This is what criminal justice has come to in England, from Saturday's Wall Street Journal. This may be the best argument against LWOP in lieu of capital punishment.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

By JOYCE LEE MALCOLM
June 17, 2006; Page A11

With Great Britain now the world's most violent developed country, the British government has hit upon a way to reduce the number of cases before the courts: Police have been instructed to let off with a caution burglars and those who admit responsibility for some 60 other crimes ranging from assault and arson to sex with an underage girl. That is, no jail time, no fine, no community service, no court appearance. It's cheap, quick, saves time and money, and best of all the offenders won't tax an already overcrowded jail system.

Not everyone will be treated so leniently. A new surveillance system promises to hunt down anyone exceeding the speed limit. Using excessive force against a burglar or mugger will earn you a conviction for assault or, if you seriously harm him, a long sentence. Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer jailed for killing one burglar and wounding another during the seventh break-in at his rural home, was denied parole because he posed a threat to burglars. The career burglar whom Mr. Martin wounded got out early.

Using a cap pistol, as an elderly woman did to scare off a gang of youths, will bring you to court for putting someone in fear. Recently, police tried to stop David Collinson from entering his burning home to rescue his asthmatic wife. He refused to obey and, brandishing a toy pistol, dashed into the blaze. Minutes later he returned with his wife and dog and apologized to the police. Not good enough. In April Mr. Collinson was sentenced to a year in prison for being aggressive towards the officers and brandishing the toy pistol. Still, at least he won't be sharing his cell with an arsonist or thief.

How did things come to a pass where law-abiding citizens are treated as criminals and criminals as victims? A giant step was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, making it illegal to carry any article for an offensive purpose; any item carried for self-defense was automatically an offensive weapon and the carrier is guilty until proven innocent. At the time a parliamentarian protested that "The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength and it is this ability that the bill was framed to destroy." The government countered that the public should be discouraged "from going about with offensive weapons in their pockets; it is the duty of society to protect them."

The trouble is that society cannot and does not protect them. Yet successive governments have insisted protection be left to the professionals, meanwhile banning all sorts of weapons, from firearms to chemical sprays. They hope to add toy or replica guns to the list along with kitchen knives with points. Other legislation has limited self-defense to what seems reasonable to a court much later.

Although British governments insist upon sole responsibility for protecting individuals, for ideological and economic reasons they have adopted a lenient approach toward offenders. Because prisons are expensive and don't reform their residents, fewer offenders are incarcerated. Those who are get sharply reduced sentences, and serve just half of these. Still, with crime rates rising, prisons are overcrowded and additional jail space will not be available anytime soon. The public learned in April that among convicts released early to ease overcrowding were violent or sex offenders serving mandatory life sentences who were freed after as little as 15 months.

The government's duty to protect the public has been compromised by other economies. Police forces are smaller than those of America and Europe and have been consolidated, leaving 70% of English villages without a police presence. Police are so hard-pressed that the Humberside force announced in March they no longer investigate less serious crimes unless they are racist or homophobic. Among crimes not being investigated: theft, criminal damage, common assault, harassment and non-domestic burglary.

As for more serious crime, the unarmed police are wary of responding to an emergency where the offender is armed. The Thames Valley Police waited nearly seven hours to enter Julia Pemberton's home after she telephoned from the closet where she was hiding from her estranged and armed husband. They arrived once the danger to them had passed, but after those who had pleaded for their help were past all help.

To be fair, under the Blair government a host of actions have been initiated to bring about more convictions. At the end of its 2003 session Parliament repealed the 800-year-old guarantee against double jeopardy. Now anyone acquitted of a serious crime can be retried if "new and compelling evidence" is brought forward. Parliament tinkered with the definition of "new" to make that burden easier to meet. The test for "new" in these criminal cases, Lord Neill pointed out, will be lower than "is used habitually in civil cases. In a civil case, one would have to show that the new evidence was not reasonably available on the previous occasion. There is no such requirement here."

Parliament was so excited by the benefits of chucking the ancient prohibition that it extended the repeal of double jeopardy from murder to cases of rape, manslaughter, kidnapping, drug-trafficking and some 20 other serious crimes. For good measure it made the new act retroactive. Henceforth, no one who has been, or will be, tried and acquitted of a serious crime can feel confident he will not be tried again, and again.

To make the prosecutor's task still easier, he is now permitted to use hearsay evidence -- goodbye to confronting witnesses -- to introduce a defendant's prior record, and the number of jury trials is to be reduced. Still, the government has helped the homeowner by sponsoring a law "to prevent homeowners being sued by intruders who injure themselves while breaking in."

It may be crass to point out that the British people, stripped of their ability to protect themselves and of other ancient rights and left to the mercy of criminals, have gotten the worst of both worlds. Still, as one citizen, referring to the new policy of letting criminals off with a caution, suggested: "Perhaps it would be easier and safer for the honest citizens of the U.K. to move into the prisons and the criminals to be let out."

Ms. Malcolm is professor of history at Bentley College and author of, inter alia, "Guns and Violence: The English Experience

So no one has to wonder why, as an Englishman, I live in America now. The motherland has been infiltrated by radical socialists and communists!

Stride, I'm afraid England does not have a monopoly on fools. In high places in the Texas Legisilature are people who would read the WSJ article and think: "Those Brits are really ahead of us! Look at all the money State government could save if police just gave 'cautions' to whole classes of criminals! Why, we wouldn't need to build any more prisons. Smart--very smart!"

Of course, even these people don't go so far as to think keeping Texans from their guns is a good idea. Britain is Exhibit No. 1 as to why gun control is a bad idea.

Anarchy is a frightening specter. How far will the present state of affairs in Britain have to go before correction occurs? Actually, gun control may prevent such a radical problem over there.

Stride,

Why do the Brits put up with that crap? The Brits I met in Zimbabwe were certainly not shy about protecting themselves. During the Rhodesian War, even women carried automatic pistols and submachine guns, and they would use them if need be.

As something of a closet Anglophile, it grieves me to see that once-proud empire progressively reduced to impotence and irrelevance. Perhaps the saddest part is that is seems to be rotting from the inside out. ("Rotting" is probably too harsh a word, but you get my drift.)

The decline has been a slow one, but personally, I think the UK finally "jumped the shark" when they adopted the metric system and when Roger Moore replaced Sean Connery as 007. Now it's only good for BBC comedies, curry dishes (!), and World Cup failures.

you can't knock their soccer.

quote:

---

you can't knock their soccer.

---

It's football, dude.

My nine-year-old son plays soccer and I cannot convince him it is football either. It is more FOOTball than rugby, American football, or Australian rules football too.

quote:

---

Goal to Gretchen

---

Yea!! My first cap!

In another few years, it will be called "Nikeball."

And unfortunately for English fans, it looks like my crack about their recent Cup record is bearing fruit:

Owen out with injury?

This explains so much ...

America's victim-abuser relationship with Britain

(courtesy of the inestimable Onion)

Top court says teens deserve leniency

Harsh sentences can't be used as deterrent for young offenders, Supreme Court says

Toronto Globe and Mail
23/06/06

Judges must not stiffen sentences for young offenders in the hope of either discouraging the offender or other potential lawbreakers, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled yesterday.

A 7-0 majority said the three-year-old Youth Criminal Justice Act excludes a key sentencing principle known as "general deterrence." Nor, the court said, is the concept in keeping with the general philosophy that underlies the act.

"Since no basis can be found in the YCJA for imposing a harsher sanction than would otherwise be called for to deter others from committing crimes, general deterrence is not a principle of youth sentencing under the new regime," the court said.

Going even further, the judges then ruled that the YCJA also excludes any reference to "specific deterrence" -- a separate principle that judges routinely use to persuade the individual offender not to commit crimes in future.

"Parliament has imposed specific restrictions on the imposition of custodial sentences," Madam Justice Louise Charron wrote for the majority. "It is those provisions that must govern."

She said that transcripts of debates in Parliament clearly show that politicians did not want young people to be placed in custody as a deterrent. Rather, she said the YCJA makes it clear that rehabilitation programs and reintegrating young offenders into the community are meant to be the primary tools for preventing them from reoffending.

The ruling will almost certainly mean reduced custody for many young people who come before the courts.

It drew an immediate broadside from Justice Minister Vic Toews, a long-time critic of the youth justice system. Mr. Toews said he is concerned that the Supreme Court appears to have stated that deterrence is no longer a principle of sentencing.

"I'm very concerned about that," Mr. Toews said. "I'm not casting any blame here on the Supreme Court of Canada. I think it's very clear . . . that it is a very badly drafted act.

"Accountability and responsibility for serious crimes needs to be enforced in our youth justice system."

Mr. Toews noted that the Conservative government has promised to review the youth justice legislation.

He said he does not know if he will get to the review before the next election.

A small number of young people who are moved into the adult system because of their age and the seriousness of their crime would continue to be governed by the principles applying to adult sentencing -- including general and specific deterrence.

Yesterday's ruling involved two unnamed offenders. One of them, a Manitoba aboriginal youth identified as B.W.P., killed an Iranian refugee with a stocking-covered pool ball because he didn't like the way the victim had stared at two of the killer's female friends.

B.W.P. had spent 108 days in pretrial custody. He was sentenced to 15 months of conditional supervision in the community, to be followed by a year of supervised probation.

The other offender, a B.C. youth identified as B.V.N., pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for a vicious attack precipitated by a drug debt. He was given a sentence of nine months in closed custody.

The central question in the appeals was whether the new act, which replaced the Young Offenders Act, includes a notion of using the sentencing process to scare the individual offender and others of like mind from breaking the law.

The court noted that the YCJA is a very complex piece of legislation that was rigorously debated in Parliament, and that it steered the justice system firmly toward a course of less incarceration and more use of diversionary programs and rehabilitation.

"Had Parliament intended to make deterrence part of the youth sentencing regime, one would reasonably expect that it would be expressly included in the detailed purpose and principles set out in the statute," Judge Charron said. "Yet, the words 'deter' and 'deterrence' are nowhere to be found in the YCJA . . . This omission is of considerable significance.

"Undoubtedly, the sentence may have the effect of deterring the young person and others from committing crimes. But, by a policy choice, I conclude that Parliament has not included deterrence as a basis for imposing a sanction under the YCJA."

General and specific deterrence are two key principles routinely invoked when adult offenders are sentenced. Others include rehabilitation and showing society's denunciation of the crime.

Kim Pate, director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, said the ruling is a welcome recognition that a great many offenders cannot be dealt with through the blunt message of imprisonment since they lack the "cognitive ability to reason abstractly."

"It may be time for Parliament to examine appropriate general deterrence as a principle of adult sentencing as well," Ms. Pate said.

Why we don't send enough criminals to prison
27/07/06
The Daily Express

Labour's failure to tackle Britain's out-of-control crimewave has left the country with one of the world's worst records for jailing offenders.

In an embarrassing admission John Reid revealed that we imprison just 13 offenders for every 1,000 crimes committed -- way below our neighbours and the EU average of 17.

This is despite the fact that we have one of the highest crime rates per head of population anywhere on the globe.

According to recent figures, we jail at a lower rate than Luxembourg, are 12 times softer than America and more lenient than Japan and Australia.

The Home Secretary tried to use the statistics yesterday to defend his planned prisons expansion programme that will see 8,000 more cells by 2012. But it backfired spectacularly.

We jail offenders at a third of the rate we did 50 years ago. It is yet another devastating blow to Labour's pledge to get tough on crime and comes amid fierce criticism of the Government for the increasing amount of offenders avoiding prison and the courts. It comes as violent crime continues to soar to record levels.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said Mr Reid "has admitted that we that we punish criminals much more leniently than anywhere else in Europe. Either we don't catch these criminals or if we do, we fail to punish them."

David Green, director of thinktank Civitas that compiled the data, said: "The figures show that those countries who jail fewer people also have a lot of crime. If offenders are locked up they cannot commit more crimes.

"There is a lot of wastage between detection and conviction and a smaller proportion of these are being given effective penalties."

Offenders are jailed in England and Wales at a rate of around 13 for every 1,000 crimes, based on the 78,443 current inmates and 5.5 millions offences recorded each year.

The Civitas study showed, in comparison, that the EU average is 17 per 1,000 crimes. Mr Reid said Spain jails at a rate of 48 while other figures showed Portugal at 36, Ireland at 35 and Italy at 26.

America has nearly two million in jail at a massive rate of 166 for every 1,000 while Japan jails at a rate of 23 and Australia at 15.

In a further blow, England and Wales averages around 10,000 crimes for every 100,000 of the population, second only to Sweden (13,402) of those countries calculated by Civitas. It is far higher than America (4,000 per 100,000) and Australia (7,300 per 100,000).

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "What this Government needs to do is
stop fudging the issue.

"Crime is out of control and people live in fear like never before."

Separate Civitas figures showed Britain's rate of jailing per crime has plummeted over the decades and is a fraction of the 38 per 1,000 in 1950, 31 in 1960 and 22 in 1970.

Mr Reid said: "Per crime detected we have 13 per head in prison, the EU average is actually 17 and it ranges from five in Sweden to 48 in Spain. So that puts it in perspective."

Under plans published by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, last week tens of thousands more violent yobs, drug addicts and knife-wielding thugs will avoid going to court and will get just a formal ticking off, fine or a few hours community service.

---------------------------
(bonus observation: "yob" is not used nearly enough on this side of the pond; what a great word!)

The figures show that those countries who jail fewer people also have a lot of crime. If offenders are locked up they cannot commit more crimes.

Wow. What a concept, huh?

It is a wonderful word. When you meet one, beware. Unfortunately, they usually travel around in groups, even gangs, especially after soccer games.

Is a Yob the same thing as a Hooligan?

To me they are so close as to be indistinguishable. If anything, though, I consider hooligans more imminently dangerous.

Here's another phrase I liked, but I'm not sure of it's meaning:

" ... tens of thousands more violent yobs, drug addicts and knife-wielding thugs will avoid going to court and will get just a formal ticking off, fine or a few hours community service."

Please translate "a formal ticking off," oh Master of the Queen's English ...