Craig Chilman, one of Peterborough's most prolific house burglars has been allowed to walk free from court after a judge decided prison was doing little to prevent his offending.Now I don't claim to be a legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that when he was in prison he was not burgling houses. However the judge said:
"He has a substantial record as a domestic burglar, and he shows every indication of continuing in that way (if he is sent straight to prison). The only legitimate alternative is a suspended sentence."
WTF? The judge feels that the guy is extremely likely to break in to more people's houses and yet he thinks it the best thing to do is let him walk straight out of his court, back on to the streets, and possibly in to your home?
Then of course we have the special world of Home Office maths;
In 2002 he was jailed for three years, he was given a four-year prison sentence in 2004 and then he was again locked up for three years in 2007.
Erm, hmmm, erm, hang on...
Individually, 2002 + 3 = 2005, 2004 + 4 = 2008, 2007 + 3 = 2010!.
Or even better 3 + 4 + 3 = 10, starting in 2002, yet it's only 2009 by my calendar.
Gotta love automatic early release!
Now m'learned friends will immediately jump up and down screaming "oh the guidelines, we're bound by the guidelines!" as to why they continually let this type of scum continue their careers, but as stated in this story, under the guidelines anyone convicted of three house burglaries should get no less than three years inside. So it seems that judges only follow guidelines if it means they can send nasty, recidivist, prolific criminals back out to make our lives a misery.
When this man reoffends, will the judge be held to account for the fact that his actions directly led to an innocent person's house being burgled? Nope!
I'm going to repeat this quote again, because it is so breathtakingly unbelievable, and perfectly illustrates how the judiciary fail to grasp that the entire premise of the CJS is to protect innocent members of the public from criminals.
a judge decided prison was doing little to prevent his offending.
If my house is ever burgled by a man (or woman) who is in prison, I will give them my car as well.
You can almost understand why the police don't bother any more...
So what should we do?
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal world I would agree with you - we should put them inside for increasing periods of detention until they finally either a) Get the message, or b) Die.
The trouble is, we don't have the capacity in the NOMS to be able to do that. So now what?
In the first instance, yes, we should build more prisons... I've long argued for more resources for law and order, but in the current climate, the government aren't exactly in the mood for a massive round of expenditure.
If, and it's a big "if", there is a credible alternative to Prison, perhaps it might be worth trying it? Could community punishments be made to actually work?
Anyone got any ideas?
Martin
The problem with community punishments is that they only really affect decent-enough people.
ReplyDeleteFor example if I had messed up and found myself on community service (or whatever it's called now) it would have a big impact on me. It would affect my work, ruin my time off, be an embarrassment to me and my family, look very bad when applying for jobs etc etc etc.
So for decent people, they do work. But then you have people who just don't give a flying fook about the things I've mentioned. They just don't care. The issue is that the law-makers and sentencers just don't understand that not everyone is like them, and thus such 'punishments' are worthless.
You had a half-reasonable point going there & you had to shove the "you can almost understand why the police don't bother anymore" half-arsed comment.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think he got to appear before the judge in the first place, I don't think it was because the local police were sitting on their arses at the local nick watching porn & eating donuts.
In that case, for community punishments to work, they have to cause a problem for the "low life"...
ReplyDeleteMake them sweep the streets, clean public toilets, and do it all in a cute little pink number...
Martin