Archive for the ‘Headline grabbing’ Category

28 days

Professor Ken Pease astutely points out in a report published today for a right wing think tank that offenders are prevented from committing crimes against the general public while in prison (they can of course beat, scald, rape and attack staff and other inmates but let’s leave that aside.) But he suggests that keeping prisoners [...]

August 28, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Government policy, Headline grabbing, Overcrowding, Prisons, Sentencing, Uncategorized, Victims  One Comment

Policy developments

I haven’t got around to doing a blog for ages because we have been rushing around organising events. I am not going to comment on the hustings or conference on community sentences because there are detailed reports on the website, but there have been some interesting policy developments that are worthy of comment.
In the [...]

July 29, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Headline grabbing, Uncategorized  No Comments

Women first

Should the media always mention that the three women who were killed in Bradford were prostitutes? Yes and no.
The BBC has slightly improved in its terminology recently; instead of automatically labeling the women as prostitutes every time reporters now sometimes say they were women working as prostitutes. Identifying them first as sex workers, [...]

May 28, 2010   Posted in: Headline grabbing, Uncategorized, Victims  One Comment

Criminalising children

And so two young boys, aged 10 and 11, have been found guilty of the attempted rape of an 8 year old girl. They will now be sentenced, most likely into child custody, and join the sex offenders’ register.
As I said before, criminalising young children does not help young victims and does nothing to enhance [...]

May 25, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Children and young people, Government policy, Headline grabbing, Uncategorized  2 Comments

The right to a fair trial

One of the fundamental rights upheld in Britain is the right to a fair trial. Jon Venables has not been found guilty of any new crime and should be treated as being innocent until it is proven otherwise. We don’t know yet whether he is even accused of a crime and if so, whether he [...]

March 11, 2010   Posted in: Government policy, Headline grabbing, Uncategorized  3 Comments

Rage against the machine

It seems that rage is the centre of the news today.  Whether we have the right to inflict retribution following an assault in our home, and raging against the pop music of television talent shows.
Chris Grayling, Tory shadow home secretary, has said his party in government would strengthen the rights of householders to defend themselves [...]

December 21, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Headline grabbing, Sentencing  No Comments

Keir Starmer lecture on the role of the modern prosecutor

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, gave a lecture for the Howard League last night discussing issues about the role of the prosecutors in dealing with young people. There were plenty of references to his defence of the Human Rights Act and consequent media attention, but I was really pleased to see that [...]

October 23, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Headline grabbing, Howard League, Uncategorized  2 Comments

Naming and shaming, postal strikes and pensions

So poor little Baby Peter’s mother and her partner have their photographs splashed across every media outlet.  The judge who allowed them to be identified said this would somehow increase confidence in the criminal justice system, although I challenge that.  I am at a loss to understand how public prurience serves the cause of justice.  [...]

August 11, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Headline grabbing  No Comments

Prison is no place for children

The Telegraph and other papers are carrying stories that Warren Hill prison for children is some sort of holiday camp.  These stories appear from time to time and the only difference this time is that the papers have extracted the juicy titbit that children can, weirdly, pick their own lavatory seat.  All this makes for [...]

July 28, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Headline grabbing, Inside prisons, Prisons  One Comment

Crime rates down! Read all about it?

The crime statistics just published are really encouraging and do indicate that we are becoming a safer society.  Of course particularly gratifying is the reduction in the homicide rate.  In the last ten years vehicle crime, domestic burglary and crimes of violence have all gone down substantially.  This means fewer victims and should be the [...]

July 17, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Headline grabbing  One Comment