poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2011-08-20 11:43 am

British Justice

The woman who was jailed for five months for accepting a pair of looted shorts from her lodger has been freed on appeal. Instead she gets 75 hours community service (plus the week in jail she's already served). That's better: more proportionate, less vindictive. Some of the sentences that were handed out in the first flush of judicial reaction have been making us look like a panicky third world dictatorship.

[identity profile] ron-broxted.livejournal.com 2011-08-20 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"Look like"??!

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2011-08-20 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Call me naive, but I still think we're better than that.

[identity profile] ron-broxted.livejournal.com 2011-08-20 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Not by much, read the Civil Contingencies Act!

[identity profile] michaleen.livejournal.com 2011-08-21 10:12 am (UTC)(link)
Are you aware of your country's history in Northern Ireland?

[identity profile] michaleen.livejournal.com 2011-08-21 10:24 am (UTC)(link)
When you put peasants in power this is how they behave. They are not secure in their persons, their convictions or their place in society, so they tend to overreact -- especially at the threat posed by other peasants.

Paradoxically, the Tories are the peasant party.