I am not a sheep, I have my own mind
I have had enough of being told what and how to think
Whilst we are still allowed the remnants of free speech, I will speak out.
I also reserve the right to discuss less controversial matters should I feel the urge.
Even when a criminal is jailed for his crimes, and it seems to take a long time for the criminal courts to get to that stage, it seems that the Prison Service runs a less than tight ship. Here's a report from the BBC that I am quoting as I cannot find the Telegraph article, that I read in the paper on Sunday, online today.
A judge has criticised a prison for releasing a drugs baron on home leave 13 months into a six-year jail term.
Judge Peter Jacobs branded the situation a "farce" after Mohammed Rafiq, from Dudley in the West Midlands, failed to attend a hearing at Norwich Crown Court.
It emerged Rafiq, 35, had been sent home from prison for the weekend.
The judge asked Norwich Prison officials to explain the decision in court - but said he had been ignored.
Judge Jacobs said: "So far, nobody from the Prison Service has arrived. If they do arrive, I will hear what they have to say with interest."
He had expected the prison to bring the defendant to court on Thursday for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Instead, it emerged that former taxi driver Rafiq had been allowed to return to his home for the weekend, 13 months into his sentence.
...
"I will want an explanation in public as to how a man serving a six-year sentence is allowed to go on home leave, despite the fact he is supposed to be here today.
...
Rafiq was part of a gang who ran a network of cannabis factories capable of producing drugs with a street value of about £1m each year.
He managed five cannabis farms in Norwich and several in the Midlands.
Rafiq is serving a six-year sentence after admitting conspiracy to supply controlled drugs in 2010.
He is currently held in Britannia House, the open resettlement unit at Norwich Prison.'
So sentenced to six years in prison Mr Rafiq is held in an 'open resettlement unit' and allowed home for the weekend. Has any pretence that prisons should be for partly for punishment now been jettisoned? Sometimes the way this country operates its judicial system makes me feel sick.
4. The Telegraph reports claims that 'Eating heavily pigmented fruits such as carrots and plums could make you more attractive'
5. The Mail reports what many of us have suspected for years 'Prison? It’s just like a holiday camp: Animal rights terrorists gloat on website about ‘fantastically easy, blissful’ life behind bars'
Two law and order stories that have been reported and analysed over the last week or so have made me wonder if there might be a connection. First we were told that the UK prison population is at a 25 year high, this is according to the BBC a bad thing. Next we are told that reported crime is at an all time low. Does anyone else think there might be a link between these two statistics?
Actually I doubt the reported crime figure is anywhere near accurate. Who bothers to report minor crimes any more? Someone drove into my parked car and drove off, would it have been worth my while reporting the crime? Someone stole some items from a neighbour's property recently, she didn't report the crime, what was the point? A friend's son was mugged on the way home from school and had his mobile phone and mp3 player stolen, the parents decided there was no point in reporting the incident, would you have bothered? Reported crime has gone down because the public have realised that the police don't care about crimes committed against 'us', they are too busy looking for traffic infractions and 'easy collars' of 'racists', 'sexists', 'homophobes' and other breakers of political correctness. PCs enforce PC laws and let the rest of us go hang.
Deniersaurus Rex thinks Ken Clarke might be a bit soft on crime:
'Following his appointment as Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke has announced his new approach to sentencing in the UK.
To cut costs murderers, rapists, arsonists, burglars, thieves and perpetrators of serious crimes will no longer be jailed. Instead Kenny boy is proposing a 3 step punishment regime.
1. They will be seriously told off by the judge/magistrate. 2.They must sit on the naughty step for an hour and think hard about what they have done. 3. They must then promise only to do nice things and have nice thoughts in future.
Mr Clarke has reserved the right of the Justice Minister to order a particularly serious offender to receive a big smacked bottom. It is anticipated that this will be a rarely used sanction.
The crimes of murder, rape, arson, terrorism, burglary, theft etc will be removed form the statute book and replaced with the single "catch all" crime of Being Naughty'
Do read the rest of the article, it's rather good.
The bleeding heart left wing commentators beloved by the BBC Toady Today programme endlessly spout the line that Britain jails more people than any other EU country and this is wrong.
It is true that the UK does jail a higher percentage of our population than other EU countries, but this is not a result of a harsh sentencing regime but as a result of more crime.
According to the Council of Europe and Civitas, we jail 12.4 prisoners per 1,000 crimes, compared with an EU average of 17.5.
In fact, if we jailed offenders at the same rate as Spain (who imprison 57 prisoners per 1,000 crimes), our prison population would be 369,000, instead of 80,000.
Maybe contrary to what so many politicians, judges and commentators claim, our penal policy is, by European standards, actually rather soft.
I admit that I have not followed the ins and outs of this strike as closely as I should, but a few thoughts came to me tonight. Like most people over the age of 35 my only real knowledge of prisons comes from watching Porridge on television. Being locked up looked so horrible, two to a cell, the doors locked every night whilst it was sometimes still light outside - something about just as the good TV started I seem to remember, I presume 9pm(?), the lack of anything to do when not in the cell other than play cards or table tennis (even if with a cracked ball), or watch TV on a small communal set (if the senior warder approved). It all seems somewhat different now, I read that prison officers are now being instructed to knock before entering a cell (presumably to give the incarcerated time to hide their drugs or porn), to address the prisoners as Mr Fletcher, not Fletcher or Norman, to wear polo shirts not uniforms - so as not to look threatening. I despair of this country's law and order system, I really do.
You should read David Copperfield and his "The Policeman's Blog" - "A Journey into the mad, mad world of the British underclass and the Public sector, where nothing is too insane for it to be written down and copied in triplicate...This blog will do more to put people off calling the police than anything, other than actually calling the police." I do and I even purchased and read his book last year - "Wasting Police Time", an excellent read and one that I will be quoting from on my blog in the future.
David Copperfield also wrote an article for Friday's Daily Telegraph which included the following section the emphasis is mine: "The police force, once trusted by the majority of decent folk, is fast becoming a joke. So why are we arresting people for throwing cucumber sandwiches or chalking on the pavement?
It's all about detections, and a big fraud that the Government is perpetrating on taxpayers. In our fast-moving society, people like simple headline figures; in 2005-6, the headline was that 27 per cent of crimes were detected.
Not much to brag about, but at least it's not absolutely pathetic. But look a little deeper.
We didn't detect 27 per cent of all burglaries, or 27 per cent of all assaults, or 27 per cent of all of the mindless acts of vandalism that went on - the kind where you wake up to find your car's wing mirror hanging on by its wires.
The actual burglary detection rate was 13 per cent (of which 40 per cent were "TICs" - offences "taken into consideration" - where an offender confesses to other crimes to get them off his slate).
In order to allow the Government to trumpet that 27 per cent headline (and to meet another key government requirement, that of "offenders brought to justice" - target, 1.25 million for 2007-8), the detections include lots of playground hair-pullings, minor school scuffles and over-the-fence rows.
So, we're arresting children, the perennially stupid, and the generally law-abiding over ludicrous matters in order to meet targets and cover up the fact that streetwise burglars and muggers are almost guaranteed to get away scot-free.
This links in with a passage that I just read in Peter Hitchen's book, "The Abolition of Liberty", when he is talking about how we now treat crime (the emphasis is mine) - "As the symptom of a social and economic disease, requiring treatment rather than penalties.. (so) the more the state will need to become an apparatus of repression. The more the police are required to treat individual offenders with care and consideration, the more the law abiding population will have to be restrained by the authorities from taking action in their own defence. The less free ordinary citizens are to use their initiative in dealing with wrongdoers, the more they will yearn to do so. The more bureaucratic and formal the criminal justice system becomes, the less use it will be against the disorderly and disobedient. Such people treat a prison record as a career risk, do not pay fines (huge amounts are uncollected, although the middle classes still tend to pay), fail to turn up at court or do not stay long at the same address. It is then simpler and more convenient for the police to pursue the settled and orderly members of society. They are easy to find, can have their regular earnings raided to pay fines and fear the stigma of a criminal record."
One phrase there reminds me of a quotation from a much earlier time, this is the narration at the start of every episode of Porridge (again the emphasis is mine) - "Norman Stanley Fletcher, you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court, and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You are an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner. We therefore feel constrained to commit you to the maximum term allowed for these offences — you will go to prison for five years." That expression always made feel a little scared when I was growing up, how could someone really accept imprisonment so casually as an occupational hazard, were there really such people in the world. Unfortunately, today there are more and more of such people and we are not able to deter them by the prospect of detection or punishment.
This realisation has left many with an increasingly jaundiced view of the police who are increasingly viewed by their natural supporters as being a threat to their freedom rather than as protectors against crime. This means that scenes such as this recorded in Derbyshire become so popular to watch - If the police seek to curtail our freedoms whilst not deterring those who rob, mug and threaten us, then we will enjoy them being taken down a peg or two.
