers for different types of offence.

Critics say the system is over-simplified and means that a £10 fine for stealing a traffic cone as a student prank in the UK would come up as a conviction for theft, regardless of the seriousness of the offence.

The same offence in many other EU countries would not appear at all on an ECRIS check.

Nick Pickles, director of the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said: "The amount of information retained by the British police is hugely disproportionate compared to other European countries and this system will mean the serious flaws of the CRB system are exported to haunt British citizens wherever they may be in Europe.

"The huge amount of data held, often without any criminal conviction, has been a civil liberties concern for many years and yet the Home Office continue to fight to retain details of every minor misdemeanor indefinitely.

"Now British citizens are suffering for the hysteria of policies that have done little to protect the public while other Europeans are able to get on with their lives."

 

Away from Europe, anyone else following the inauguration today? A mob of youth are rioting in DC and have just seen footage of shop windows being smashed. All rather too late really but still interesting to see. Unsettled times ahead I fear.

 

This is basically what I said yesterday in that EU criminals can enter and work here. I then got the usual 'remoaners' either changing the point or coming up with something completely different.
I have learned from this thread that you have a few that won't accept any counter argument. Shame but hey ho.

 

Typical SKY/BBC and other news outlets showing that. Just been watching Sky going to places where there aren't many people. Always showing or saying negative things. People forget that Obama had demonstrations as well but that was not shown. I wonder why?
All those muppets smashing windows and tipping bins over has nothing to do with Trump. How could smashing a toyshop window be connected to Trump? I hope the police go in heavy and crack a few heads as they are just vandals. muppets

 

Agree. Given that democracy has spoken and he was legitimately elected in, they come across as spoilt kids who didn't get what they wanted so are throwing a big strop. Still bizarre the person with the most votes is not being sworn in today but I guess that is the system they have chosen.