Some Governments Never Learn

We all know that some governments can be pig-headed and never seem to learn the lessons of the past. Well, that is certainly true of the British government currently headed by David Cameron.

Sudbury Open Prison

I read with great surprise yesterday that almost 1,000 prisoners had escaped from just one prison, HMP Sudbury since 1995. These include a murderer, burglars, men convicted of assault and fraudsters. Of these, twenty-four have never been recaptured because Derbyshire Police have only now released photo’s of the escapees asking the public for help in catching them. In the intervening years their looks will have substantially changed so the chances of recapturing them are slim.

But really, 1,000 prisoners from just one prison, it makes you wonder what the total from all prisons is?

This report begs the question why was Mark Mackenner, who is serving a fifteen year sentence, sent to an open prison in the first place. Our open prisons are full of people like killers and serial rapists who should be kept in maximum security prisons, and not in low security prisons like Sudbury where they can just walk out through the front gate. There is something very wrong with our prison system.

To me it seems that we have become so lax in our handling of criminals, that it’s a wonder we bother putting them in prison at all. Behind this fiasco of course is the Goody Goody Brigade and the Human Rights Laws that are strangling proper justice in Britain.

Prisoners ‘Cell’ – More Luxury Than Many Families!

Because of these people we now have to send prisoners to so-called ‘Open Prisons’, and allow them unsupervised days in the local community ‘to allow them to adjust to entering society again’ when near the end of their sentence. At this point the inevitable happens and they do a runner!

This practice may be good for some criminals, but the one obvious solution is missing. Has the Justice Ministry never heard of Tagging?

Day Release – Tag ‘Em!

In my view, no prisoner should ever take part in such a scheme unless he is willing to be electronically tagged so the authorities know exactly where he is at any given moment. Should any prisoner remove the tag, alarms will go off and the police immediately sent to the last known location to track him down. Any prisoner who does this should never be given the chance of day release again and be sent back to a maximum security prison to serve the rest of his sentence.

The big problem here is that once again the Goody Goody Brigade and the Human Rights nutters will complain that tagging infringes their Human Rights. Human Rights or not it would inevitably be cheaper than spending thousands of tax payer pounds in efforts to catch these runaways.

All these nonsensical rules about the handling of criminals has made us ultra-soft on crime, which I believe is one of  the reasons why criminality is so rife in our society. Instead of making the punishment so hard that no-one would ever want to go back to prison we handle them with cotton-wool so as not to infringe their Human Rights!

The upshot of this approach means they just go out and do again what got them in prison in the first place. There is no deterrent in Justice today!

I strongly believe we should withdraw from all European Community Laws and rules that infringe on our sovereign justice system and get back to the old standards that have served our country well for generations. Only then will we be able to treat criminals the way they should be treated, and make them less likely to re-offend once they have served their sentence. These so-called ‘Open Prisons’ are a joke in anyone’s language and should only be available for inmates during the last three months of their sentence, during which time they would be tagged whenever they go out into the community.

If the government do not make some hard choices very soon, we might as well turn all the prisons into youth clubs or old folks homes and give up on meting out justice.

Roy.

The Cat Fight – May Purrs While Clark Bites

Not for the first time Ken Clark (Justice Ministry) is in a ‘spat’ with a fellow Cabinet colleague, and this time he had Theresa May (Home Secretary) in his sights.

Theresa May At The Conference

This last week has seen the news filled with reports of Ken hitting out at her over remarks she made on The Human Rights Act and deportation at the Conservative Party Conference. As usual, he is totally out of touch with the mainstream of opinion among the public when it comes to criminality and the deportation of undesirables.

Theresa May speech extract:

http://youtu.be/LWas2lX-E_k

Theresa May made a point during her speech that too many criminals and  terrorist suspects were successfully avoiding jail sentences and/or deportation using the Human Rights Act, in particular Article 8 which states:

Article 8: The Right to Privacy

(1) Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The article itself does not prohibit sentencing of criminals and terror suspects, but unscrupoulus lawyers have twisted its meaning over the years to mean something totally different than was originally intended. Judges too appear to be afraid of the Act insofar as they appear to always err on the side of caution when making  judgments in such cases.

To any normal person, the key phrase would be “in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country”.

This does not imply that a confessed criminal can get off because he has five children who depend on him, or a terrorist can avoid deportation because he has family in the UK. 

Ken's Not Happy

In the days following the speech, Ken Clark was obviously feeling ‘hot under the coller’ and let loose with a string of jibes at the Home Secretary about the particular reference she made to a cat being responsible for preventing a terror suspect from being deported. He refused to believe that such a case existed.

Ken Clark Reaction:

 http://youtu.be/KdJPCG5RQos

Naturally enough, this whole business was accompanied by a whole string of ‘cat’ jokes, but it took the Daily Telegraph newspaper to finally unearth the ‘cat story’.

In 2008, a Bolivian deportee was allowed to stay “because he had been with his ‘boyfriend’ for four years, and together they owned a cat called Maya”. The Judge, James Devittie, concluded under the Section 8 plea, seperating the man from his friend and cat after four years would cause him ’emotional trauma’, and the cat reinforced this to a major extent. The judge spoke of “the increasing significance of pets” in many countries when making such decisions.

After this little ‘gem’ appeared on the front pages, you would expect Ken to retire to his corner with egg on his face, but not our Ken, he is a cat fighter after all.

Theresa May is campaigning for the abandonment of The Human Rights Charter, and to some extent I can go along with that, BUT, in the case of Article Eight, it is not the rule that is at fault, it is the interpretation. Using the Act (the above quotation) correctly does not mean judges have to bow down to it and release criminals with a family, or terrorist suspects with a cat.

This is what is currently wrong with our present justice system, the judges are afraid of it,  and it is up to Ken Clark to give the proper leadership and insist that it is interpreted correctly!

Theresa May speech in full.

http://youtu.be/SRDlsguszic

Roy.