Nanny seems to be losing all sense of proportion these days, when it comes to applying the law in a sensible and proportionate manner.
A 16 year old schoolboy, who was being a tosser/thug and ripped a girl's plastic bag (damage 1p), was hauled through the courts on charges of criminal damage; the cost to the taxpayer being £5K.
The 16 year old pleaded guilty to snatching a carrier bag from a 13 year old girl and breaking its handles.
Magistrates ordered him to complete six hours' community work, after hearing that the incident left the girl too scared to walk to school.
I don't excuse this act of thuggery for one moment, and fully believe that the 16 year old needs to be taught a lesson. However, did that lesson really need to be imparted by police officers, Crown Prosecution Service staff and lawyers, court workers, officials and magistrates over two separate hearings?
This sort of case validates the argument that I have put forward before, namely that we should bring back the stocks and publicly humiliate little shits this.
There is no need for the full apparatus of the state to be employed in a lengthy and expensive criminal prosecution. The teenager admitted that he had done it, and could be placed in the stocks immediately to take his punishment.
Am I right, or am I right?
Of course there is no need for the full weight of the system to get involved. A parental clout would have sufficed in pre PC days.
ReplyDeleteHow ever, solving and prosecuting this crime will look good in the figures and that is what drives these crazy people in the criminal justice system which has become an extension of the inland revenue for all intents and purposes....Kerching.
What we need is to discover another Australia. Back in Victorian times, according to what I recall of my readings from history, a crime such as this would have been accompanied by a transportation order for a number of years on the other side of the world.
ReplyDeleteThe more stupid amongst the transportees came back after the term had been served. The rest stayed and probably prospered more than they would have done here.
However, based on the parallel developments in politics and PC crime waves, there is clear evidence that DNA based evolution will eventually lead to the same attitudes and ideas developing despite the apparent separation of the sources.
But I digress.
The question is - does a £5k (or more) court case represent a higher or lower cost at today's money than the incarceration and subsequent transportation of miscreants to Australia did back in the 1800s?
The second part of the question is - how do each of the penalties compare in terms of their success rates for improving the quality of life for the rest of the population?
Grant
Another DNA sample havested for the surveillence state on a trivial pretext.
ReplyDeleteAs he did not dispute his guilt he should have been given a picture of a bag of the girls choosing and told to go out and buy her it, he would be accompanied but given no assistance in finding it and when he came to purchase it a photo would be taken to grace the 'bet he won't do that again' page that businesses sponsored in the local rag.
ReplyDeleteAnd the victim may have even felt a little better for seeing him humiliated .
Our good blogger must have missed this one. How can he?
ReplyDeleteHealth and safety rules mean wet T-shirt nights can only happen if no-one gets wet.
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