the court of public opinion

johnny come lately

johnny come lately

Well-Known Forumite
I read / hear of many of cases of thefts, assaults, frauds, vandalism where those with plenty of previous offences get sentences other than prison.
Then there is a stupid student who writes vile racist stuff on twitter about an injured footballer, a first offence I believe, and gets a couple of months jail. I don't know what he said but it was obviously disgusting enough to warrant an arrest.
Put in context though is this an appropriate sentence when you consider how our courts deal with other offences?
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
People nowadays think they are invincible, I thought it was great that the tosser got kicked out of uni for it as well as prison. I don't think this is worse than assault for example, far from it, but its nice to see someone actually punished. Be nicer still if they punished everyone, but as we all know the number of scrotes outnumbers the taxpayers. We can't afford more prisons, and its cheaper to keep them on the dole than inside. They know this too.

I'd like to see benefit reductions for all crimes that harm others. Assault someone? Then if you do get away with no prison time you get £20 a week less dole and are automatically last on housing registers etc. Hungry? Tough ****.
 
AA Silencers

AA Silencers

Well-Known Forumite
Oh tek-monkey. That's not very PC of you. What about their human rights.. blah blah.. big knitted cardi's and driving about in a 2CV thinking the world is the way it should be but isn't.

I'm all for putting the screws on 'em. Don't want to behave like you're part of society? Then don't expect society to support you.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Human rights should only be for people who play by the rules*, if you do anything against anothers human rights you should have your own restricted. I really don't see a problem with it, especially from stopping the parasites leeching from the society they wont conform to. Controversial? Who cares, I don't. However if the lazy newspaper lot are reading this please be sure to read my signature as well.


*But who makes the rules? We all know some laws are a bit ****
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
I wonder if the perception of soft sentancing encouraged people to join last years riots. I know there has been a report published this week on the underlying causes of the riots but the brazen attitude of rioters was 'what r u goin to do about it'. I had to laugh at the tears and belly aching in response to the tougher jail terms handed down to convicted rioters and the same can be said to the actions taken against these trollers. I am all for free speech but there is a duty of responsibility when writing statements whether on paper or on the internet
 
johnny come lately

johnny come lately

Well-Known Forumite
No problem with tough sentences but would like to see some consistency. Not just taking the hardline because the case is in national news. And get things in perspective. I might be old fashioned but if there were a choice, I'd rather someone racially insults me on twitter than thumps me.

A case in point in todays Newsletter 'court files.' Timothy Ward, racially aggravated assault, threatening behaviour, and failing to surrender to custody...he was on bail. Jailed for 28 days. Half the time of the student and obvious previous convictions to aggravate the circumstances.

Then a load of others get fines or community orders - whatever they are - for various offences.

But tek-monkey I have no problem jailing them all!
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Jail costs money, my benefit scalping idea saves it! I'd also make mandatory payments for maintenance direct from benefits too, but thats for another thread.
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Thing is though...

History will teach you that people will lie 'n' cheat 'n' steal - and what's more they will lie 'n' cheat 'n' steal tomorrow as much as they lied 'n' cheated 'n' stole yesterday.

But.

History will teach you that if you tolerate this...

... then your children will be next.
 
AA Silencers

AA Silencers

Well-Known Forumite
History didn't teach us that, the Manic Street Preachers taught us that. Do you think there's a common thread between the similar cost of putting a future prime minister through Eton, the cost of keeping a Crim in jail and the propensity of both to lie and cheat and steal?
Clipping benefits sounds like a good idea. There certainly needs to be more consistent consequences to behaviour that detriments society. Anything that saves money rather than costs money is ever actually likely to be implemented.
 
United57

United57

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
Human rights should only be for people who play by the rules*, if you do anything against anothers human rights you should have your own restricted. I really don't see a problem with it, especially from stopping the parasites leeching from the society they wont conform to. Controversial? Who cares, I don't. However if the lazy newspaper lot are reading this please be sure to read my signature as well.


*But who makes the rules? We all know some laws are a bit ****
Click to expand...

Correct you only get rights if you accept responsibility. The problem is too many people want their rights but don't understand it comes with responsibility
 
H

Hetairoi

Well-Known Forumite
The punishment certainly doesn't fit the crime in this case!

This is beginning to become a PC witch hunt where the only crime is to mention the colour of the person's skin!

I have been verbally abused on several occasions but because the abuse didn't include anything to do with race it didn't count as a 'hate crime'!

I don't wish Fabrice Muamba any harm but the hysteria surrounding his heart attack is crazy, he is making a good recovery unlike the poor lads that were killed in Afghan around the same time and barely got a mention in the press.
 
henryscat

henryscat

Well-Known Forumite
What was the cost of the banking crisis to the nation?

What was the cost of riots to the nation?

How were bankers punished?

Oh, they weren't as crimes committed in a suit don't seem to count.
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
henryscat said:
What was the cost of the banking crisis to the nation?

What was the cost of riots to the nation?

How were bankers punished?

Oh, they weren't as crimes committed in a suit don't seem to count.
Click to expand...
I haven't got much time for egotistical self centred 'because I'm worth it' bankers but how many have actually committed any crimes. Yes maybe the government should go knocking the doors who have trousered so many bonuses (and in hindsight the previous government should have nailed down the banks to much tighter governance before the state bailouts) but I find your equating bankers with rioters is the tired hand wringing language of the left
Is 'Lets blame the bankers for everything' becoming a bit tiring and lacks any positive vision that is needed for the developed world to tackle it's chronic problems of massive debts, high spending and no growth.
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
There is, it would appear, quite a bit of evidence that many of the bankers did act criminally, but prosecutions have been difficult to bring - even the US hasn't managed to bring many (if any) to book, and they are comparatively quite hot at punishing white-collar crime by all accounts.

I confess this has little (or quite probably nothing) to do with jail sentences for racist tweets...
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
This is turning into a good thread as it covers justice and peoples perceptions of justice.
With regards to bankers bonuses/excesses there is a strong feeling of injustice that many people are struggling and bumping along the bottom whilst those at the top are still creaming off the money. This has been a running sore for the last 4 years and needs to tackled to move forward. How we do that I don't know, but maybe banning all bonuses until the economy has recovered would be a start.
 
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