Archive for the ‘Victims’ 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

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

Smoke without fire…

The coalition government has published plans to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants. This has caused a flurry of criticism and some of it for good reason. My concern about publicising the identities of defendants is that it might make the victim more easily identifiable and jeopardise the likelihood of her coming [...]

May 21, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Uncategorized, Victims  No Comments

Protecting young victims

The trial of two young children for an alleged sexual assault on an eight year old girl makes for distressing reading, and I have to be careful as I cannot make any comment on a case whilst it is being tried.  But I do want to raise a more general point about child victims. 
Almost all [...]

May 14, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Victims  No Comments

Less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison

We have launched our new campaign, which you can find by visiting our website.  Please take two minutes to take action for the Howard League and help us put penal reform at the top of the political agenda during the general election and beyond.

March 5, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Campaigns, Children and young people, Government policy, Howard League, Overcrowding, Prisons, Public Services, Rehabilitation, Sentencing, Victims  No Comments

Another announcement about victims

Jack Straw has announced a new national victims’ service. It won’t be a statutory service, but a sort of unit with a paltry £8 million funding. This comes seven years after legislation was passed to set up a commissioner for victims office. This has not happened, despite being announced several times, until Sara Payne was [...]

January 27, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Victims  No Comments