Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: karajorma on August 19, 2011, 12:12:15 am
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14553330
MPs and justice campaigners say some of the sentences given to those involved in the riots in England are too harsh.
On Tuesday two men were jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite riots and another was given 18 months for having a stolen TV in his car.
The former chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Paul Mendelle QC, said sentences were too long and harsh.
You know what? **** 'em. If you were dumb enough to go out and riot thinking you'd get the same slap on the hands you'd have gotten any other night you deserve the extra time in jail. Anyone with half a brain knew that the penalties for crimes committed during the riots would be harsher.
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Well I guess the societal question this might bring up are these punishments "fair"?
Having not been anywhere near the country where this stuff happened, I really don't feel like I could have a well informed opinion either way.
I just bring it up because with all the other somewhat draconian proposals floating about in the wake of said riots, I think the fairness of punishments meted should indeed be called into question.
Also, it brings up the question of rehabilitation vs. punishment.
Would a better sentence be community service, to force people to help rebuild the neighborhoods they destroyed? Or is the best thing to make an example of them, to show how little such destructive behavior will be tolerated or forgiven?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14553330
MPs and justice campaigners say some of the sentences given to those involved in the riots in England are too harsh.
On Tuesday two men were jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite riots and another was given 18 months for having a stolen TV in his car.
The former chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Paul Mendelle QC, said sentences were too long and harsh.
You know what? **** 'em. If you were dumb enough to go out and riot thinking you'd get the same slap on the hands you'd have gotten any other night you deserve the extra time in jail. Anyone with half a brain knew that the penalties for crimes committed during the riots would be harsher.
What kind of sense does that comment make? The point is exactly that they got four years even though they didn't go out and riot.
Cheshire men Jordan Blackshaw, 21, of Marston, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Warrington, were jailed for four years each after admitting using Facebook to incite disorder, although none actually resulted.
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Bloody good, they should throw the damn book at them. And as for the two FBers, they should've known better. It isn't a joke when there are actual suburbs in your country that are being torn apart.
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It's a shame, first they let themselves be led in a useless riot destroying many small businesses (instead of say, parliament as they're much more responsible for society as it is than some small shop or a boutique) and then they get to sit on their burned behinds with more strict rules, more and more police powers and suppression, and generally a lot less freedom. The only 'winners' here are those that benefit from more police power and those that looted the most and sold all the stolen stuff off (and ideally immediately move to another country like Switzerland but I don't know how smart the top looters were). If only these kids were more educated and could vent their anger at the real problem (much rather non-violently of course).
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14553330
MPs and justice campaigners say some of the sentences given to those involved in the riots in England are too harsh.
On Tuesday two men were jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite riots and another was given 18 months for having a stolen TV in his car.
The former chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Paul Mendelle QC, said sentences were too long and harsh.
You know what? **** 'em. If you were dumb enough to go out and riot thinking you'd get the same slap on the hands you'd have gotten any other night you deserve the extra time in jail. Anyone with half a brain knew that the penalties for crimes committed during the riots would be harsher.
What kind of sense does that comment make? The point is exactly that they got four years even though they didn't go out and riot.
I was referring to everyone the entire article mentioned not just those two guys.
But for those two guys, they incited to riot. You are aware that the penalties for that can be just as stiff as if you actually went out and joined in on a riot, right?
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if your gonna loot dont get caught.
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The ironic part is that it seems an awful lot of the people who thought they were going to get off lightly (and were stupid enough to post pictures of themselves holding what they had stolen) had felt that way not because of experience of the Police, but because that's what they'd heard on the Media over and over again.
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Isn't that the definition of propaganda, to propagate, expand, a certain viewpoint? Showing kids it's all fine to loot and steal (then again pop culture has been pushing similar imageries the past decades) is irresponsible at best.
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But for those two guys, they incited to riot. You are aware that the penalties for that can be just as stiff as if you actually went out and joined in on a riot, right?
Inciting convictions for full penalty when nothing actually happened is morally problematic at best.
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Repost from SG regarding the 2 facebook blokes. They're unquestionably idiots, and deserve some punishment, but incitement to riot should be handled carefully, especially in nations who walk the tightrope of free speech (Australia, England etc. - protected, but not to the crazy extremes of the US).
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2844792.html
4 years is excessive. Punishment should be for the crime. Circumstances notwithstanding, using it to scare people this way.
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Repost from SG regarding the 2 facebook blokes. They're unquestionably idiots, and deserve some punishment, but incitement to riot should be handled carefully, especially in nations who walk the tightrope of free speech (Australia, England etc. - protected, but not to the crazy extremes of the US).
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2844792.html
4 years is excessive. Punishment should be for the crime. Circumstances notwithstanding, using it to scare people this way.
If it was just a typical case of incitement I would agree but the level of looting and mindless destruction involved, not to mention the number of innocent people assaulted in varying ways means that examples should be set in their cased, exceptional circumstances require consequences measured against the situation.
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While I must admit that some of the sentences I've read about do seem a little over-zealous, I also temper that sentiment with the fact that the UK judicial system has been notoriously lenient on some types of offences in the past couple decades and these riots are in a small part the culmination of that. A demographic, marginalized and widely accepting petty crime as a lifestyle, has learned over 20 or so years that the judicial system is inclined to do very little about their actions. They expanded this to a belief about policing, and were partially vindicated by the sheer amount of time it took for the authorities to get a grip on the issue. Now they have the audacity to whine about the judicial system actually taking their crimes seriously?
Then again, I was a proponent of invoking the old riot act and calling the military out to the street corners at night to deal with the rioting, so perhaps I lean a little toward the punishment/deterrence side of the justice scale anyway.
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While I must admit that some of the sentences I've read about do seem a little over-zealous, I also temper that sentiment with the fact that the UK judicial system has been notoriously lenient on some types of offences in the past couple decades and these riots are in a small part the culmination of that. A demographic, marginalized and widely accepting petty crime as a lifestyle, has learned over 20 or so years that the judicial system is inclined to do very little about their actions. They expanded this to a belief about policing, and were partially vindicated by the sheer amount of time it took for the authorities to get a grip on the issue. Now they have the audacity to whine about the judicial system actually taking their crimes seriously?
Well, the article is expressly about months-long sentences (plus the 4 years from incitement) from completely minor offenses, like stealing at most a couple of pounds worth of ice cream or water. I don't see a problem with long sentences from actually causing major damage or danger (like, you know, by setting buildings on fire or assaulting someone), but for offenses like the aforementioned it's pretty stupid.
Looks like one person mentioned in the article appealed the original 5-month sentence for accepting a pair of stolen shorts and got it turned into 75 hours of work of some kind. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14589259) Now that's a lot more reasonable, as I'm sure everyone would agree.
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Something else that's interesting is the report of people that have been caught that may have been provocateurs (my words), wouldnt be surprising as it always seems to happen with G20 protests too.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027973/More-150-people-caught-rioting-swept-UK-foreign-nationals-deported.html
Could be a interesting angle to the story.
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I'd advise you that the Daily Mail fails at even being fit to wipe your arse with. Their favourite hobby horse to ride is blaming everything on immigrants. I'm not surprised that you'd get a lot more people who are foreign nationals involved in the riots, I doubt that means that they had anything to do with provoking it.
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the crazy extremes of the US
:wtf:
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But for those two guys, they incited to riot. You are aware that the penalties for that can be just as stiff as if you actually went out and joined in on a riot, right?
Inciting convictions for full penalty when nothing actually happened is morally problematic at best.
Ummm, one of the guys actually turned up to riot. The only reason there was no riot is cause no one else did. :p
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Erg, sitting here in Australia just makes me uneasy. Cause any situation can turn volitile like that anywhere.
But from where I'm sitting,
Community Service,
Gaol (jail) time,
It all depends, the looters/rioters/destroyers. Should be cleaning up and rebuilding, fines, maybe time in jail or such
The 'masterminds'/ organisers should be slapped around a bit, make them help the same way, but still.. slap them around for organising and causing the destruction.
In all honesty... I hate people. :blah:
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I'd advise you that the Daily Mail fails at even being fit to wipe your arse with. Their favourite hobby horse to ride is blaming everything on immigrants. I'm not surprised that you'd get a lot more people who are foreign nationals involved in the riots, I doubt that means that they had anything to do with provoking it.
Actually, I don't mean foreigners such as immigrants from Africa or Eastern Europe, but provocateurs that influence legitimate anger of the local population into a harmful riot that will only make the situation worse, or, like G20, cause legitimate non-violent protests to be discredited so that military police can have their way with beating unarmed peaceful protesters up. This case is a little different in that the response comes later in the form of more police state measures.
One thing I also found interesting is that they were -shocked- that the CCTV did nothing to curb crime, it's only meant to survey the population and have more proof to arrest criminals (of course real criminals will always find a way around it but that's a whole different discussion).
Anyhow, it's all theory for now.
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yes we should place the blame for the damage done on the people talking about it, not the people doing it, people are incapable of controlling their actions and we need to reinforce this. counter-revolutionary ideas must be crushed.
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I hope I didn't come across wrong, provocateurs as in ones that start a riot, not 'provocateurs' that incite riots through Facebook, though that also isn't a good thing to do and, if proved linked to an actual response, should be proscecuted (depending on the actual language used in the text, as well). It's similar if a president of a country orders his army to perform war crimes, not only his troops should be jailed for committing the crime, but also the one that ordered it.
I think this situation is more about curbing free speech than anything else though.
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Ummm, one of the guys actually turned up to riot. The only reason there was no riot is cause no one else did. :p
So there was no riot.
So you're agreeing with me that nothing actually happened.
Thank you.
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You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?
There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.
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Yeah, if someone just really sucks at murder but still gives it a shot, they should still be prosecuted for trying, not let off for failing.
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You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?
You do know that it's not treated as the same as murder, right? What's the typical sentence for someone who actually rioted at?
Less than four years. Whoops.
There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.
Bull****. It is not enough to simply intend or discuss a crime. There must be action. You are attempting to run the Thought Police and have therefore abrogated any claim to justice.
At least one of these people never acted.
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You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?
You do know that it's not treated as the same as murder, right? What's the typical sentence for someone who actually rioted at?
Less than four years. Whoops.
There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.
Bull****. It is not enough to simply intend or discuss a crime. There must be action. You are attempting to run the Thought Police and have therefore abrogated any claim to justice.
At least one of these people never acted.
not but they tried to set riots in motion so they acted to achieve a criminal goal and are thus criminals
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not but they tried to set riots in motion so they acted to achieve a criminal goal and are thus criminals
Yes, but one of them actually showed up. One of them did not. Sentencing them the same is at best a gross miscarriage of justice because their actions in respect to attempting to achieve that goal were not the same.
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Maybe the other one missed the bus and didn't turn up cause the other one phoned him. :p In which case he is still just as guilty, right?
The point is that you don't know as you didn't follow the case yet you're screaming about it being a miscarriage of justice.
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Prosecuting intent rather than action is a slippery slope at best. The government drops the hammer like this after social uprisings because they want to send a message that they're fully in control. Whether or not that's a good idea, well, that's up to debate. I, personally, think that it will just make things worse, but I'm pretty anti-government. This is a site about a gaming community, so that's as far as I'll go with that.
Basically, it boils down to this: would they have gotten the same sentence if they had tried to incite a riot at any other time? Probably not. And thus, the "justice" system is making up rules and changing punishments as it suits them. I think that's crap, so I'm torn, because I also think scumbags that would burn and destroy their own country deserve a lot of punishment. These are people that are willing to hurt completely innocent fellow citizens because they're pissed at the government. As one or several people have already pointed out, their anger is absolutely misdirected. March on Parliament, march on the palace, march on courts, whatever. But get the attention of the right people.
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The thing you haven't realised is that this didn't happen cause people are upset at the government. There was NO political message in these riots. It was just about stealing stuff and vandalism.
This wasn't like the student demonstrations earlier this year or the poll tax riots.
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People are obviously upset though, and the riots basically act like a red flag to "hey, there are unaddressed problems in this society", IMO.
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With my limited political knowledge, the world at this stage is in pretty bad shape. A new financial crisis looms, people are pissed off, natural disasters, Green Lantern... One would almost think 2012 came early. But IMHO, we'll do alright.
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People are obviously upset though, and the riots basically act like a red flag to "hey, there are unaddressed problems in this society", IMO.
I agree with this. Yeah, I know there are people who just wait for a reason to smash things up (like in Vancouver after the NHL Stanley Cup), but I'm going to make a guess that people on that level of societal dysfunction are in a small minority of the general population.
When you have that many people performing the same action, if you ask them all why you're gonna get a lot of different answers. But the undercurrent of civil unrest is mostly due to the perception of the common citizen that the government isn't effectual in preventing the problems that they believe exist. Whether any of that is true or not, to the individual, it's perception that matters.
To the government, it's not the perception but the actions or planned actions that they have to focus on. Regardless of these individuals' motives for doing what they did, the politicians feel like they have to do something in order to prove that they haven't lost control.
At risk of angering the Big Kahuna of the boards, to say that there was no political message in the riots is probably not an accurate statement. I think it may be slightly more accurate to point to societal concerns as motivation for general civil unrest, while the more immediate actions of incitement and destruction were more likely to be perpetrated by the chavs and hooligans. On a more specific note, I wouldn't be surprised to hear of IRA involvement.
Edit: corrected spelling errors. I probably should refrain from writing semi-thoughtful posts after 6 hours of class and after I've taken my melatonin.
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The point is that you don't know as you didn't follow the case yet you're screaming about it being miscarriage of justice.
That's not a point, it's an assertion, and it's a false one. Try again.
The thing you haven't realised is that this didn't happen cause people are upset at the government. There was NO political message in these riots. It was just about stealing stuff and vandalism.
This wasn't like the student demonstrations earlier this year or the poll tax riots.
You don't honestly believe that tens of thousands of people spontaneously decided to just decided to vandalize **** for the hell of it? I mean, really?
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It's pretty obvious that a few people did it, got away with it and thus more people tried it the next night. I assume you also think soccer hooligans are making a political point too.
And seriously, if you think this was political what do you think they were protesting?
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If this was a politically motivated protest the.
1. Why were reporters assaulted trying to report on the situation?
2. Where were the cries denouncing what ever the problem was?
3. Where were the placards, banners and the rest with slogans summing up why they were protesting?
4. Why does most of the UK not know wtf it was all about despite the scale of the riots?
5. Where were the petitions to Parliament?
6. Where were the questions from the opposition party and the independent MPs on the issues?
It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting there was no protest from that point on with no provocation from the authorities.
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It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting
:wtf:
I think you are missing something somewhere because that does not compute.
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There was a peaceful protest which was hijacked by troublemakers. Very much the same thing has happened in quite a few protests recently. The troublemakers have no actual connection to whatever the protest is about but use the cover of the crowd as an excuse for looting.
There's a really good reason why I mentioned football hooliganism in my earlier post. This was exactly the same thing basically, people taking advantage of an opportunity to cause trouble. Unlike football hooliganism, with no opposing side to go after the focus is more on stealing things but make no mistake, the two are related.
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It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting
:wtf:
I think you are missing something somewhere because that does not compute.
It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting there was no protest from that point on with no provocation from the authorities.
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There was a peaceful protest which was hijacked by troublemakers. Very much the same thing has happened in quite a few protests recently. The troublemakers have no actual connection to whatever the protest is about but use the cover of the crowd as an excuse for looting.
There's a really good reason why I mentioned football hooliganism in my earlier post. This was exactly the same thing basically, people taking advantage of an opportunity to cause trouble. Unlike football hooliganism, with no opposing side to go after the focus is more on stealing things but make no mistake, the two are related.
How often do football hooligans complain about sentencing being too severe? Seriously, I don't know; I'm seeing if perhaps a correlation can be found or at least an alternative case study.
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Sentences for the same sort of crime usually involve jail time (around 2-4 years) and long bans from attending football games for 4-8 years after that.
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Bull****. It is not enough to simply intend or discuss a crime. There must be action. You are attempting to run the Thought Police and have therefore abrogated any claim to justice.
At least one of these people never acted.
Wrong. Attempting to incite a riot, the evidence of which was gathered electronically, is sufficient actus reus for a properly-defined offense.
Conspiracy charges, attempted charges, etc are well-founded in criminal law in several Common law nations (US included). The UK appears to have an offense of "encouraging or assisting crime" on the books, which replaced incitement. Regardless, Common law also has provisions for party to an offense, accessory to an offence, and aiding/abetting. All of these are considered actions for the purposes of criminal law in Common law countries.
Short answer: planning a crime is also a criminal offense in many situations, even if the original crime was not actually committed. That's true in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia (to name a few).
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And for reference, the people given four years for planning plead guilty under the following sections of the Serious Crime Act 2007:
44Intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence; and
(b)he intends to encourage or assist its commission.
(2)But he is not to be taken to have intended to encourage or assist the commission of an offence merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act.
46Encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of one or more of a number of offences; and
(b)he believes—
(i)that one or more of those offences will be committed (but has no belief as to which); and
(ii)that his act will encourage or assist the commission of one or more of them.
(2)It is immaterial for the purposes of subsection (1)(b)(ii) whether the person has any belief as to which offence will be encouraged or assisted.
(3)If a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1)—
(a)the indictment must specify the offences alleged to be the “number of offences” mentioned in paragraph (a) of that subsection; but
(b)nothing in paragraph (a) requires all the offences potentially comprised in that number to be specified.
(4)In relation to an offence under this section, reference in this Part to the offences specified in the indictment is to the offences specified by virtue of subsection (3)(a).
The penalties for those offences are outlined here:
58Penalties
(1)Subsections (2) and (3) apply if—
(a)a person is convicted of an offence under section 44 or 45; or
(b)a person is convicted of an offence under section 46 by reference to only one offence (“the reference offence”).
(2)If the anticipated or reference offence is murder, he is liable to imprisonment for life.
(3)In any other case he is liable to any penalty for which he would be liable on conviction of the anticipated or reference offence.
(4)Subsections (5) to (7) apply if a person is convicted of an offence under section 46 by reference to more than one offence (“the reference offences”).
(5)If one of the reference offences is murder, he is liable to imprisonment for life.
(6)If none of the reference offences is murder but one or more of them is punishable with imprisonment, he is liable—
(a)to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term provided for any one of those offences (taking the longer or the longest term as the limit for the purposes of this paragraph where the terms provided differ); or
(b)to a fine.
(7)In any other case he is liable to a fine.
(8)Subsections (3), (6) and (7) are subject to any contrary provision made by or under—
(a)an Act; or
(b)Northern Ireland legislation.
(9)In the case of an offence triable either way, the reference in subsection (6) to the maximum term provided for that offence is a reference to the maximum term so provided on conviction on indictment.
So, if you encourage or assist an offence, including inciting disorder, you are liable to receive the penalties associated with the disorder itself under UK law.