*UPDATED* You Call This Justice! (The Criminal Justice System)

Member Name: splodgethecat

Product:	The Criminal Justice System
Date:	17/08/01 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None, Lots of anomalies

Disadvantages: Miscarriages of justice, Light / daft sentences, Police baing made out to be the criminals

“The public are being let down by a justice system which treats criminals as if they were victims.” This statement was made by Fred Broughton the chairman if the Police Federation. And in all honesty, I tend to agree with him. I have a number of issues with our criminal justice system and rather than try and address them in a higgledy-piggledy way, I will look at them one at a time therefore. They are;

Police powers
Light Sentencing / Daft sentencing
Miscarriages of justice
Lack of support for victims

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Police Powers
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I, like I’m sure many others, feel that the police force in general does not get enough support from the government. Many criminals scoff at the current system in which often the police themselves, rather than the criminals, are expected to work in a climate of suspicion. Often, I feel they are not allowed to ‘do their job’ properly for fear of complaints against them, by the very people who they are trying to protect the rest of us from.

Thankfully, I have never been the victim of serious crime, but I know people who have. I also know a couple of people who work in the police force, and believe me, it can be a completely thankless task. Morale is diminished when officers don’t feel confident in protecting the rest of society, just in case, by genuine error, they are the ones brought forward as the criminal! How can they do their job when they are reluctant to come into contact with criminals (which is what the job is all about, after all) in case a complaint is made against them. Plus, there is always legal aid available to criminals have you noticed?

Mr Broughton has also highlighted the problem of the lack of power the police often have while carrying out their duties. He calls for a larger force, with powers to seize and sell criminal assets without delay. He also mentioned how soul destroying it is for officers who s
pend weeks or months of hard graft to bring a criminal to justice only to find that they get sent away with a slapped wrist. I find this unacceptable too, and it sort of leads me into my next beef.

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Light Sentencing / Daft Sentencing
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How on earth can low income families / single parents be sent to prison for not having a television licence, when drink drivers who *murder* someone can get off with a dangerous driving conviction? Why does a woman who after years of torture by an abusive spouse and who suddenly snaps and fights back, killing the abuser get 20 years, while rapists and murderers of women can get away with as little as 8 years? Surely, self defence or murder committed on the spur of the moment, which is far more likely to apply to a woman, should be dealt with more leniently than a crime which is premeditated or a repeat offence?

Why are there so many persistent offenders? Surely our criminal system is there as a deterrent or punishment? Apparently not, if it is so lucrative to keep going out and offending time and time again.

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Miscarriages of justice
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A recent survey showed that over 50% of people “had lost faith in the criminal justice system”. The survey was carried out as part of BBC News Online’s Life of Crime special report and used 1000 respondents. It came after a series of high profile miscarriages of justice, including that of Raphael Rowe, a man freed by the court of appeal after 12 years in jail, for a murder he did not commit. Mr Rowe highlighted the fact that apart from high profile cases, there are hundreds of miscarriages of justice being carried out all the time, which never get any publicity.

Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham six also stated that in his opinion, around 3,000 - 4,000 people are in prison at any one time for crimes they did not commit. This is
not acceptable in my opinion because on the one hand you have all these innocent people ’banged up’, yet on the other, criminals are getting off with extremely light or non-custodial sentences. Also, you have the ludicrous cases - those in jail for non-payment of fines or not having TV licences.

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Lack of support for victims
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I used to be a volunteer for Victim Support and many times I encountered deep trauma experienced by ordinary, everyday people like you and I after being victim to some crime or another. There wasn’t really enough support available then and I’m sure there still isn’t enough now.

However, in February 2001 Jack Straw went public saying that the criminal system had been concerned for too long with the rights of *defendants*. Well said Mr Straw! After this £6m was allocated to boost services for witnesses and victims in court and £400,000 was made available for the Rape Crisis Federation, plus a 50% increase in compensation payment to rape victims. This is good news. The Federation said that they hoped that more women would come forward as a large percentage of rape victims don‘t even report the crime because of the abysmally low conviction rate.

Mr Straw went on to say that the system has up until now failed to balance the interests of victims with perpetrators. As well as helping victims, there are also to be measures to enable the force to catch more criminals. However, what’s the use if sentencing is no deterrent and there are so many anomalies everywhere?

It might also be worth mentioning here the derisory payments offered to victims of crime by the Criminal Injuries Board, compared to those awarded in civil cases. There is a *massive* anomaly here and I write in more detail about this in my op “£7,500 for the loss of a child. £203,000 for stress!”in the Compensation Culture section.


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I thank goodness that I have never had to use any of the services mentioned myself. I have never been assaulted, raped or been burgled. However, I truly feel for those people who have had to use the criminal justice system because as I see it, at present there are just *so* many flaws on so many different levels. What the answer is I don’t know. I will just keep on keeping my fingers crossed that I never become a victim.

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UPDATE
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20/08/01

It was reported today that one of the men wrongly jailed for the murder of Cardiff newsagent Philip Saunders is to sue for compentaion for his loss of liberty. Michael O'Brien always protested innocence regarding the murder and he has been found to have been wrongly inprosoned for 11 years.

Questions have been raised about the conduct of investigating officers, who were alleged to have shown a "systematic disregard" of the rules governing interrogation of suspects. Mr O Brien had a history of lying anyway and he, along with two other men were charged.

I feel terribly for this man because how on earth can you compensate someone for 11 years of life wasted? This is just another example of the flaws in our justice system.

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