Been there, seen that and got the tee shirt.

So David Cameron wants to toughen up non-custodial community sentences with new sanctions.

Seemingly admitting that community sentences are seen as a soft alternative to prison, which they are, the Prime Minister is proposing to include new ‘tougher’ measures in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, though whether he’ll get his proposals past the arch-softy Ken Clarke is another matter.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said:

"We want to reform community sentences to ensure that offenders are properly punished for their crimes and effectively rehabilitated and we are still considering a variety of options. We will publish a consultation setting out our proposals in due course."

Umm, been there, seen all that before.

Over the last 20 years I’ve seen various ‘initiatives’ to ‘toughen up’ non-custodial sentences. We’ve had ‘Community Service’; ‘Un-Paid Work’; ‘Community Payback’; Accredited Programs’; ‘Specified Activities’; ASBOs; restraining orders; football banning orders; exclusion orders and a host of other ‘sanctions’, none of which has made the slightest impression on either re-offending rates or the public’s perception that successive governments care more about money and social engineering than protecting the public.

And statistically it’s not looking good either.

In December, the National Offender Management Service said that during 2010/11 one in four offenders who had been given community sentences, or released from prison early on licence, failed to comply with the terms set by the authorities.They went on to say that of the 198,725 orders and licences that came to an end during that period, only 150,632 were completed successfully, a failure rate of one in four.

Crass Stupidity

The crass stupidity of Local Councils never ceases to amaze me.

Latest in a long line competing for Britain’s most stupid Council, and pretty near the top of the list, must be that of Poole in Dorset.

Scout Leader Roy Farnham, fearing for the safety of young people attending the local Scout meetings, accessed down a pot-holed lane, took action to correct the danger and filled in the potholes himself.

Poole Council’s response?

Not ‘thank you for a public spirited action,’ dear me no! They instead threatened to fine Mr Farnham for fly-tipping!

The Council’s Highways officer, Sophia O’Sullivan admits the Council have no money to improve the lane but this sorry lot are damned if they’ll let anyone else do it.

It would seem that they’d rather a child fell due to potholes as big as 5 feet wide and 18 inches deep, even daring to lay any blame for such an accident on Mr Farnham.

It would be interesting to see the response from a court if this matter ever got that far, I know what mine would be!

That Fake Traffic Warden

I’ve said before that it’s always dangerous to comment on cases which you’ve only a newspaper report to go on read here

but the sentence for the crook, Christopher Povey, who issued fraudulent parking tickets to his neigbours does seem somewhat overly lenient.

The magistrates’ sentencing guidelines suggest that a fraud characterised by a degree of planning (Povey made fake parking tickets on his computer and set up bogus bank accounts to receive the cash) and which involved multiple transactions (he issued 150 fake tickets) should result in a sentence of at least 26 weeks custody.

It’s a long way from 6 months in jail to what he was actually given, a conditional discharge!

You Can't Do This To Me

There are those we meet in court on a regular basis who seem to think that the rules just don't apply to them. Be it bail conditions, the requirement to attend court, completing community penalties or co-operation with the Probation Service in the preparation of reports, they project an 'I can do as I please' attitude.

Only when the court resorts to 'if you won't comply you'll go to prison' does reality kick in along with the inevitable whine of "you can't do this to me, I've not done anything wrong".
And truly they don't believe they have!

The offender bailed on condition they don't contact their victim, and does so; the one given an un-paid work requirement and who 'can't be bothered' to turn up and those who fail to attend for interview with Probation so that a Pre-sentence Report can be prepared for the court all face the same ultimate fate - jail! Whether as a sentence or a remand in custody they consider themselves 'hard done by' and demonstrate the consequences of lax discipline both in the home and at school, as well as within the judicial system.

By the time a court finally loses patience with them and commits them to prison it's often too late to counter the by then well-established conviction that they are a law unto themselves. Until we as a society abandon the pretext that discipline is repressive and grasps the nettle of personal responsibility these misconceptions will continue to flourish.

The True Face of Islam?

Is this the true face of Islam?

Young Libyans, some wearing combat fatigues and carrying guns, desecrate the Cross of Sacrifice and the war graves of 198 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Western Desert during World War Two.

During their attack on the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Benghazi they showed no shame at their despicable action but were proud to film themselves carrying out this atrocity, crying “This is the grave of a Christian” and “These are dogs”, and to post the resultant video on Facebook.

These are the same Libyans who obtained their independence from Italy due to the sacrifice of those soldiers whose graves they now so casually violate, and were freed from the Gaddafi regime by the actions of the western nations they so despise.

It may be that the Christian nations are not at war with Islam, but is Islam at war with us?

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains war cemeteries in 150 countries across the world. They’re in Japan, in Turkey, in Germany, and in Italy, all countries which at one time or another Great Britain and it’s Commonwealth has been at war with but in all these countries the laws of civilised behavior ensure that although they are the graves of a one-time enemy they are treated with absolute respect.

Is it only Islamic nations who are incapable of civilised behavior as they pursue their war of hatred against the Christian world?