[genia]

im writing this angry at just how perplexed, flawed and stupid our justice system is. We often pride ourselves on a fair trial and fair justice, but some of these sentences our attrocious. Im not sure whether this is an attribute of liberal britain, but we really need a backbone and start handing some proper sentences out.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views...0252-31066452/

In this case the youth walked into the shop with intention to steal money from the till, after blowing all his money away on gambling. The shopkeeper resisted and it is quite clearly seen on the camera the knife being directly plunged into the shopkeepers jugular where he bled to death. The verdict was manslaughter and Sam Harrison could be released within 4 years. When really it should be a life sentence for murder,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lant-food.html

This woman walks away from court free with a 12 month suspended sentence after her child eat a marijuana crop she was growing in the house. She neglected the child for a further 11 days before he died. The obvious glee with the sentence was shown as she is seen smiling leaving the court. The child would have been in agony as he died.

These are just sentences from the past week and im worried with the current trend that criminals will not be punished appropiately.

Also on a seperate note the treatment that prisoners get in jail is incredible. Catered food, leisure areas, gym, recreational areas and televison. Are we meant to be punishing these people or rewarding them. I guarantee some of these facilities will be better than any council flat some of them have come from.

A sterner approach to crime in general is needed, one where we are not worried to clampdown when neccesary.

[OMGWTFBBQ]

I recommend that everybody who comments in this thread spends a day in the public gallery at your local crown court as soon as is convenient.

Watching a judge as he sentences is a real eye opener.

[122025278]

We send plenty of people to prison, if you offend someone, you go to prison. We must prioritise you know.

[genia]

(Original post by 122025278)
We send plenty of people to prison, if you offend someone, you go to prison. We must prioritise you know.

I agree we need to prioritise, its ridiculous how someone who has a drunken rant on a train gets jailed, while someone whose child dies quite clearly from a parents negligence gets away with a suspended sentence. Obviously the person with the drunken rant needs punished, but the sort of punishment has to be accordingly distrubuted.

[Carecup]

(Original post by genia)
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views...0252-31066452/

In this case the youth walked into the shop with intention to steal money from the till, after blowing all his money away on gambling. The shopkeeper resisted and it is quite clearly seen on the camera the knife being directly plunged into the shopkeepers jugular where he bled to death. The verdict was manslaughter and Sam Harrison could be released within 4 years. When really it should be a life sentence for murder,

I do like it when people who don't know the law try and do commentaries like this.

No manslaughter is not restricted to accidental death at all. What clearly happened in this case was that there was some large mitigating factor that had the effect of reducing a charge of murder to a charge of manslaughter if it was accepted by the jury, which in this case it was.

Oh and another thing, the 10 years tariff that the judge put on him, is likely to be the minimum, but sensationalist journalism doesn't account for 'small details' such as that hence we don't know either way.

[geetar]

Ooh, the difference between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Thanks for reminding me that I should be revising for my exams instead of wasting time on here, OP

[ANARCHY__]

(Original post by genia)
im writing this angry at just how perplexed, flawed and stupid our justice system is. We often pride ourselves on a fair trial and fair justice, but some of these sentences our attrocious. Im not sure whether this is an attribute of liberal britain, but we really need a backbone and start handing some proper sentences out.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views...0252-31066452/

In this case the youth walked into the shop with intention to steal money from the till, after blowing all his money away on gambling. The shopkeeper resisted and it is quite clearly seen on the camera the knife being directly plunged into the shopkeepers jugular where he bled to death. The verdict was manslaughter and Sam Harrison could be released within 4 years. When really it should be a life sentence for murder,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lant-food.html

This woman walks away from court free with a 12 month suspended sentence after her child eat a marijuana crop she was growing in the house. She neglected the child for a further 11 days before he died. The obvious glee with the sentence was shown as she is seen smiling leaving the court. The child would have been in agony as he died.

These are just sentences from the past week and im worried with the current trend that criminals will not be punished appropiately.

Also on a seperate note the treatment that prisoners get in jail is incredible. Catered food, leisure areas, gym, recreational areas and televison. Are we meant to be punishing these people or rewarding them. I guarantee some of these facilities will be better than any council flat some of them have come from.

A sterner approach to crime in general is needed, one where we are not worried to clampdown when neccesary.

A justice system can't be perplexed.

Are we meant to be punishing these people or rewarding them.

We're meant to be rehabilitating them and making sure they don't reoffend.

[Dr. Von Nostrand]

Making sweeping generalisations on our legal system based on two stories is very sill and quoting sources from a Liverpudlian paper and The Mail doesn't help your cause

[genia]

(Original post by ANARCHY__)
A justice system can't be perplexed.



We're meant to be rehabilitating them and making sure they don't reoffend.

making sure they don't reoffend is one thing but it is almost attractive to go to prison now. If your on the streets, think ending up in prison is better for your wellbeing.

[genia]

(Original post by Dr. Von Nostrand)
Making sweeping generalisations on our legal system based on two stories is very sill and quoting sources from a Liverpudlian paper and The Mail doesn't help your cause

you will find the same stories in the guardian.

[ANARCHY__]

(Original post by genia)
making sure they don't reoffend is one thing but it is almost attractive to go to prison now. If your on the streets, think ending up in prison is better for your wellbeing.

So you think people on the streets start thinking it's a viable option to go into prisons because of this? Have you ever been into a multitude of prisons by the way? Or seen a large cross section of them?

[Captain Haddock]

(Original post by genia)
im writing this angry at just how perplexed, flawed and stupid our justice system is. We often pride ourselves on a fair trial and fair justice, but some of these sentences our attrocious. Im not sure whether this is an attribute of liberal britain, but we really need a backbone and start handing some proper sentences out.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views...0252-31066452/

In this case the youth walked into the shop with intention to steal money from the till, after blowing all his money away on gambling. The shopkeeper resisted and it is quite clearly seen on the camera the knife being directly plunged into the shopkeepers jugular where he bled to death. The verdict was manslaughter and Sam Harrison could be released within 4 years. When really it should be a life sentence for murder,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lant-food.html

This woman walks away from court free with a 12 month suspended sentence after her child eat a marijuana crop she was growing in the house. She neglected the child for a further 11 days before he died. The obvious glee with the sentence was shown as she is seen smiling leaving the court. The child would have been in agony as he died.

These are just sentences from the past week and im worried with the current trend that criminals will not be punished appropiately.

Also on a seperate note the treatment that prisoners get in jail is incredible. Catered food, leisure areas, gym, recreational areas and televison. Are we meant to be punishing these people or rewarding them. I guarantee some of these facilities will be better than any council flat some of them have come from.

A sterner approach to crime in general is needed, one where we are not worried to clampdown when neccesary.

Well, I see the Daily Mail's obvious attempt to directly link cannabis to the death of this child worked like a charm on you. Some people are so impressionable. Or maybe you just can't read. Whatever.

[xiyangliu]

Our police force has no authorities ... That's the issue...


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[Mufasaa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...l/nn1page1.stm

It's old but hasn't changed much, we've got the highest prison population in western Europe by pure numbers and per capita, and the 7th highest per capita in the world. The countries above us worldwide all have (as far as I'm aware) a higher crime rate too. Stricter sentencing seems to in fact add to a problem of crime instead of prevent it, yes there's other factors, such as poverty, but the link between high sentencing rates/lengths cannot be ignored.

[Cannotbelieveit]

It's a combination of political correctness and human rights gone mad.

Too many people involved in minor incidents go to jail, they should be issued with hefty fines instead.

The bad cases such as in the OP should go to jail for longer.

[xiyangliu]

(Original post by Cannotbelieveit)
It's a combination of political correctness and human rights gone mad.

Too many people involved in minor incidents go to jail, they should be issued with hefty fines instead.

The bad cases such as in the OP should go to jail for longer.

And apparently it's quite relaxing in jail, sky TV descent food ? Wtf these ppl deserve to b bum raped like in USA !

[Stevo112]

With regards to those two stories;


With regards to Sam Harrison (ah heck I might have seen him in work once or twice if he is a gambling addict, I can't wait till they release a mugshot!); We have not seen the video for ourselves and so it would be crazy to rule out his manslaughter plea on an internet forum. The article mentions that he made a forward motion so maybe it was murder, but from my own experiences of working in a bookmakers in Liverpool when people rob you they NEVER intend to use the knife, they just want the cash. This Sam Harrison chap has not gone in that shop with the intention of killing the shopkeeper in my opinion. We do not know what the judge and jury knew. I'm not justifying this Sam bloke but I do not think that we should assume that the manslaughter sentence is a joke simply because the papers tell us that.

The second one mentioned that she had another child and that "He [the judge] said reports showed that she did not pose any risk to her children and rehabilitation would help her to become a 'proper, appropriate, satisfactory, at least adequate parent in the future'.".

I see that as simply a judge making a decision which weighed in a lot more factors. It isn't my place to contend the decision made but from what has been said it seems that this sort of thing will be avoided in the future. This woman smiling is sure to piss people off but ultimately we do not know of the full situation and how things may be different to that of the newspaper reports.


Not defending either of them, rather i'm defending the principles of a fair and just court system which newspapers seem to overlook.

[plimsolls]

(Original post by OMGWTFBBQ)
I recommend that everybody who comments in this thread spends a day in the public gallery at your local crown court as soon as is convenient.

Watching a judge as he sentences is a real eye opener.

Why?

[Altaïr]

(Original post by Stevo112)
With regards to those two stories;


With regards to Sam Harrison (ah heck I might have seen him in work once or twice if he is a gambling addict, I can't wait till they release a mugshot!); We have not seen the video for ourselves and so it would be crazy to rule out his manslaughter plea on an internet forum. The article mentions that he made a forward motion so maybe it was murder, but from my own experiences of working in a bookmakers in Liverpool when people rob you they NEVER intend to use the knife, they just want the cash. This Sam Harrison chap has not gone in that shop with the intention of killing the shopkeeper in my opinion. We do not know what the judge and jury knew. I'm not justifying this Sam bloke but I do not think that we should assume that the manslaughter sentence is a joke simply because the papers tell us that.

The second one mentioned that she had another child and that "He [the judge] said reports showed that she did not pose any risk to her children and rehabilitation would help her to become a 'proper, appropriate, satisfactory, at least adequate parent in the future'.".

I see that as simply a judge making a decision which weighed in a lot more factors. It isn't my place to contend the decision made but from what has been said it seems that this sort of thing will be avoided in the future. This woman smiling is sure to piss people off but ultimately we do not know of the full situation and how things may be different to that of the newspaper reports.


Not defending either of them, rather i'm defending the principles of a fair and just court system which newspapers seem to overlook.

Should have the right to kill your attacker, if you are being robbed.

[Stevo112]

(Original post by Altaïr)
Should have the right to kill your attacker, if you are being robbed.

so if I kill you, all i'd have to prove is that you were trying to rob me? cool