Ask yaself this. If it was that judges grandson that happened to you think they'd have got the same time?
I agree mate... there is the case of the 20 something year old geezer and who kidnapped his ex by bundling her into a van with the help of his mate. She fell out of the van on a motorway, has had "life changing" injuries (normally means a brain injury, or unable to walk etc) and the ****s were given 7.5 years and 21 months...like WTF?
well in the section of sentencing guidelines for offences against the person the closest i could find was Ill-treatment or neglect, contrary to section 44 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and that carries a maximum sentence of 5 years .
Yeah...would like to say it was an unbelievably sentence but sadly it ain't...particularly in cases of domestic violence or rape etc
too true . at least with this one the end sentence might at least get a little closer to what they should get .
I wonder how much the sentencing guidelines are influenced by the number of prisons or the space within them to house more prisoners? We seem to be desperately short of prison space. This isn't simply a case of building more prisons although that is part of the solution BUT not in itself the answer alone. We need more space for those that carry out abhorrent crime like sexual abuse including rape, and murder so they can serve the tougher, longer sentences they deserve. But ironically we need to reduce numbers in prison to allow for that also, and that means reducing the number of petty criminals (often serving less than 2 years) re-offending and ending up back in prison over and over again. This is clogging up the spaces for more serious criminals AND also often turning non-violent criminals into more dangerous violent ones which only exacerbates the situation. That requires education, and health, drug and community programmes in targeted areas for petty offenders and also youth and children in custody so we get them out of the prison system.
I think you are ultimately saying that we need to take a more liberal approach to sentences? That's something I agree with. The vast majority of folk being sent to prison are addicts whether that be drink, drugs, gambling or anything else. I'd prefer us to help these people instead of criminalising them. The Netherlands don't jail these people, they place them in residential care and rehabilitate them. This has been proven over time to be effective in reducing reoffending. Instead of building more prisons which is not the answer, imo. We should be spending money on youth intervention schemes and building residential and rehabilitation centres. Keep jail for serious offenders.
Yeh definitely. I don't know if by doing that it would mean we won't need to build more prisons. We may still need to, but that can't be the first (or only) thing we think of as a solution. Community support, drug/health rehabilitation, youth scheme intervention all are better options and would free up plenty of prison places. I'd also add that they're needed to help prevent people becoming criminals in the first place. The original point was to do with lenient sentencing though. Is it to do with what seems to me to be the pressures on the prison system? Judges, DPP, politicians all acutely aware of this when considering sentencing? Even just the cost of keeping someone in prison - I think I remember reading it's something like £40k per prisoner per year (not sure on that figure, just rings a bell). If those ARE influencers in sentencing for serious crimes then that's really not on. We need to resolve that indirectly through the above methods.
100% this I used to work in mental health. Drug and alcohol abuse, mental health and offending often go hand in hand. Not saying if you've got mental health problems you're naturally a drug taking offender, but a huge proportion of offending is linked to drug and alcohol. Which in turn often leads to homelessness. I used to work with blokes who'd tell me that when they'd finished chatting with me, they were going to go and nick some alcohol from a supermarket, if they got away with it, they'd have a bottle of vodka for the night and one to sell, if they got caught, they'd end up in a cell for the night with a bed and a hot cup of tea. That was viewed as a win win situation Tragic in the long term
Never understood jailing people cos they are addicted. Like you said...makes more sense financially and morally to use the money to help them overcome their sddictions. Back in the 90s I worked with a 16 or 17 Yr old who constantly nicked motors... instead of sending him to a young offenders place they offered him a course at a garage making bangers for banger racing. He got to make and repair them during the week and smash them up on Sundays. He stopped nicking cars cos he had something to do and to lose. Much better use of money and miles cheaper to.
Most political parties have gone with the mantra of 'lock em up'. Egged on by the likes of the Daily Mail, who'd rather talk about benefits cheats than bent Tory donors dodging their £100m tax bill. So there's a perception that the electorate want to see criminals 'punished for the crime' even if it's petty offending, where being sent to prison has been proven not to work. The reality is that it just created a revolving door syndrome where like you, Saff and Treble have said, that offending is often tied up with drug, alcohol, abuse, homelessness. So punishing people is never going to fix the problem, it's just going to kick people when they are down, when what they really need is help As mentioned above, the whole substance abuse issue needs to be taken out of the criminal justice sphere and placed in the health and social care field. Prison should be for dangerous offenders who pose a risk to others and need removing from the streets.
This **** never seems to end. Man found guilty of murdering partner's two-year-old son who died with 41 rib fractures Kyrell Matthew was found in a cardiac arrest at his home on October 2019. His mother, Phylesia Shirley has been found guilty of manslaughter. https://news.sky.com/story/kyrell-m...d-son-who-died-with-41-rib-fractures-12556839 Women need to check the ****s they're letting into their kids lives ffs.
