what is happening to the UKs criminal justice system? Why is it favouring the criminals over the victims?

Question

I'm British and thoroughly ashamed of our justice system. It's equality gone mad. Why should we treat criminals like human beings? They're scum and should be treated as such. Tax payers millions should be invested into hospitals to help the worthy not to help set the criminals free to offend again. Why are politicians supporting them. Crazy and stupid! Please grow some balls, develop some morals and stand up against this.

Answer 1

I completely agree with you on this, I was the victim of a hit and run and the lunatic that done it is getting free legal representation courtesy of the taxpayer and the police seem to be acting like they are treading on eggshells with this lad. No wonder crime is so high, the police chase after the wrong people and the courts hand out laughable and way too lenient sentences. Then there's the prisons themselves which could be described as luxury holiday camps, they get better quality food than people in hospital and children on school meals. This country and its so called justice system has become one big joke. Nasty dangerous people are roaming the streets and the police prattle on targeting poor motorists for trivial matters like driving a few mph over the limit.

Answer 2

The British "Criminal Justice" system hates the mean-spirited evil minded, petty, nasty little snitch of a victim who goes running to the nice big friendly policeman and whines about the petty crime that he feels he has been the victim of.
On the other hand, there is the fine upstanding criminal who is only trying to make a few extra black economy pounds so that, what with two holidays a year on the Costa Paquet, all those fags, all that booze, all those speeding tickets and so on, he can stretch his social security benefits to make ends meet, without having to get a proper black economy job.

Yeh, OK, I'm with you really, the British criminal justice system stinks, and we are probably both in breach of the official secrets act or some other piece of Bliarite crap legislation for saying so.

Answer 3

Because the British public are weak, and put up with things like all that political correctness, then we have the human rights. We now live in a time where it pays to take the risk and commit a crime, the public complain about law and order, they complain about prison not being tough enough, yet when something is highlighted in a prison where a prisoner has been beaten by another prisoner the staff get the blame.
Prison staff are not allowed to dish out discipline to young offenders, and have to call them by the first name, you must not shout at them, and you must not use the word cell, they have to go to their room, if staff do not compile they can lose their job, and I know what I'm talking about.
The public need to toughen up, and stop complaining about the treatment of prisoners, and complain about how easy prison life is for prisoners

Answer 4

I've recently seen a perfect example of this in the life of someone we know, when an attack was made by an asian man on a white man and the asian man got away with it because he claimed that the white man had made a racist remark, so it was "OK" for him to attack him (a head wound causing 10 stitches and severe concussion over a racist remark??)

Since when was it "OK" to viciously attack someone and put them in hospital just because they insulted you???

It seems that the police are so scared of offending any minority that they will go the other way and let the criminals get away scott free.

Plus there's always some left winger who will jump up and start bleating about how imprisonment infringes the "human rights" of some paedophile, murderer or rapist. No mention about the human rights of his victim of course, I guess those didn't matter.

Answer 5

Its the Blair government that has gone soft on crime. It is the PC brigade and the European Human Rights that have given protection to criminals. It is time that we took back the streets and showed the criminal its time to go. I know some do gooder will have a go but once they get robbed, beaten raped or shot maybe then they will understand why most people want a tough justice system.

Answer 6

It is not the British Criminal Law system per se that is up the spout. What is wrong is with the enforcement and sentencing policies.

The Criminal Law system itself is essentially composed of 2 forms of law - Common Law, which is law that has developed through many years through precedence, and Statute Law, which is law that is passed by the British Parliament, and thus by the Government. Statute Law includes Offences of Strict Liability - these tend to be related to minor offences for which there is little defence, only mitigation. The system in Scotland and Northern Ireland is somewhat different.

Criminal Law works on the basis that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a Court. To achieve this end, the system has many safeguards built in, to ensure that evidence that is tainted, for example, is inadmissable in court. In most cases, the Prosecution must prove that there was a guilty act (actus reus) - you must have committed an offence, and also a guilty mind (mens rea) - that you must have been intending to commit and offence, or been sufficiently reckless to have committed an offence. This dichotomy allows us to have many freedoms. For example, it is legal to carry a licensed firearm and ammunition (actus reus) if your intention (mens rea) is to shoot pheasants, but if your intention is to shoot the gamekeeper, the mens rea becomes different. If you shoot the gamekeeper, the actus reus is murder, if it can be proven that you intend to shoot the gamekeeper, but have not yet done so, the actus reus becomes conspiracy to commit murder, and the mens rea (guilty mind) accordingly corresponds.

Once someone is convicted of a crime and thus becomes a criminal, then sentencing has to be considered, and leniency or authoriarian choices of sentence come into play. If one subscribes to the view that sentences for offenders exist to get them out of the way of the public, then the punitive, authoritarian approach will be your choice. If you are of the opinion that criminals need to be re-educated and reformed, then you will look at lower periods of imprisonment and more investment in education and training of convicts. There are, of course, many grey areas in between, and I would recommend you read the works of Hazel Croall, Sandra Walklate and a chap called Muncie, to get the lowdown on these aspects of Criminology.

Answer 7

And so you should be ashamed. Its panders to vile, ignorant, vicious losers and treats victims like they don't matter.

We for too long have put the rights of the criminal before the rights of good law abiding citizens.

Following the US give a Life Sentence for Murder (meaning Life) and Capital Punishment for the most terrible crimes.

They say it don't work, and our justice system does?

Answer 8

Crumbs. Have you never heard of 'innocent until proved guilty' ?

So, do all criminals get lumped in the same boat? In your perfect world, if I don't pay my TV licence fee, do I have to go to prison forever? If I commit a really bad crime, like knocking down an old lady and stealing her pension and I spend 10 years in prison for it, is that not enough? Do I have to stay in prison for the rest of my life?

The world comes in shades of grey. It's not "good" vs "evil". We punish people by sending them to place that takes away their freedom for, sometimes, years on end. When they come out, they have a right to walk the streets again.

Or is that not enough for you? Are you saying that anyone who commits a crime should be locked up for all time? Shoplifters and murderers together and throw away the key?

Answer 9

Liberalism contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. It tolerates anything, including it's own subversion, and now we're reaping what we've sown by allowing discipline and respect to take a back seat to 'freedom' and 'objectivity'. The welfare state was a marvellous dream which became a nightmare.

Answer 10

It's all to do with the human rights stuff.

As far as I'm concerned if you break the law you lose the right of societies protection.