MoJ abolishes automatic early release for child rape and terrorism offences

Considering a lot of the "terrorists" in the UK tend to be innocents who were set up/entrapped and locked up for nothing, I can't say I'm pleased.

Child rapists/killers, Murderers (unless there are compelling mitigating circumstances) should be locked up for life without the possibility of parole imo.

I'd even say in extreme cases (Multiple murders, torture) they should be executed if guilt was 100%.

I mean currently people get.. what is it something like 12-14 years for murder. Makes me sick.

The thing is, the justice system isn't set up to look for 100% guilt. People get convicted if the jury as a whole are convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that a person committed the offence, and even then you occasionally get circumstances where there are freak explanations or miscarriages of justice. The only time you can really be 100% certain of guilt is when they plead guilty, and pleading guilty is supposed to mitigate your sentence anyway.



The classic mistake here is to equate the 12-14 years for murder that you sometimes hear about, with the brutal killers you get on the news and things. The vast majority of people who kill will get over 20 years in prison as a minimum. It's only really where there are extreme mitigating circumstances that you'd get as little as 12 years - e.g. kids that are young enough that they barely know what they are doing, circumstantial pressure, and other things of that nature. Euthanasia as well - as it stands it's still murder to kill someone when they've asked you to do it. The people that get that short a sentence for murder aren't the cold-blooded killers of fantasy, indeed a lot of them you'd be reluctant to say what they did was 'murder' in the common usage of the word.

As for terrorism.. i believe terrorism is a lot rarer than the government/media would have you believe.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Oh yeah of course, proving 100% guilt is next to impossible, that's why overall i am against the death penalty. But i mean say you had a guy, who made multiple videos of himself torturing and killing people, bodies in his house, DNA everywhere etc etc, pretty much 100% guilt, in that kind of case i would be for the death penalty, but of course reality isn't that simple.

About the 12-14 in prison - You say this, but i saw this video the other day, CCTV of 3 men leaving a club walking down the street, they approach two other men, one sitting on a bike lock thingy with his back to the three men, the other chatting to him.

Out of no where one of the three men sucker punches the guy sitting down with his back to him, the rest of the men continue to punch and kick both men, then one of the three men stabs one of the guys through the heart killing him moments later, and stabs the other guy, while he is down on the floor, once in the stomach and twice in the back, he survived.

The two victims were out for one of their 21st bdays, completely unmotivated murder.

Guy who did the stabbing - 15 years, i'd put money on him being out in 12.

15 years for murdering a 21 year old in cold blood utterly unprovoked.

It's not a unique case.

I'd be interested to seem some official statistics on the sentence served on average for murder.

Haven't managed to find any official statistics, but I have found this: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_-_mandatory_life_sentences_in_murder_cases/

It's the CPS guidance on sentencing for murder, and it basically starts with one of 3 or 4 starting points depending on the age of the offender and their motivation behind the crime, and then other aggravating and mitigating factors are added and taken away from this. The absolute minimum starting point in each case is 15 years, so as I said earlier it's only in very unusual cases that you're going to see sentences under 15 years and I don't think it's unrealistic to say that the majority will be over 20. With regard to the case you've mentioned above, the guidelines say that where a knife is used the minimum starting point is 25 years, so I have no idea what happened there for them to get off so lightly - maybe they were able to plead a partial defence and have their charge reduced to manslaughter or something. I can't say.

And to be honest, it's the cases like that, where the sentences are exceptionally unusual, that are going to make the news - there will be a lot of murderers whose sentences aren't really mentioned just because they seem appropriate for the crime.