The potency of the Sentencing system within the UK can be viewed upon as reasonably effective because a recent home office review has shown that the criminal justice system does produce a deterrent effect.
It would seem apparent that the sentencing system needs to be analysed thoroughly and modifications made to it accordingly. The government could overturn more sentences from imprisonment to community orders or services because it is argued that if a convict is sent to prison it not only costs the taxpayers more money but also initiates the convicts to learn more about crimes and illegal conducts inside which they could use as they are released therefore demolishing the idea of deterrence.
PUNISHMENTS IN THE PAST AND SUITABLY OF THEM
It is noted that punishments in the UK have significantly changed. The punishments implemented and practised in the past were drastic and used for the pettiest crimes. Compared to that of today, where it seems as though the alternative forms of punishment such as community service orders are much more lenient as they do not alter the lives of convicts but just adjust it in order that they carry out the necessary jobs they are summoned to do in the society.
The punishments that were practised in the past were as follows:
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Corporal Punishment- this type of punishment is in the form of beating or flogging the convict. It is still applied in today’s society in certain middle-east countries e.g. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This sort of punishment is not practised in this country because it is illegal.
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Community pay back- here the offender is punished by having to serve a community service order. They will be ordered to help the community by repairing public services or helping the elderly and disabled. It is suitable because it enables the offender not to suffer inside prison and the offender, psychologically learns from his wrong doings and his involvement within the society.
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Three Strikes and you’re out!- Not practised in the UK but was within certain states of the United States. Its policy is that if an offender receives three convictions however small he or she will be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The policy is not just because crime rates are on the up in America, enabling offenders to commit two offences and get away with it. This punishment would not work in this country because the government intends to reduce numbers as they are at the moment drastically higher, in order for it to protect its economics; it is why the UK intends to sentence with alternative forms of punishment.
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Hit the Pocket- Fines which are very common today. The amount of fine is considered upon the type of offence. They are effective to a certain extent but not when large corporations are fined very little as governments fear they could loose them from their economy.
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Going to Jail- Imprisonment was and is still very common today, as a form of sentencing. Prisons since the past have significantly changed by countries providing the funds to improve the conditions. Imprisonment by countries was thought to be an effective method of reducing crime rates, however it can be said that if this was to happen, why aren’t crime rates on the low today?
PUNISHMENTS AT PRESENT AND SUITABLY OF THEM
There are many punishments at present used these are:
- Probation- This is proved to be effective, as extracts from the Association of Chief Officers of Probation prove that the idea of probation works better than prison. This is verified by the association publishing findings that measure the differences between reconviction rates of offenders sent to prison and offenders given probation orders over a period of five years. The findings show that almost 20% more people would re-offend if they were sent to prison. This can be justified by the fact that prisons are where drug use is inevitable, and custodial sentences mean that the person has to be unemployed and become in debt, therefore after being released the temptation to re-offend is more likely.
- Capital Punishment- Not practised in the UK today but is in certain US states and Middle East countries.
Taken from a monograph from an American website it explains how capital punishment is not a deterrent to brutal behaviour as it explains how FBI statistics support this, because they show that murder rates still rise despite the fact that capital punishment is used.
This form of punishment is also not cost effective as the typical cost for a death penalty case is three to four times costly than a life imprisonment case.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT- MORALLY DEFENSIBLE?
Capital punishment is the punishment of death due to the act of a serious crime usually the killing or murder of someone. Throughout the years the justifying of whether or not to implement this punishment has been very debatable and in fact the UK abolished this sentence from its legal system in 1969.
Capital punishment can be deemed as being morally right or morally wrong.
It can be realised that it is morally right because the punishment only claims to punish those who have ‘murdered’ and not ‘killed’ someone. There is a significant distinction between the two. Murder is an act when there is an unlawful and malicious or premeditated killing by one human being to another whereas killing is the death of someone, but is justified through the means of self defence.
Also capital punishment is seen as the right act to carry out if a murderer is convicted because it is said that for someone to carryout such an act and then be given the life where they are handed an air-conditioned, cable equipped prison, personal time alone, three meals a day and family visits is totally obscure to the whole point of morality and the restriction of freedom i.e. being locked up, cannot interrelate to the fact that a life has been taken away by this murderer
Capital Punishment is also viewed upon as a morally wrong decision because the law condemns the unlawful act of murder but then practised it in order to punish someone. Also the victim of the punishment can be actually the wrong person resulting in much more grievance to the families and the right for the victim’s family to sue the legal system.
A religious viewpoint that can be used to discuss the matter of Capital Punishment is the Anglican viewpoint. This viewpoint says:
‘God is merciful and man shares in God’s merciful nature’
‘The taking of Life as a penalty devalues human life’
‘There is substantial doubt that capital punishment has any deterrent effect’
‘The abolition of Capital Punishment gave prison chaplains a chance to work for the reform of all prisoners rather than just some of them’
This Anglican viewpoint is stating that they totally resent the idea of Capital Punishment and see it is as a morally wrong punishment and an idea in which God would detest. The viewpoint explains how man shares a merciful nature with God and the taking of life devalues human life so basically they are saying that the taking of life is depriving a life with a merciful nature. The viewpoint goes on to say how they believe that Capital Punishment seems to have no deterrent effect, this could be true however they are basing these ideas on statistics they have come across which could have easily been modified in some way in order to confirm their views.
Finally the viewpoint states how the removal of capital punishment gave prison chaplains a chance to work for the reformation of all prisoners rather than just a few. Here the viewpoint is explaining that the chaplains i.e. the prisoners attached to chapels, military body or institution work well in order to understand the wrong doings they have done and gain the opportunity for others to go under the same process as the governments realise this is a better deterrent method. Although once again, this statement could be totally false to back up the Anglicans point of view.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR AND AGAINST
I shall present the views for and against Capital Punishment
Arguments For:
- Capital Punishment is the deterrent to crime because once the offender is killed no longer can he or she be part of any criminal activity.
- A quick end to the life of someone who has taken someone else’s life can steadily ease the pain suffered other than knowing one day the convict will be released and fit back into society again.
- It is cheaper for the tax payer, if these convicts are executed otherwise the tax payers are deemed to be paying for their costs forever, so it will be better and more productive to use the tax payers money to improve the life of theirs and not the criminals.
- It is a natural instinct that what ever one does to another, naturally the another deserves to do to one and that Revenge is natural emotion.
Arguments Against
- Evidence and Statistics if not modified state the fact that Capital Punishment does not seem to eliminate the crimes of murder or other offences. So the whole point of the punishment is pointless as it is not changing anyone’s attitudes and in fact it is spurring people on as an we see murder rates rising in certain parts of the United States
- Convicted terrorists may turn into martyrs where many people will worship and praise the convicts because they will believe he gave up his life for his religion and belief even though they did not.
- Society or the person carrying out the murder in reality becomes a murderer itself as he or she is murdering someone regardless of what offences they have committed even though they will not be punished for it.
In my opinion I feel that capital punishment should exist within today’s society but only used when the offences committed are of an extreme nature. I believe capital punishment should be enforced when the criminal has attempted to or has taken away the life of someone else and raped someone because I personally feel these offences can never reform someone’s life. The victim’s life will never, again be in a state of full well being. On the other hand for minor offences such as robbery, these can be dealt with in a different manner and need not require a severe punitive measure such as Capital Punishment.
THOMPSON AND VENABLES
On the twelfth day of February 1993 an innocent mother and her two year old child were shopping freely in a busy shopping centre, what awaited them was a malicious act of murder.
As the young mother shopped with her innocent, loving, young child beside her, it was now she was distracted and along came two notorious, disgraceful and evil-minded people who kidnapped her child of two years of age and walked him more than a mile away to a railway line and brutally murdered him, this by far was no accident. The boys involved were Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
The two murderers were deservedly jailed and the home secretary at the time Michael Howard over ruled the judge’s decision at the trial and said the boys should serve an eight year sentence for the killing and imposed a 15 year minimum sentence.
In reading the above it would seem obvious that I am totally for the conviction and sentencing in which these evil people endured and the intervention of the home secretary to ensure justice was done.
Despite this there were many arguments in this case especially concerning how the boys were treated in the trial. It was alleged that they were treated just as any adult would be, even though they were only 10 years old at the time.
It is also argued that these children were the products of neglect by the authorities. People said that even though it was a tragic incident the authorities failed to spot their abnormal behaviour, which was evident and went unnoticed in school and was the reason why these children carried out this horrendous murder.
The age of the children was also a very debatable issue. People were under the assumption that at that age they could not possible understand the difference between right and wrong and they should have not been treated they way they were. People also thought it was the role of social workers to tackle this situation with the aid of psychiatric help.
However the way in which the boys were treated I feel was necessary to adopt because, even though the boys were off a young age the act in which they carried out could still not be justified because a 10-year-old wouldn’t just think that, it was the intentions and work of two evil minds. The fact that however young someone is, is not an issue when it comes to cases like this one.
I also wonder why they should be allowed to live a life of freedom and adjust back into the society for what they have done, which is exactly what has been done as the boys have been released and given new identities and transferred to another country.
Their appeals for the unfair practice and mistreatment through the system should have never been considered and it was justifiable for the home secretary to intervene.
EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
The European Human Rights commission sets the laws in how convicts should be kept in prison. State members of the commission enable the prisoners within that state to take their complaints/grievances to the European court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
There are several legislations in which this commission holds such as:
- Detained people deprived of their freedom have the right to be treated with humanity and respect for the natural dignity of the human life
- Juvenile offenders shall be segregated from adults and be accorded treatment appropriate to their age and legal status.
Concerning the Jamie Bulger case. The boys’ solicitors acting on behalf of Thompson and Venables were granted permission to take their clients’ cases to the
the European Court of Human Rights. The court ruled that that the children had been denied their right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention. The two children’s human rights were further breached by the intervention of a politician in their sentencing, as opposed to "an independent and impartial tribunal", the EC stated. This was the act of Howard overruling the length of the custodial sentence
RUTH ELLIS
Ruth Ellis was the last female to be executed within this state. This story has been very debatable over the years and it came to light at the beginning of last year that the case had gained permission to be heard at the court of appeal. This decision was made because it was alleged there had been substantial errors in not allowing a defence which could have reversed the verdict to manslaughter. As the case goes to appeal there is a real chance of the murder conviction being cleared.
Ruth Ellis was convicted of shooting dead her upper class playboy and lover David Blakely on the tenth day of April in 1955 she was sentenced to death by hanging on the thirteenth of July 1955. The trial was a very spot-lighted and criticized affair and it came to the attention of the media that certain allegations did not become apparent in the trial, such as the fact that Ellis was told to kill Blakely by her secret lover and wealthy businessman Desmond Cussen. She also had a tough life, as her father was a persistent drinker and often sexually abused her and she also suffered post miscarriage depression after Blakely punched her in the stomach. It was the wrong doing of the justice system as they had not taken these matters into account resulting in the wrong killing of someone who could be seen as merely innocent.
AMENSTY INTERNATIONAL
Amnesty international is an independent organisation set up in order for the Death Penalty to be removed from the remaining 94 countries in which it remains in.
Al was setup by an English lawyer Peter Benenson in May 1961. Today Al still have very strong views on the Death Penalty. They say that the death penalty ‘is wrong; it is a violation of the right to life and the right to life and the right not to be subjected to torture or any cruel inhuman or degrading punishment’.
Throughout the years Al have been very successful, they have made many countries remove the Death penalty from their legal systems. And by June 2001 75 countries had abolished the punishment. They believe that the success of this is due to their hard work of regularly monitoring developments collecting and analysing information worldwide and organizing and co-operating an on going strategy of work detesting the death penalty with other human rights organisations.
Up to date Information
Present information regarding age of criminal responsibility has been collected and a graph on the next page shows the results.
In analysing the graph it is quite interesting to look at what ages certain European countries believe is the key age in which a person can be held responsible for its criminal activity. Looking at Scotland they implement a very young age of 8 years old followed by England and Wales situated at 10 years old. This could be the reasoning behind the Jamie Bulger case and the convictions of the two murderers, the legal system realised that this act carried out by these 10 year old boys was suitable enough for them to be taken accountable for and therefore treated them as an adult for the act in which they done however this was disputed by the offenders’ relations.
On the other end of the scale Germany implement an adult age of 18 for the responsibility of a crime.
Conclusion
Upon producing this investigation I have explored how effective the British penal system is within this society in doing this I intend to conclude that the British Penal system is doing its function in order to ensure criminals are put through the necessary procedures if convicted. The penal system is working in order to aim to achieve a more tolerant society and also aiding the country’s economics by sentencing into alternative forms of punishment e.g. community service orders.
However there have been certain mishaps in the past which have been recognised now as the wrong doing of the system, if we take the Ruth Ellis case for an example where she was brutally executed based on only half the facts being knowledge to the people in the court which is why now the case is being sent to the court of appeal where an over turn for the original conviction is possible. This shows an improvement of the system as these facts have been considered.
There are also a new strategies to deal with the minor offenders by issuing community service orders where they help society in order to realise what they have done and what they should learn from it. Probation orders also being issued, have statistically shown they are a better deterrent effect to re-offending compared to that of prison.
Bibliography
In producing this task I would like to acknowledge the following sources:
- The Independent News Paper- Edition- Saturday 9 February 2002 Page 2
- The Daily Mail Newspaper- Edition Tuesday 26 August 2003
ICT sites:
- www.independence.co.uk
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(Amnesty International)