[admin]

Insanity of the Western World

Common sense doesn't count for much today. At least that seems true for the West: USA, Canada, Europe, Australia. In a world where there is a law for everything, a government agency for any eventuality and certainly a tax for all of life's pleasures, common sense seems a bit out of date. I mean, how many people have died from terrorist attacks compared to the number of deaths on our roads? And would we not be better of fighting terrorism by not giving people a good reason for being so angry? But of course that's much too sensible. Instead we continue our foreign policies unchanged and introduce more and more laws that strip us of our freedom. Is there somewhere left in the world where one can still go about one's daily life in a way which is in proportion to the real threat? And where the government fears the people not the other way round?

Our criminal justice systems are a good example. There are more and more strict liability laws affecting ordinary and honest people. Here in the UK it is a criminal offence not to ensure regular school attendance of your child. Not intention, recklessness or negligence needs to be proved by the prosecution. A fall in attendance without good reason (i.e. illness) is sufficient. Or car insurance. If you don't have it, you are guilty. It doesn't matter if you have been squeaking clean up until now but the insurance cancelled your policy due to a failed payment. Or even by mistake. That's no excuse. Or rather, it's no defence! Since I happen to be a magistrate, I can honestly say that we often try our level best to keep the "damage" done in such a case to a minimum. In other words we can keep the sentence passed as low as possible. But we will still have to pass the minimum sentence if one is prescribed by law and there will still be a criminal conviction against that person. The way police and prosecution authorities seem to work is that everyone who CAN be prosecuted WILL be prosecuted.

I would like to live in a country where sensible members of the community decide if someone is a criminal and not a book with very broad definitions in it. I also want to live in a country where something that costs 10 bucks is sold at 10 bucks and not 9.99. Can't we be treated like adults? Why do commercials talk to us as if we were all stupid? And even more important, why do politicians do this? Do they really believe anyone else thinks that party politics is important? If it was, why does nothing ever change regardless of which party governs? Isn't there a place where an assembly/parliament/congress genuinely represents the interest of the people? Can someone please tell me? And if there is, would the have let the banks collapse and locked up those responsible? There doesn't seem any money for anything else but there is always plenty to channel into the pockets of the rich. In fact how can the banking system be allowed to be in private hands at all, if it is so vital? Is there a country where the banks are all state-run?

How can it be that we get more and more food and farming related laws imposed on us which make it ever more difficult to be self-sufficient and to supply local communities with local produce in a simple and uncomplicated fashion? Instead only large companies have the resources to deal with all the bureaucracy and to obtain all the licences needed to sell food. If you are a hunter in the UK and you shoot deer, you cannot just sell the meet. Neither can you just give it away. Not even to relatives or friends. Not unless you have gone through the formalities required and invested in a chilled larder and so on. The sad truth is that food will soon be totally controlled at every stage of the process just like our finances, movement and internet activity. Where can I go where people still apply common sense and where the government has not handed power over to private interests. Where I'm allowed to keep livestock and grow food without microchips and official inspections; without mass-slaughter of my herds because of a fabricated panic over some harmless disease; without Monsanto trying to own nature's fertility with monsters such as terminator seeds.

If there is such a place, I want to know. No doubt, its days are numbered but still, I want to know.

Humanity has survived up until now without the protection of an over-dominant mother-state which tells us what we are allowed to do and when and how. But now we are being brought to the brink of extermination by a system that makes us believe we need it to survive.

[admin]

Insane as it may sound - and it is insane - the UK police state (sorry, criminal justice system) does not serve the public, but the criminals. Maybe that's unfair. Not just the criminal justice system but the entire system. And here I speak not just as a campaigner for civil liberties, for true democracy and against the Big Brother world, but also as a Magistrate, a volunteer part-time judge. How long I will remain one if I continue writing like this is a different question but the point is, I speak from experience.

Sure, we can listen to all sorts of statistics of how many arrest the police have made, how many successful prosecutions have been brought and how many dangerous people jailed. We can likewise watch news reporting about major drug operations or rapists and murderers having been convicted. But these are meaningless numbers and exceptional cases. In the magistrates courts we do not deal with the most serious of crimes, such as rape and murder. But what we do deal with is 95% of all criminal cases in the UK.

The idea of having magistrates is for ordinary, local people to administer justice in their area. But of course this does not allow for centralised control, so more and more laws, minimum sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines have been introduced over recent years. Even if the intention was a good one (to eliminate inconsistent sentencing), the result is ever less discretion to such an extent that many of us joke about soon being replaced by a computer. And indeed our guidelines are in many cases so structured and prescriptive, that one could well give them to a child and after ticking a few boxes, they would likely be able to point at the prescribed sentence.

This would work well, was it not for the fact that each case is different and every defendant's circumstances are different. The sentence for someone who drove without insurance, knowing fully well that he was not insured, is the same as for someone whose insurance policy was cancelled unbeknown to him and who therefore committed an offence unknowingly. Or at least it is the same as far as the book is concerned. Magistrate's will likely use any discretion they still have in order to help the latter as much as they can.
Likewise, is it an offence not to ensure regular attendance of one's child at school. The prosecution does not need to show if one person did so carelessly or negligently as opposed to another. Neither is it a defence to say that one is trying hard, that one is struggling as a single mum without a father figure to help instill discipline or that one has a problem child at hand but that all the other children in the family attend school as one would expect. The attendance record alone decides if you are guilty or not; if you are now suddenly a criminal or not. And because it is a strict liability offence, Magistrates can only be lenient on the sentence if appropriate. They cannot stop you getting a criminal conviction.

On the other side, people who truly do not care about anyone but themselves and who respect nothing and no-one, real criminals, will not be dealt with in a way which is truly a deterrent. Remember we are not talking about murderers who get a life sentence but the 95% of all criminal cases that get dealt with by magistrates. And magistrates can in most cases give no more than 4-5 months imprisonment (for an offence where a guilty plea was entered). And if this is the sentence for the worst cases, than the reader can guess what an average sentence is likely to be. But honestly, custody is discouraged as a sentence for anyone but dangerous individuals in any case, due to lack of prison space, As a result it is not at all uncommon for someone to be in and out of court for years, making a mockery of the system, before being sent inside.

So, do we need more prisons and harsher sentences? If we listen to politicians and the media, maybe so. But the truth is that very, very few people indeed can be called "evil". Most criminals are also victims, be it of alcohol or drug addiction, upbringing, childhood experiences, bad influences or similar. This does not mean that such people are not responsible for their actions but that we must be careful where to lay the blame, or better, where to look for reasons. A vast amount of crime is drug related. No-one who has ever met a drug addict can deny that these are sad individuals who need help. Likewise a vast number of violence happens under the influence of alcohol. You can punish an alcoholic for what they do when they are drunk out of their senses, but this will not stop them from getting drunk again. I simply cannot judge an addict as simply bad or evil, even though their actions may well be wrong. Therefore, while punishment may be "just", it will not address the cause.

Many of my colleagues say that we are a criminal court and not social workers and I agree. This is why I said earlier that it isn't just the criminal justice system but the entire system which is the problem. Nowhere is this clearer than in what we are doing to our children. Children need love and care and a gently guiding hand. But they also need clear boundaries and in some instances punishment, not for being bad but so to enforce those boundaries, which will then teach them the common values they need to adhere to. But true to form, we have managed to criminalise everyone who dares discipline a child or youth, be it a neighbour, a teacher or even the child's parents. Hitting your child makes you a criminal. I have seen a father prosecuted because his teenage daughter hit her head against a wall during an argument where he was alleged to have pushed her. I have also seen neighbours of delinquents prosecuted for unlawful imprisonment after doing a "citizens arrest". There is no room left for anyone to enforce those boundaries, Instead of a telling off or a slap behind the ears for misbehaving, people now call the police and the child ends up in front of us. Welcome to the criminal justice system! And having got arrested and introduced to the courts so early on, what deterrence does another criminal conviction hold? Or another arrest?

We are breeding a generation of delinquents who have never been taught respect. And because this will make the situation worse and worse, we as a society will more and more experience crime and violence. The solution seems clear but it is too simple and too logical to be taken seriously. We need to allow common sense back into our lives. We need to stop prosecuting people just because we can and apply a true "interest of justice" test to all prosecutions. We need to allow parents to get on with what they do best and not get obsessed with the few exceptions that get so much publicity. We need to address causes and not just deal with symptoms. But what we do not need is more laws, more police, more CCTV cameras, ID and DNA databases, internet surveillance, or criminalisation of expressing your opinions and views. None of this will address the causes. It will merely punish the public by turning our country ever more into a police state.