Do criminals have human rights?
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 mean that we cannot punish criminals. It does not mean that the law-abiding majority should not have the ability to stop and apprehend criminals. But once you start allocating any sub-section of society to categories where they can lose their human rights, society is on a slippery slope to taking away rights for all sorts of reasons of alleged criminality.
The stock response of the Conservatives is that those who question the treatment meted out to criminals are either ‘soft on crime’ or ‘want a burglar to have more rights than a householder’. In fact I would like to not only see a reduction in the likelihood of householders being prosecuted for taking action against a burglar, but also for those who take reasonable action to prevent crime and apprehend criminals outside the home. For instance, if I come home with my husband and catch a teenager vandalising our neighbours’ car, do we have the right to grab the teenager, throw him against the car and hold him there until the police arrive? If not, why not?
But whilst we may need the law to be clearer on the rights if the majority to prevent crime, I cannot understand how Cameron thinks being a victim of a crime gives you the right to break the law in any way you want. Having your house burgled should not be a ‘get out of jail free’ card for middle class bullies to tackle the neighbourhood crims.
One final point: will a change in the law lead to more deaths and serious injuries – not for burglars, but householders? If burglars know they may be confronted with a knife or baseball bat, won’t they be more likely to carry a weapon themselves? How ironic if Dave’s law led to no change in the number of burglaries, but an increase in the number of deaths.
Related posts:
- Put your dog whistle down, David
- It's official: Cameron's one-dimensional Watford whitewash
- Neither human, nor British
Comments
Leave a Reply:
