Another group of cowardly cnuts go down

[Louis MacNeice]

I think that there's no such thing as 'justice' which could even theoretically be implemented by a mortal and non-omnipotent being (not that I'm religious), and that 'revenge' as a concept or an practice should not be encouraged (though doubtless it will most likely always be pursued by some - myself included). Therefore, the best way to manage troublesome elements in society must only be in the practical interests of protecting wider soceity from dangerous individuals. This does not include the statement 'maximum sentences need to be abolished' - this does not include the statement 'sometimes I believe the death penalty must be used' - this does not include the statement 'the welfare of the general population should be deemed more important than individual human rights' or any other suggestions which could, hypothetically be drawn from my actual statement.

If you were to ask me what I think the justice system should be, I'd tell you that I don't think it can be acheived in the current economic or social system. If you were to ask me how I would reform the current system to make it slightly better under the current system without revolutionising the entire of society, I would simply say that incarceration should only be used to prevent dangerous individuals from endangering other individuals - meaning that conditions should not necessarily be basic, and prisoners should have access to facilities such as books, etcetera. I would also say that individuals who do not pose an immediate danger to the rest of society should not be punished by incarceration.

None of which answers my query as to why you have ruled out a rehabilitative role for the justice system; was it just a slip of the pen as it were, which you now feel you have to defend by simply not mentioning it?

Also the fact that you cannot imagine a notion of justice that could be socially agreed on and put into effect with genuine accountability, isn't the most compelling argument for ditching it as a concept/aspiration; that is unless you really think you know better than the rest of us.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[jæd]

I think that there's no such thing as 'justice' which could even theoretically be implemented...

So whats wrong with finding the buggers what did it and locking them for a long stretch... Seems to work quite well at the moment...!

(I am right, it *is* half-term...!)

 

[JHE]

Little Father Lenin and Comrade Dzerzhinsky would have known how to deal with such anti-social elements. *Bang*

Toytown Bolsheviks are made of less stern stuff.

 

[untethered]

I think that there's no such thing as 'justice' which could even theoretically be implemented by a mortal and non-omnipotent being (not that I'm religious),

Without getting into an interminable and futile semantic argument on the nature of "justice", let's just say "appropriate ways for society to deal with people that break the rules".

and that 'revenge' as a concept or an practice should not be encouraged (though doubtless it will most likely always be pursued by some - myself included).

Can you think of any ways in which a punishment handed down by a court is different from "revenge" as it's usually understood?

Therefore, the best way to manage troublesome elements in society must only be in the practical interests of protecting wider soceity from dangerous individuals. This does not include the statement 'maximum sentences need to be abolished' - this does not include the statement 'sometimes I believe the death penalty must be used' - this does not include the statement 'the welfare of the general population should be deemed more important than individual human rights' or any other suggestions which could, hypothetically be drawn from my actual statement.

Having taken the trouble to give a long list of ways in which you think this shouldn't be done, could you list a few in which it should?

If you were to ask me what I think the justice system should be, I'd tell you that I don't think it can be acheived in the current economic or social system.

Utopia is always more interesting than reality, eh?

If you were to ask me how I would reform the current system to make it slightly better under the current system without revolutionising the entire of society, I would simply say that incarceration should only be used to prevent dangerous individuals from endangering other individuals - meaning that conditions should not necessarily be basic, and prisoners should have access to facilities such as books, etcetera.

The nature of prisons themselves doesn't directly affect the issue of who should be imprisoned, for how long and on what principle. Those are the matters we're trying to determine.

I would also say that individuals who do not pose an immediate danger to the rest of society should not be punished by incarceration.

So do you think they should be punished in some other way? From your earlier comments, I inferred that you weren't in favour of punishment at all. Is that true?

What kind of "danger" are you referring to? Risk of violence or just risk of any kind of reoffending?

 

[treelover]

tbh, reading about their exploits, has made think more about the time i was mugged in Chapeltown, Leeds, and what might have happened, how much worse it could have been (shivers at thought)

 

[Das Uberdog]

None of which answers my query as to why you have ruled out a rehabilitative role for the justice system; was it just a slip of the pen as it were, which you now feel you have to defend by simply not mentioning it?

Err, a slip of the pen? When did I exactly rule out a rehabilitative element of the 'justice system' with anything I've written?

Also the fact that you cannot imagine a notion of justice that could be socially agreed on and put into effect with genuine accountability, isn't the most compelling argument for ditching it as a concept/aspiration;

How come? If no-one can agree upon it then surely to set down a standard of 'justice' would be to assume that some monolothic authority known to man knows what it and what is not justice over and above the collective disunity of the masses of the population...?

that is unless you really think you know better than the rest of us.

Douche

*loads of irrelevent crap*

Look, how can I even have this argument with you? I give you a practical analysis and statement ("I'm not in favour of blah-blah-blah", "sociology could still have played a part in these lads development") and you begin giving me hypothetical accounts and theoretical reasoning as to where my statements may go (given certain circumstances). I then tell you that your ideas about my own thoughts are being far too specific when in fact I only gave you limited knowledge about my own position, from which you asked me to give a hypothetical account of the ways in which I would theoretically wish to run the 'justice system'. I oblige, and then you proceed to practically analyse and criticise my hypothetical situations as though I'm giving a practical criticism of the current and existing insitution! We're flipping from theoretical to material faster than I (and obviously Louis) can manage to keep up with.

 

[JHE]

"sociology could still have played a part in these lads development"

Good point. Best shoot the sociology teachers too.

 

[untethered]

Look, how can I even have this argument with you?

You could try briefly outlining a coherent philosophy of justice and then giving practical examples of how it would be implemented in today's society.

I give you a practical analysis and statement ("I'm not in favour of blah-blah-blah", "sociology could still have played a part in these lads development") and you begin giving me hypothetical accounts and theoretical reasoning as to where my statements may go (given certain circumstances).

What you're not in favour of isn't particularly interesting unless you also say what you are in favour of.

I'm not in favour of giving murderers free lifetime membership to the Britney Spears fan club. That's perhaps something we can both agree on. However, it says very little about my ideas on justice, or how they might be distinguished from yours, if indeed they could be.

I then tell you that your ideas about my own thoughts are being far too specific when in fact I only gave you limited knowledge about my own position, from which you asked me to give a hypothetical account of the ways in which I would theoretically wish to run the 'justice system'. I oblige, and then you proceed to practically analyse and criticise my hypothetical situations as though I'm giving a practical criticism of the current and existing insitution! We're flipping from theoretical to material faster than I (and obviously Louis) can manage to keep up with.

When I talk about theoretical matters, I mean the principles or philosophy that underlie the way the system works or should work. That is a very different matter from what you seem to mean, which is how things might work in a hypothetical society.

Hypothetical societies don't need justice systems but real ones do. We happen to live in one. Given that you seem to have some ideas on the matter and a dissastisfaction with the way things currently are in contemporary Britain, could you possibly, perhaps, if you'd be so kind, outline the principles on which you think the justice system in this country should work and how they'd be implemented.

 

[DrRingDing]

Knocks the 'kids are victims of their backgrounds' theory a bit.... which is no bad thing....

Is it?

...and does sending people to prison who will gain kudos in there for violence and will most likely come out worse worth celebrating?

 

[Fruitloop]

It's worth celebrating if you have Wackenhut shares.

 

[untethered]

...and does sending people to prison who will gain kudos in there for violence and will most likely come out worse worth celebrating?

Got any better ideas?

I don't need ten examples of the kinds of things you're not in favour of.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Err, a slip of the pen? When did I exactly rule out a rehabilitative element of the 'justice system' with anything I've written?



How come? If no-one can agree upon it then surely to set down a standard of 'justice' would be to assume that some monolothic authority known to man knows what it and what is not justice over and above the collective disunity of the masses of the population...?

DU - firstly, when you say that the justice system should only be used for protection (which you do) then you are saying it shouldn't be used for other purposes; which part of this don't you understand? It's as if you are saying that front doors should only be painted blue, then when someone says why cant they be red, you respond by insisting that you didn't say they couldn't...just that they had to be blue.

Secondly, unless you conceive of justice as something absolute and immutable (which would be a very strange position for an SWPer to have) - rather than relative and always contested - then there is no need to have a monolithic authority; instead what is required are structures and processes through which justice can be debated, operationalised, scrutinised, held to account, debated...

Cheers – Louis MacNeice

 

[TAE]

Thumbs up to the police for getting this bunch of fucking cowardly cunts off the streets.

Yes.

 

[JHE]

Is it?

...and does sending people to prison who will gain kudos in there for violence and will most likely come out worse worth celebrating?

While they are locked up - and at least a couple of them are going to be locked up for a looooooong time - they will not be knifing, shooting, bashing or robbing those of us lucky enough not to be in prison with them. That's a good thing. Even poor old Doggy understands that.

Also, if they are locked up for long enough they are very likely to be much less dangerous when they come out. That is not because prisons at the moment are good at reforming people. They are not. It is because age mellows most thuggish crims.

 

[detective-boy]

Thumbs up to the police for getting this bunch of fucking cowardly cunts off the streets.

Before scrolling down, puts £5 on there being a "they woz fitted up" or similar post between that post and this ...

ETA: Bit slow today Urban ... but can I claim an each-way return for posts #4 and #39 ... ?

 

[TAE]

LOL @ D.B. - wrong again.

 

[Streathamite]

(with of course the added statement that it is still quite possible that their behaviour may have been sociologically motivated) .

you ARE being funny aren't you?
they were motivated by greed and nastiness. leave swappieland and get real

 

[DrRingDing]

Got any better ideas?

I think they really need to be confronted with what they have done. Take them away from their comfort zones but not to some victorian institution.

Their violence needs to be dealt with. Sending them to jail for say 8 years will do more harm to society than good.

I'd sooner have them severly beaten publicly and then forced into some real community service and therapy rather than costing us thousands every week for years to have them incarcerated.

 

[krtek a houby]

I feel sorry for their victims. But to flog the villains in public for some kind of twisted gratification? Nah.

Mandatory attendance in some kinda social service type gig, therapy, confronting their victims & making them understand just what they've done.

Flog 'em & you'll just make them worse, more alienated and aggressive.

 

[DrRingDing]

I feel sorry for their victims. But to flog the villains in public for some kind of twisted gratification? Nah.

Mandatory attendance in some kinda social service type gig, therapy, confronting their victims & making them understand just what they've done.

Flog 'em & you'll just make them worse, more alienated and aggressive.

It's one way of confronting them with what they have done.

Also if you bothered to read my post there beating will be followed by what you repeated.

 

[jæd]

Mandatory attendance in some kinda social service type gig, therapy, confronting their victims & making them understand just what they've done.

I'm pretty sure they know what they've done... Any amount of liberal bleating isn;t do as much good as some time away from the rest of the society. Ideal in horribly overcrowded prisons not fit for humans, because they've shown theit not yet ready to be considered humans...

Flog 'em & you'll just make them worse, more alienated and aggressive.

Tough, they shouldn't have been shits to everyone else...

 

[Suffolk Punch]

Fair enough but

Thumbs up to the police for getting this bunch of fucking cowardly cunts off the streets.

150 violent robberies on tube trains and stations all with CCTV before they were caught. If that is good policing how long would bad policing take to nick them? If they hadn't committed murder wouldn't they still be out there?

 

[Das Uberdog]

DU - firstly, when you say that the justice system should only be used for protection (which you do) then you are saying it shouldn't be used for other purposes; which part of this don't you understand? It's as if you are saying that front doors should only be painted blue, then when someone says why cant they be red, you respond by insisting that you didn't say they couldn't...just that they had to be blue.

Secondly, unless you conceive of justice as something absolute and immutable (which would be a very strange position for an SWPer to have) - rather than relative and always contested - then there is no need to have a monolithic authority; instead what is required are structures and processes through which justice can be debated, operationalised, scrutinised, held to account, debated...

Cheers – Louis MacNeice

So it's impossible to concieve that 'rehabilitation' may be used as a progressive means to protect the general population?

 

[Das Uberdog]

You could try briefly outlining a coherent philosophy of justice and then giving practical examples of how it would be implemented in today's society.



What you're not in favour of isn't particularly interesting unless you also say what you are in favour of.

I'm not in favour of giving murderers free lifetime membership to the Britney Spears fan club. That's perhaps something we can both agree on. However, it says very little about my ideas on justice, or how they might be distinguished from yours, if indeed they could be.



When I talk about theoretical matters, I mean the principles or philosophy that underlie the way the system works or should work. That is a very different matter from what you seem to mean, which is how things might work in a hypothetical society.

Hypothetical societies don't need justice systems but real ones do. We happen to live in one. Given that you seem to have some ideas on the matter and a dissastisfaction with the way things currently are in contemporary Britain, could you possibly, perhaps, if you'd be so kind, outline the principles on which you think the justice system in this country should work and how they'd be implemented.

I've not been talking about what I believe, and when I have, it has been at the bequest of yourself in incredibly vague terms. This is because primarily, I simply made a concisive statement which you elaborated upon yourself to create a meaningless hypothetical argument from which I'm finding it hard to retrive my original post - basically, that the idea that sociology had not played a role in these kids developments was not necessarily the case, though I still wasn't personally sorry to see the 'hools' locked up.

 

[Das Uberdog]

I've not been talking about what I believe would work, and when I have, it has been at the bequest of yourself in incredibly vague terms. This is because primarily, I simply made a concisive statement which you elaborated upon yourself to create a meaningless hypothetical argument from which I'm finding it hard to retrive my original post - basically, that the idea that sociology had not played a role in these kids developments was not necessarily the case, though I still wasn't personally sorry to see the 'hools' locked up.

Edited for accuracy

 

[detective-boy]

LOL @ D.B. - wrong again.

[Police Statistician mode]This is actually good news. It proves our policy of explaining what the police do and what they can't do is impacting on the public and they are now 66% more positive about police conviction rates than they were this time last year ...[/Police Statistician mode]

 

[detective-boy]

150 violent robberies on tube trains and stations all with CCTV before they were caught. If that is good policing how long would bad policing take to nick them? If they hadn't committed murder wouldn't they still be out there?

To be honest the CCTV was not all that good, but the gathering and use of CCTV footage is not usually done well. As I have posted before, council CCTV systems would do well to invest some of their upgrade money in making use of the images they already get rather than just getting more cameras to record footage no-one uses ...

As a DCI I heard speak the other day pointed out, when the systems were introduced people assumed they would stop crime and so the actual idea that crims would be caught on camera and, hence, the need to find, gather and use the images was not funded as part of the deal.

 

[JHE]

I think they really need to be confronted with what they have done. Take them away from their comfort zones but not to some victorian institution.

Their violence needs to be dealt with. Sending them to jail for say 8 years will do more harm to society than good. [emphasis added]

I'd sooner have them severly beaten publicly and then forced into some real community service and therapy rather than costing us thousands every week for years to have them incarcerated.

Eight years isn't enough, then! Give the thugs enough time to grow out of it. Twenty or thirty years?

The trouble with the idea of 'community punishment' (unpaid work) in this sort of case is that it doesn't really take account of the seriousness of the crimes and the importance of stopping the thugs doing it again. Do you really not get that? I mean, in part, have you read what they've done? Mr & Ms Bloggs want, and should be entitled, to be protected from these brutes.

Your unserious idea of corporal punishment is, of course, no more realistic than my affection for the idea of bringing back the stocks.

 

[JHE]

150 violent robberies on tube trains and stations all with CCTV before they were caught. If that is good policing how long would bad policing take to nick them? If they hadn't committed murder wouldn't they still be out there?

Hmm, I must admit to having thought something similar.

However, from the coverage of the case I've seen today, I have not had the impression that the successful investigation of the crimes on the Tube only got underway because of the murder.

In any case, at the very least Plod done good in the end - and before we slag him off for not stopping the Tube terror earlier we should remember that he (whether BTP or Met) is fuckin' inundated with nasty crime in London. He can't deal with everything, let alone everything all at once.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So it's impossible to concieve that 'rehabilitation' may be used as a progressive means to protect the general population?

Not at all; it would have saved a lot of time if you could have stated this from the outset...or did you only just think of it? Be that as it may, your inclusion of rehabilitation under the auspices of promoting public safety still only tells part of the rehabilitation story.

You might also want to consider whether the notion of rehabilitation for the sake of the offender's own good (as opposed to the protection afforded society) might also be a goal worth pursuing; rehabilitation could be a desirable outcome in and of itself beside the social safety benefits it produces.

Also perhaps you have now had time to reconsider your rather odd statement regarding justice which I picked up on in the post you have partially replied to...any more thoughts yet; or do you still stick with the notion of justice being neccessarily immutable?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice