With respect. Are you letting your heart rule your head. Your mate will get very little sympathy from most right minded folk. A mate does pull at the heart strings and it's natural to come to his defence to some degree. A parent in most cases will stand by their child for example. Even if they'd send someone else to the chair for a similar offence. Emotions run high when it's someone we know and would respect 90% of the time. But sometimes you have imo accept the judgements.
10000 released early by the tories in just the last 8 months of them being in power. A) How is this worse than that? B) Why is this being reported widely when those went under the radar? C) Is this plan worse than just not sending new offenders to prison? D) How can this enforced decision possibly be considered a fair reflection of a government this young?
I replied to the other guy Scoff about this. I’m a bit pissed off to be honest that he’s suggesting I’m friends with rioters & obviously others have read that & now think the same even though I clearly posted that someone I work with knows him & not me. I’ve clearly posted that if we had the prison space I wouldn’t have issues sending them all to jail so I’ve certainly no sympathy for any of them. I just have the view that we seem to be sending people to prison for offences that are in my opinion inferior to what others are getting let out for or not even sent down for. Take for example the woman who posted blow the mosque up (or something along the lines) on social media when the riots were kicking off. She didn’t have a criminal record & is a middle aged obese woman playing keyboard warrior. Whilst there’s an element of humour in a keyboard warrior getting their comeuppance, is this really the sort of person that needs sending down if the prisons are full? I imagine a knock at the door & a trip to the station is all it would’ve taken for her to never post anything controversial on social media for the rest of her lifetime.
Hard decisions. https://x.com/stephenflynnsnp/status/1833510555153260996?s=61&t=ZE1j6ndDucny8bLNCR9p9g
I'm assuming you don't mean this lass. If so she was intelligent enough imo to know better. Reacting to false information. Race hate and the vile stuff she posted. She deserves all coming to her. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2910vrrygo
What a surprise, another tory tosspot forgetting that they were crippling the country for the last 14 years
but does it solve a problem or push the problem elsewhere for now. It doesnt really solve the problem at all but moves it. Are the other areas being addressed or is it a continuous case of moving the deckchairs on the titanic. Then theres always the question of will this make things worse. Its predicted quite a few will breech their conditions, the parole teams will make mistakes due to overload, homelessness will be impacted for individuals. We did have choices. We didnt need to have a punishment for crimes like sharing inappropriate tweets with a custodial sentence, we didnt need to release rapists and killers. I think even in normal circumstances we let prisoners out too early and dont even investigate half the crimes reported. its quite obvious we needed to something more several years ago. Im not blaming Labour for that but i think in this case its a short term decision that doesnt solve a problem.
A. No one said was. Its just as bad and on a par with Torys by the sounds. What is bad is doing the same things and expecting a different outcome and all that. B. Because the media target certain topics and influence us. We are manipulated. C. Its equally bad. This is a swiss cheese model. There are problems at every stage of the justice process. Maybe releasing prisoners amplifies other issue too but doesnt solve any. D. The Torys didnt solve this and arguably with their cuts and lack of action made it worse. Thats a fair reflection. If the signals are that Labour will carry on the same lines then thats also a fair reflection. If we see a sustainable reduction in crime over 5 years that will also be a fair reflection and one we will be happier with. But if a decision can be made and acted upon after 8 weeks then of course its a fair timescale for people to debate and judge that decision.
To be fair judging them for continuing established procedure after a couple of months in power isn't entirely fair or reflective of what they may or may not do longer term. This isn't a sticking plaster problem its one of many long term infrastructure issues. After 14 years of Tories sh*tting on our infrastructure it is going to take time and resources as well as a f*cktonne of planning in order to see a real difference.
I'd be surprised if long term measures aren't considered and actioned or at least set in motion. Particularly as Starmer has repeatedly criticised sticking plaster politics for a year or so. The unescapable reality is that instant action was needed or our prisons would breach. I read something like 1000 prisoners are released every week on average. So 1700 being brought forward is less than two weeks of typical releases. I thought that was an interesting context rather than the right wings portrayal of serious criminals suddenly flooding our streets. (Though obviously they were quiet when the tories released 10000 early and shortened parole timelines). I think overall though we have to give this govt time. We have a lot of long term decline and failure in every aspect of pubic office that have been under pressure for 14 years at least and the economic landscape is pretty dire. We've had very little parliamentary time to change legislation, we've not had a budget and spending reviews and forecasts haven't yet been completed. Government and change take time. So let's see what they do with that time.
fully agree on the logic here and i dont want this to be purely a labour topic. But i still find the logic odd unless backed up with a more sustainable solution. Having said that we have to remember Labour have found a way to lock more people up for offences where the punishment doesnt fit the crime at the same time.
Not sure how the punishment doesn’t fit the crime? The punishment for a charge is written into law i.e. for crime A you receive a fine, crime B you get between 6-12 months jail time etc. These people have been charged with a crime and most if not all of them jailed so far have pleaded guilty to the charge. I’d argue that judges have previously been lenient knowing the state of the prison system, and by enforcing actual punishment on the people recently, are for once doing their jobs correctly. I’d also argue that if they hadn’t got these people to court as quickly as they did, there would have been a larger number up for sentencing, and in this case prison has indeed been a deterrent for other people thinking of taking the law into their own hands and being nasty racist scumbags with no respect for the law or law enforcement. Everyone bothering to comment in this thread knows that the underlying issue is that the prison system is broken, but it’s a long term fix required and a lot of money invested in new prisons and new prison officers.
Just re sentencing and charging for those in the riots. I think it's important to consider it in the wider context. We had days of riots. Aimed at migrants. Aimed at mosques, at hotels with asylum seekers. Police were attacked. People in social media circles whipped up hate, whipped up anger, lies and misinformation was rife. This lasted for days. The rioters seemed to get discouraged when sentences were given quickly. Now imagine if that hadn't happened? If sentences were soft or just cautions were given. I can't subscribe to the view that the actions were just words or people being a bit daft. They may have gotten carried away, but they absolutely got what they deserved, so let's not play down the violent disgusting actions of racist thugs and antagonists.
Exactly this. Proportionate punishment (bearing in mind most of those with custodial sentences are likely to be out at 40% of their sentence) - and a proper deterrent to further disorder. A job well done in my view.
Labour or the legal system. ?. I'm not aware of more stringent laws that have gone through parliament since they got into power. Not as yet but are being considered. . Where are the punishments that don't fit the crime. They are written in law. Race hate is a crime. Rioting is a crime. It's there in black and white. Why Police don't use the powers they have to put up roadblocks to try prevent expected unlawfulness as they did during the miners strike is summat I've allus questioned. We were stopped of freedom of movement which was questioned at the time but apparantly legal. The riots were predicted. The protesters should not have got within a mile of the hotels. Some would find ways round as we did. (I was a great map reader and never failed lol) But the scale of protest was largely diminished as lots failed to reach their destination. And most protesters even through gritted teeth would go on their way without any major issues. Some of the sentences that can be imposed. https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/riot/
If Starmer gets everything else wrong in his stint, in my eyes he’s handled the race riots perfectly in my opinion
There's a lot of solutions and improvements that can be made to the Prison Service. Building enough pridons to house people that should be incarcerated. Reintroduction of a rehabilitation programme that will undoubtedly help a significant percentage get on the straight and narrow when they leave. Creating humane conditions alongside that balance punishment with decency. Unfortunately all of the above require a huge amount of money and the country has none despite what some of the "Starmer is just another Tory" element would like to believe. In the meantime we have to generate the money to fix our society and that won't happen overnight.