Met Police what a JOKE!!

Sorry Gary didn't mean to take the **** but that is so ill informed mate. Standard remission is one third of your sentence. All you have to do is be a good boy and don't rock the boat. That derisory 12 months becomes 8 months, and it's got nothing at all to do with rehabilitaion. I'm pretty sure that in some cases these days they only serve half the sentence.

There haven't been enough prison places in this country for years. Judges are under pressure from above not to impose prison sentences where they can avoid it, basically because when they admit them through the front gate they have to let someone else out the back. Most prisons are seroiusly over-crowded despite all that - bulging at the seams in many cases.
 
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Thing is Darren is that if you think about the issue a little more closely what you have to do is to change something about the individual that made them commit the crime.

If it was theft, maybe its because of lack of employment oppurtunity due to poor education, if it was drugs then cleaning them up from drugs and placing them into a different community is the answer etc etc

I appreciate that someone with such right wing views as yourself is unlikely to understand what I mean, but the actual ills of society are caused by social issues. It would be nice to remedy these ills before they translate into crimes, but the right wing voices won't let this country become as "socialist" as that would require.

Ironically, the right wing attitudes and policies of letting individuals fail if they don't succeed are the root cause of the crime they protest loudly about. Weird when you think about it like that, but hey, lets not let logic get in the way of a fascist police state eh?
 
darrenb said:
And who decides that they are suitably rehabilitated?
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a lot of qualified people who know a million times more about it than Joe Public. Although Joe Public seems to think that reading a sensationalist newspaper qualifies them to be able to criticize people who've done a job for years and years.
 
CT said:
There haven't been enough prison places in this country for years. Judges are under pressure from above not to impose prison sentences where they can avoid it, basically because when they admit them through the front gate they have to let someone else out the back. Most prisons are seroiusly over-crowded despite all that - bulging at the seams in many cases.
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But the same people that are asking for people who shoplift to get life sentences are the first people to stop prisons being being built NIMBY
 
desantnik said:
And thats also why they want to stop sending people to jail for less than 12 months, because there is no time to rehabilitate them.
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I thought it had more to do with preventing overcrowding in prisons? The main reasons for incarceration are to punish the offender for breaking the law, and to protect society by removing him/her and preventing them from re-offending, for the duration of their sentence anyway. Rehabilitation is a controversial theory of punishment, and I'm not sure there's much evidence to support it.

Courts have a fair amount of discretion in any case.

That doesn't of course stop you lot from shouting for shoplifting to be a 75 year jail term and move upwards from there :bonk:
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A bit OTT? I don't think most of us support the idea of the Bloody Code, and unnecessarily harsh punishment for fairly minor offences, but I certainly wouldn't oppose a short prison sentence for habitual shoplifters and troublemakers. Serious, and violent, crimes against the person are another matter. I was a police officer years ago - in two forces - and have spent most of the last 30 years in a field where I've seen too much of the physical and emotional carnage caused by violent crime to have any sympathy for the perpetrators.
 
MartynK said:
The main reasons for incarceration are to punish the offender for breaking the law, and to protect society by removing him/her and preventing them from re-offending, for the duration of their sentence anyway.
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If someone broke into my house and stole something and was caught and sent to prison, the most important thing for me would be that when he was released, he didn't want to rob my house any more (or anyone elses house).


Steve.
 
Gary said:
But the same people that are asking for people who shoplift to get life sentences are the first people to stop prisons being being built NIMBY
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Who's asking for shoplifters to get life? :shrug:

I have to just say that people have this idea of a shoplifter as some little old dear nicking a can of salmon at the local supermarket. There are professional shoplifters who will tell you that they can walk into a large store and get away with walking out with a telly or a huge roll of carpet because all the staff assume it must be OK! Often they work systematically in gangs and they're living a lot higher on the hog than you and I mate!

I don't want to sound too cynical and I'm all for rehabilition which would really solve a lot of the problem, and I'd be the first to admit it sometimes works, but the vast majority keep on re-offending and keep getting locked up. For most of them it ends when they're usually in their 30s or 40s when they can't do the time "standing on their head" any more. but by then there's two or three whole new generations following in their footsteps and so it goes on.

We all know where the real problem lies. A child who is given no sense of values or of right and wrong by his parents will in many cases bring up their own kids in similar fashion, it's a vicious circle which no-one knows how to break. I'm not sure there is a way. :shrug:
 
desantnik said:
Thing is Darren is that if you think about the issue a little more closely what you have to do is to change something about the individual that made them commit the crime.

If it was theft, maybe its because of lack of employment oppurtunity due to poor education, if it was drugs then cleaning them up from drugs and placing them into a different community is the answer etc etc

I appreciate that someone with such right wing views as yourself is unlikely to understand what I mean, but the actual ills of society are caused by social issues. It would be nice to remedy these ills before they translate into crimes, but the right wing voices won't let this country become as "socialist" as that would require.

Ironically, the right wing attitudes and policies of letting individuals fail if they don't succeed are the root cause of the crime they protest loudly about. Weird when you think about it like that, but hey, lets not let logic get in the way of a fascist police state eh?
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Hmm...so Im right wing? How do you know? What makes you such an expert on me?
And I hope you arent implying Im a Fascist neither.
I thought personal insults were not allowed on here?

As I said, i just want a Society that protects us from those that cant be part of normal law abiding public, those that want to murder and rape, those that are such a danger to society that they can never be released from incarceration - whats wrong with that?
 
CT said:
For most of them it ends when they're usually in their 30s or 40s when they can't do the time "standing on their head" any more. .
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They don't consider themselves rehabilitated either, the stock explanation is "Me bottle's gone"
 
Gary said:
a lot of qualified people who know a million times more about it than Joe Public. Although Joe Public seems to think that reading a sensationalist newspaper qualifies them to be able to criticize people who've done a job for years and years.
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What Im saying is that sometimes those qualified people get it wrong.

A few examples:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540632/Convicted-murderers-who-were-set-free-to-kill.html

http://www.chelmsfordweeklynews.co....ation_after_murder_suspect_released_in_error/

Then how about the Professional who worked in Haringey Council, and other high profile child murder\abuse cases?

And I dont read sensationalist newspapers.......
 
Steve Smith said:
If someone broke into my house and stole something and was caught and sent to prison, the most important thing for me would be that when he was released, he didn't want to rob my house any more (or anyone elses house).


Steve.
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Indeed. A "career" burglar regards prison as an occupational hazard, and probably won't be deterred or rehabilitated anyway. For anyone else, there's no more evidence to support the idea of rehabilitation than there is for the shock of doing time acting as a deterrent for the future.

Just as a matter of interest, you can't rob a house. Robbery is basically theft with actual or threatened violence, so you can rob the inhabitants, but not the property!
 
darrenb said:
Hmm...so Im right wing? How do you know? What makes you such an expert on me?
And I hope you arent implying Im a Fascist neither.
I thought personal insults were not allowed on here?
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right wing isnt an insult unless you take it that way
its no more an insult than left wing
its just a description of someone's politics
 
Gary said:
right wing isnt an insult unless you take it that way
its no more an insult than left wing
its just a description of someone's politics
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#

Okay, for the record, I'm neither Right Wing nor a Fascist, nor do I read sensationalist newspapers.
Nice how some people just label someone without foundation, fact nor merit.
 
Gary said:
right wing isnt an insult unless you take it that way
its no more an insult than left wing
its just a description of someone's politics
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Not really. It's just a hangover from the French Revolution that crept in by chance, and doesn't have much legitimacy now. Most people regard the Nazis as right wing, but they were National Socialistswho concentrated draconian powers in the hands of the state and its satraps, in much the same way as most modern western political parties that portray themselves as left of centre, because it implies that they have a greater social conscience than the heartless right wingers.

The true descriptions are libertarian and authoritarian, IMHO.
 
darrenb said:
#

Okay, for the record, I'm neither Right Wing nor a Fascist, nor do I read sensationalist newspapers.
Nice how some people just label someone without foundation, fact nor merit.
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desantnik described your view as right wing

i'm sure you are a complete lefty at heart

hippy%20chic.JPG
 
Gary said:
i would say Nazis are ever so slightly Far Right
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The former USSR and China? Both "Communist" states, and therefore left wing? How did/do they differ from Nazi Germany?
 
sniffs air, smells politics, smells bad :|
 
Just to clear up what some people were asking about sentencing -

Anybody sentenced to prison for less than 4 years is automatically released at the halfway point of their sentence, the remainder to be served on licence out & about. If the sentence was less than 12 months, this time on licence is not supervised by the Probation Service. If it is greater than 12 months, but under 4 years, then they will be monitored for 1/4 of the time of their sentence - e.g someone sentenced to 2 years would be released after 1 year in prison, then monitored actively by Probation for a further 6 months.

For sentences of over 4 years, a prisoner becomes eligible to apply for parole at the halfway stage, but regardless of the Parole Board's decision, they must be released once they have served 75% of their sentence on licence. They will be monitored for the remainder by the Probation Service.

Life sentences have a "minimum term". This means what it says; it does not mean that the prisoner is released automatically once it is served. That decision must be made by a Parole Board, and the prisoner remains on licence for the rest of their life.

However, there are added complications to all this. Home Detention Curfew schemes allow some long-term prisoners to be released up to two months early, and all prisoners are entitled to the 18-day early release scheme. Releases cannot take place on a Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday, which could knock another 3 days off the sentence. Not perhaps too important for people jailed for 10 years, but those are rarities. It makes a complete mockery of sentencing in the Magistrates' Courts, where 90% of all cases are dealt with.

The reality of this sad situation is that someone "imprisoned" - say for a month - will be let out of court immediately: 1 month, halved (see above), less 18 days = -4 days to run on sentence. Even a maximum sentence (in a magistrates' court) of 6 months imprisonment will only result in actual time served of around 9 weeks (6 months, divided by two, less 18 days).
 
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