Archive for the 'criminal justice' Category
Whose life is it anyway?
Yazan: Sara | 25 February 2010 | 1 Comment
Categories: criminal justice, human rights
In the last few years, I have seen three people close to me die after fighting cancer. Two of those people died in their own time, one after a short illness, the other after a much longer fight of several years. The third fought for over 18 months in one of the bravest and least [...]
Do criminals have human rights?
Yazan: Sara | 31 January 2010 | No Comments
Categories: Conservatives, crime, criminal justice, David Cameron
Two hours before David Cameron made his ‘dynamite’ quote about the human rights of burglars, I was watching BBC1′s The Big Question. A young mother stated that she believed that paedophiles ‘had lost their human rights when they chose to abuse a child’. I find this rather disconcerting. Surely every human has inalienable human rights? That doesn’t [...]
Put your dog whistle down, David
Yazan: Sara | 31 January 2010 | 3 Comments
Categories: Conservatives, crime, criminal justice, David Cameron
Earlier this afternoon, David Cameron told BBC1′s Politics Show “The moment a burglar steps over your threshold, and invades your property, with all the threat that gives to you, your family and your livelihood, I think they leave their human rights outside.” To many people, dismayed by recent headline court cases, I expect this sounds [...]
Daily Mail promotes thieves and vandals charter
Yazan: Sara | 18 January 2010 | 1 Comment
Categories: crime, criminal justice, newspapers
An article in today’s Daily Mail shows all the signs of a cut and shut story which has seriously lost its way. The piece entitled ‘Minor ‘crimes’ of the middle classes raking in a £400m fortune for cash-hungry councils’ starts with the usual Mailesque jibe at fines for putting your rubbish bin out on the [...]
High on drugs, yet soft on drivers?
Yazan: Sara | 04 January 2010 | 1 Comment
Categories: crime, criminal justice, drugs
Just before Christmas, the Government published two media releases on the subject of crime and sentencing. The first concerned making several ‘legal highs’ illegal; the second announced a review of the maximum sentences for dangerous driving. What grabbed my attention was the current similarity of sentences for very different crimes. Currently the maximum sentence for [...]
Drugs and the death penalty: a non-wailing liberal speaks
Yazan: Sara | 30 December 2009 | 3 Comments
Categories: criminal justice, drugs, international
I’ve blogged previously on the insane nature of the UK’s drugs laws; laws that can criminalise people who have done no harm to anyone but themselves and which serve to exacerbate the problem they allegedly seek to prevent. The problems caused by ‘illegal’ drugs are almost entirely caused by their very illegality, rather than their pharmacological [...]
One law for Gary McKinnon – another for Akmal Shaikh?
Yazan: Sara | 29 December 2009 | 1 Comment
Categories: criminal justice, law
I know it’s a quiet news day today, but it seems impossible to move for Government ministers expressing their disquiet at the judicial execution of Akmal Shaikh in China. Now I oppose and abhor the death penalty, anywhere, by any method and for any crime. But whilst accepting that this seems to have been a particularly [...]
When visiting a swimming pool makes you a pevert
Yazan: sarabedford | 01 July 2009 | 1 Comment
Categories: civil liberties, criminal justice, swimming
Our local paper carries the story of a man aquitted of flashing at a pair of teenage girls at the local leisure pool. The man was accused of following the 14 year olds into the showers after using the pool, before dropping his shorts to reveal his erect penis. Now if that had happened to me, or [...]
There ain't no justice in Watford
Yazan: sarabedford | 10 June 2009 | No Comments
Categories: Claire Ward, criminal justice, expenses
So Claire Ward has her sideways shove, from the Whips’ Office to the Ministry of Justice. Doesn’t sound like so much of a change to me – now she’s doling it out to the rest of us, rather than just her colleagues! Gushing with excitement at the move, Ms Ward said, “In essence it will [...]
Is my 12 year old daughter really a terrorist threat?
Yazan: sarabedford | 24 March 2009 | 1 Comment
Categories: civil liberties, crime, criminal justice, surveillance, transport
Mark Pack has cleverly highlighted the perceived threat that vegetarians pose to society. The Government has discovered that there are certain patterns of behaviour that may lead to someone being a terrorist – and one of those is ordering an in-flight vegetarian meal. That puts my 12 year old daughter up there with the worst of them. [...]
